S E E D E D C O N T E N TThe New Yorker has details of the sexual misconduct allegations made in a letter that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) referred to the FBI.
“The allegation dates back to the early nineteen-eighties, when Kavanaugh was a high-school student at Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland, and the woman attended a nearby high school. In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself.”
“Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.”
The plot thickens.
Is there a police report or any documentation that such a incident took place, other than a decades old hearsay account that may or may not have happened that backs her story up? Sounds like that hateful witch Feinstein is reaching for any straws she can to try to keep herself any sort of relevant! The law says Kavanaugh is still innocent until proven guilty. I doubt anybody can. Just something else for progressive leftist libs to foam at the mouth on.
What bothers me is that supposedly Feinstein was in possession of this letter for months and is only just now turning it over to the FBI. This really has all the makings of a Democratic plant to falsely accuse Kavanaugh of something to derail his nomination.
That's what bothers a lot of Dems, too. If she had released this in July when she received it, it could have been fully investigated before the hearings.
When could it have been timed so as not be suspicious to you?
And you're not?
Well said!
Conservative men in particular tend to minimize such claims and demonize the victims, so I can see why women have been so reluctant to come forward after a sexual assault.
However the victim has now come forward and the claim does sound credible, and does have some 3rd party support from her husband and their couple's therapist from sessions in 2012. However the other 3rd party whom she claims intervened during the attempted rape denies that he was there.
That's never bothered your side before when a dem gets accused of this sort of thing. Sorry, you have to play by the rules your side established for Dems -- if there's an accusation it's considered true no matter what evidence may or may not be presented (in this case quite a few years of discussing this with husband and counselors, well before Kavanaugh was nominated for a SC seat).
And just how would you even have a clue as to what my side is? Whether you like it or not, the law of the land still says innocent until proven guilty and applies to all. So far there has been no proof submitted and a accusation is still hearsay and is not admissible in court or considered evidence. It is a fact. Deal with it.
Supportive claims from folks who weren't there - were not witnesses - did not know either of the accused personally.
Yup - sounds an awful lot like heresay - whatcha think?
New rules "doc." Allegations like this are taken seriously unless proven otherwise. This is the result of generations upon generations of women being ignored, shamed, denigrated and turned into targets for coming forward so, live with it.
And no man has ever denied the rape he definitely committed, right?
And there it is again.... rightwingers thinking they're "mysterious." It is hilarious to behold.
No, serious allegations are taken seriously.
well, I am a woman so....I ain't buying it. In fact, all these last minute, he said she said from 25-35 years ago that are a last ditch effort by Dems, are actually setting up to discredit legitimate claims a woman might really have...Congrats, Dems, on delegitimizing future women for your political stunts.
You didn't think he would admit to it, did you?
It's Clarence Thomas all over again
For it to possibly have any effect though, the woman is going to have to come forward. Anonymous charges won't get far.
Do you have proof that the allegations are not true?
proof they are?
It was it's just that nobody gave a fuck
I would have told her to go fuck herself
It's too bad that the Senate Judiciary committee didn't hear from the several other women whom Thomas had harassed.
It's also interesting that just one day after the claim against Kavanaugh was made public there are letters from something like 65 women supporting Kavanaugh. Sounds like the GOP was already aware that there was a sexual assault claim lurking against him and manufactured a defense in advance.
It's a brilliant ploy by calculating bastards.
Kavanaugh's guilt will never be questioned by the hyper-emotional fundamentalists of the Church of the Raving Left. So after he's confirmed, this nonsense will be used as a campaign weapon for the next 5 election cycles.
Regular, everyday people who care more about soccer practice than politics are going to go fuzzy on the details, so when the fundamentalist knocks on their door to secure their vote, they'll say "Well you know Senator Thingamabobby voted to put an accused rapist on the Supreme Court."
No. So, now what?
There were at least 3 other women (including Angela Wright) who were willing to testify against Thomas but the judiciary committee never followed up. Unfortunately that was the standard of the era.....women's claims of sexual harassment were trivialized or ignored even when the victim was entirely credible like Anita Hill.
You mean like what several of Bill Cosby's victims did after he sexually assaulted them the first time? It seems rather common for a variety of reasons but it's good to see that conservatives still are discrediting and demonizing rape victims.
Sure. Sixty-five women who claim that Kavanaugh didn't try to rape them. What more "evidence" do you need?
I didn't accuse him of anything.
Ford, a 51-year-old registered Democrat who has published in academic journals and has trained students in clinical psychology, described the alleged incident in The Washington Post on Sunday, saying it occurred during a summer day in the 1980s at a Maryland house where teens had gathered. Ford claimed she headed upstairs to a bathroom when she was suddenly pushed onto a bed, as rock-and-roll music blared.
However, Ford told The Post she did not recall exactly who owned the house, how she came to be at the house, or how the gathering was arranged. She remembered only that the house was in Montgomery County, near a country club, and that parents were not present.
You don't know that so that sentence should have started, "I believe...."
Seems you only apply that principle to people you support. I've never once seen you say, for example, that Leeann Tweeden had to prove that Franken forced a kiss on her or actually touched her when that dumb photograph was taken.
It was only a matter of time til I read that stupid jackassian line. For the love of God, HOW do you prove something DIDN'T happen? That isn't even reasonably. She made the claim, therefore the burden of proof is on her to prove that it did. How old are you?
Ah yes the memory was so fresh like she just made it up yesterday.
I'm sure the left is not going to win over any Republicans to vote against Kavanaugh with stupid allegations like this. If anything they are distancing them.
The thing is other than getting a few left-wing extremist panties in a knot and giving the sheep something to bleat about, this will go nowhere.
I'll bet if you'd been held down, had your mouth covered to prevent anyone from hearing your screams (not to mention impair your breathing, having your clothing torn off and thought you were about to be raped--which was only interrupted by someone else jumping on--I think you'd remember that for a long time, as in the rest of your life.
Yeah I'm sure I would even remember the year and month.
Yeah, you would....unless the trauma was so severe that you repressed the memory entirely which is very unlikely.
Yeah!
It's ridiculous to imagine that getting raped might be memorable....
Why don't you tell us all about being raped?
2012 ?
how bout my #?
I don't know Tex,
when you write like that
I feel all wobbly in the knees area.
What are you up to later...?
not according to her therapist
Well Tex,
I'm guessin I'm sorta like you in the rape seen these daze.
I doubt, either one of us has too much experience, butt
I'm willing to give it a whirl,
what do you think I might learn, if I wasn't brought up a very capable individual, physically and mentally, when it comes to being special,
as in, I WAS in Special Ed, but not the kind you would be hoping.
I was fortunate to be a very physically fit individual, and was self uneducated enuff, to not wind up in prison.
I did, and would, not ever wish to be incarcerated, but I would survive just fine, but, I can tell you, male RAPE can be as devastating and sometimes worse, than that of female Rape.
My father taught in a few prisons, and Detention Centers , and witnessed the results, not the actual act.
It severely damaged some, and some even took their own lives.
So, unless your willing to give it a try, I believe you should not bark so LOUD on this subject.
.
Anything else you be wishing to explain to me this mourning ?
Your personal experience, since you claim to know how to identity a real or fake victim.
I often ask myself that, with each fruitless endeavor you embark upon, whence responding to moi.
You can ignore me, as I am quite difficult to deal with, if that is my mood, but c'mon Tex, as weird as my weighs Be, there be some wisdom occasionally scattered about
like my thoughts, that weigh my wait of impatience, causing me
to be
my own greatest pain in the neck
,
so I try to lessen my burden, by using my concentration disability, to out do others disabilities, cause on certain occasions, I do, sometimes excel at diss ability, and dat ability as well
as my ADD, just doesn't ADD up to me, so I sum it up with division, the multiplication of factors, to see how many times, I can spin a web of distasteful deceit, with whomever I by chance may meet, in the pool, or track, cause I can float on my back while smoking crack, having a heart attack, stepping on a thumb tack, giving a Sugar Smack, a lesson on intolerance,
A
bout diabetics who shun dairy, cause their either cheesy, or tripping, due to them sometimes lacking toes
.
So if you would be so kind, might you please elaborate, on your credentials for understanding ,
the feelings, one might, or might not feel, if they were to fall under your hot dog diggity dictionary definition of non detourable direction pointing and guiding one to thoroughly UNDERSTAND, cause I'm so sure, any one who has ever been violated, just needs a simple definition, and it should be all one should need to comprehend all there is to know about RAPE.
Ponder on that a second, I was a tempting Christ, to be a tad serious, but
whatever Green Tex, cause I do envy the bliss sum seem to miss
Did he, or did he not pose tis question to ypu above
"Why don't you tell us all about being raped?"
You replied with a dictionary explanation, no ?
I think you owe him an explanation on your RAPE expertise, but that's just lil oh me
Thank You Tex, for the constructive criticism.
.
but,'
lifes already a tad too serious for me
Then we will have to ignore her claim
You go right ahead. It won't count for a goddam thing.
I noticed a certain "Democrat", probably more than just that "Certain" Democrat, didn't follow a supporting constituents wishes of not wanting to be in the "light" for all to see.
Democrats are soooo caring of the little folk ain't they ?
The FBI has already decided there's no "there" there and filed the document. But if the goal was to vaguely and anonymously smear the man's reputation at the 11th hour, mission accomplished I guess. I disagree with Feinstein on some issues, but I generally respect her. This was not her finest moment.
It sounds like she tried to keep it quiet but other Democratic Senators forced her hand. She realized how thin it was and wanted to focus on the legal issues, and her party wanted to go the insinuation and rumor route.
I kind of hope that's true because I would rather be disgusted by other people than her. Still, she could have turned it over to the FBI as soon as she got it, or thrown it away, which is probably what it deserved.
It's a shame she didn't stick to her original position (if my understanding that she was pushed is correct) because Charles Cooke is correct about what she ultimately did:
"What Senator Feinstein is currently doing to Brett Kavanaugh is evil. Yes, it is evil. It is antediluvian. It is dangerous. It is illiberal. It sits well, well outside of the American tradition, harking back to a time in which the accused were simply carted off — or shunned by polite society — ten minutes after someone prominent offered up a vague claim about them. In America, we require that our accusers make themselves known, that their accusations be offered in detail and in public, and that the accused be appraised of everything that has been leveled against them — and we require this not just within formal legal environments, but in general. Within the American tradition, these requirements are considered a prerequisite to fairness — both inside and outside the courtroom. As has become fashionable lately within her party and her state, Senator Feinstein is stamping all over those traditions, and doing so for political advantage."
You couldn't come up with anyone even slightly less far-right bent than him? That would be as if I tried to pass someone like Michael Moore off as a middle-roader.
Feinstein doing "evil." That earns a three-fer:
If that's so there's no such thing as false.
So, you're telling me that you just believe what Cooke says which is far different from being true.
Pro Tip: Rather than typing out all that drivel, condense your post to "logical fallacy." It accomplishes the same thing more efficiently.
The woman is a constituent of Feinstein's. Senators do NOT throw away constituent correspondence, especially when they make this type of allegation. BTW, ALL constituent correspondence is CONFIDENTIAL unless and until a waiver is signed. The constituent MAY have waived the release of the letter but NOT the release of her identity. The constituent's identity has been redacted from the letter on file with the FBI and the WH.
f you believe that then there's no such thing as a lie in your world.
Was my sentence too long for you? How's this: Charles Cooke is a lying POS.
You might be taken a tiny bit more seriously if you were to actually cite which fallacy was committed rather than just hoping a blanket accusation would do the job. I won't hold my breath for you to attempt it.
You really don't care how ridiculous your BS looks, do you.
Just to highlight how hypocritical the rightwing is (but I repeat myself) on this matter, consider what its reaction would have been if Feinstein had received this information on democratic president's nominee and buried it.
Ah yes the lefts typical what ifs.
Maybe they can get Hillary to start a Kavanaugh birth certificate campaign again?
Or maybe she can tie Kavanaugh into Russian collusion.
All I can say is the song by meatloaf , paradise by the dashboard light , is running through my head , and the thought of how many as teen agers haven't had a situation where heavy "petting" ( yeah I am showing my age), and been with another where NO is uttered after certain stimulation has occurred?
Any guy that has taken a girl to the submarine races , or the back seat of a car at a drive in , is according to some , GUILTY..... even if nothing happened.....
We elected a man who boasted about groping women to be President of the United States.
Why should we not appoint a rapist to the Supreme Court?
Dearest Anonymous,
We miss you..
Signed,
Larry Craig, Mark Foley
An accusation concerning Kavanaugh when he was a teenager? Sounds to me like someone ran out of nerf balls.
Already had testimony. Kavanaugh answered, half answered or didn't answer. Hypotheticals and whatnots.
Kavanaugh doesn't believe in Choice, has a 'strange view' of contraception and seems to 'allude' that politicians---or at least some of them---are too important to be held accountable.
What remains to be known?
Okay, as much fun as this could be....you gotta be fucking kidding me.
Let me see the hands of everyone that was learning more about themself and sex in Jimmy Smith's garden shed at 16?
This isn't a boys will be boys thing. It was experimentation at youth thing. If it was part of his dna we would have learned about that long before this letter.
When I was approaching adulthood my sage wise mother imparted some wisdom that changed my skirt chasing....
"15 will get you 30"
Now that the victim has come out publicly it does sound more serious than that, at least an attempted rape.
Ehhh, I still don't see it.
this was a hard dick and no social experience. wrapped up in a kid that was probably jacking off to moving snails.
To bring this up, this much later tells me more about her than about him.
At this age everyone tests their limits, feels for the social walls, and tries to survive the raging everything and stay a kid. He has no history of this behavior or we damn sure would have heard that by now.
Sorry she carried around a personal hurt about something in her puberty that didn't go to her plans for a very long time. I'm wondering who in her past took the brunt of that all this time.
There's a two way street here on this one, this feels like some sort of revenge thing is happening we aren't privy to.
Oh goodness! I don't doubt the actions took place exactly as she stated.
It's the timing of the complaint that irks me. She could have come forward at any time in his somewhat anonymous career and pressed the same point and passed the same polygraph.
But it's now that he's about to be voted on for the Supreme court that she comes out....seems to me that she is getting revenge.
Now that she has come forward you can bet that someone knows her favorite soda drink, guys she dated, ANY illicit activity, movies she watched and pizza slices she ate.
This is going to be a race to the bottom now.
I think the realization that her attacker was about to be given a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court was a motivating factor. And I think it was an appropriate response. Had Kavanaugh remained someone relatively obscure without such significant power she might well have left well enough alone.
I love it that Grassley sent out his goons to find 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school who claim he never did that to them. It's a novel defense tactic. I wonder if it would work in a murder trial. The defense could bring in people to testify that the defendant never murdered them.
If this were a murder case you'd actually have a body, proof and somebody not waiting a week before an important Senate vote.
But it isn't and your side has decided that no corroborating evidence is necessary or statutes of limitation to hanging someone if it's a dem or anyone you like to label as "liberal."
There's plenty of evidence against Dems and liberals. Right now there's a video of Keith Ellison beating up an ex girlfriend and the left has said nothing about him dropping out of his race for Minn AG.
Doesn't matter what we bet....he's dead in the water and millions upon millions of women voters are going to watch which way the Republicans blow with this.
The Dems set the Republicans up...
You can crack up all you like....please chuckle away.
Obama led the Republicans in to their own trap time after time. And they chuckled.
Your response says more about the right than you'll ever know.
His name is going to be withdrawn. The Dems will walk away with what they were going for and you can chuckle some more.
Okay. We'll see who's chuckling next week?
There'll be a lot of chuckling when this circus costs a lot of red state Democrats their seats. The Dems have just motivated all those deplorables and dregs of society that cost them the last election.
hahaha, it's already falling apart, but carry on...it's comical.
Where? Link to it. You don't for a millisecond think we're just going to take YOUR word for this.
Was that like when you bet that he'd be confirmed by this Thursday? A bit of advice: stay as far away from race tracks and casinos as possible.
I don't have to "carry on" anything...it's Republicans now that are talking about withdrawing the nomination because of "optics".
Seems they are aware that they already have a problem with educated women leaving the party which leaves the gullible and easily duped. It appears they have a lock on them.
Now they're running scared and admitting proceeding is a lose/lose situation.
So...you just chuckle away. His name will likely be buried before the Monday hearing.
She passed a polygraph.
I notice NOBODY from the right is suggesting he take one.
That's not actually "evidence".
No, because they're stupidly unreliable.
More important than a polygraph would be an FBI interview with each of the 3 parties in the room when the attempted rape occurred. That puts each party at risk of committing a felony if they lie.
Anyone want to tell the author of that comment that it doesn't matter what she believes?
Given how the Democrats are perfectly happy with accused woman beater Keith Ellison representing them, maybe Kavanaugh should announce he's an anti-Semitic black Muslim, in order to win Democratic support.
That's even more embarrassingly desperate for you than usual, Sean. If the woman's story is true or even convinces people that Ellison did this regardless of the lack of evidence, then the remedy is for them to vote him out of office November. There is no such option for the people with regard to Kavanaugh. But keep trying Sean. One day, maybe, with a lot of luck you might accidentally actually come up with a sensible comment or a rational argument. Oh, and you might want to try to leave the lies, character assassination and raging religious and racial bigotry out of it. That really doesn't make you look better.
Guess we shouldn't mention the confirmed white supremacists and Nazis that signed up to run as Republicans eh?
Michael Steele brought up a great point.
You remember Michael Steele don't you? He's the guy the Republicans had to vote 7 times to finally elect him as head of the Republican party when Obama was nominated. Then they did the "We got one too" show. When that scam became obvious they slandered him and threw him out the back door.
He drew the straight line to the Clarence Thomas confirmation and the circus it was...with one distinct thought.
What's the first thing that comes to most people's minds when the name Clarence Thomas is brought up?
Uh huh.....and the Republicans are trying to shove this one through too...except this is a different time and educated women are watching and voting.
That's absolutely the ONLY thing this is about, and I said it a couple of days ago.
We'll be seeing campaign ads for 10 years saying "Senator Soandso voted to put an accused rapist on the Supreme Court."
Well, if that is your singular thought then the rest of this will be way over your head.
I'm sure you would like to think so.
This is simply a political ploy for Democrats.
Hmmmm. I believe I already said that and you scoffed that I would think the Dems were that smart.
Something like "the Republicans got set up.by the Dems" or close to that? Remember?
Which also supports my conclusion about the singular thinking. Thanks for the help.
I've agreed with it twice in the last four comments, so I'm not sure where you're getting "scoffing".
I think you have me confused with somebody else on that one.
You are absolutely correct and I do apologize, I should have paid better attention.
No worries. We're good.
Thank you.
It takes too long for this article to load and I cannot participate or monitor my seed.
Locking.