Republican Senators Say 'There Is A Strong Chance That Judge Kavanaugh Is A Sex Criminal And A Liar, But We're Going To Put Him On The Supreme Court Anyway'
So it has come down to this- Kavanaugh's accuser was credible and "compelling". She said that she is 100% sure Kavanaugh is the one that attacked her. She did not appear to be crazy or irrational or prone to flights of fancy, nor did she appear to be a liar. She was almost unanimously described as "believable" after her testimony.
Then Brett Kavanaugh came on and began to rant about the unfairness of it all. The Democrats wanted to delay a vote, goddammit, and that was inconsiderate toward him. And suddenly the crestfallen Republicans who earlier saw the truth in Ford, now had a new reason for living - CHARGE !!!! It was all a left wing conspiracy !
What is supposed to be a fact finding exercise into the suitableness of the Supreme Court candidate became a Trump like GOP political rally.
I wrote an article a couple days ago that contains the prediction that the Republicans are throwing the Supreme Court into disrepair if not disreputability. If one looks objectively at Kavanaugh, the contrasts between him and other Supreme Court justices, past and president , stick out like a sore thumb. Kavanaugh showed a staggering level of partisanship yesterday, going as far as to accuse the Democrats of conspiring against him in order to avenge the Clintons for the 1990's investigations of them by Republicans and Ken Starr (Kavanaugh was a Starr aide at the time). Even if there was any truth to his conspiracy minded accusation, it should disqualify him from the federal bench as being politically and ideologically prejudiced. And there is no evidence of the conspiracy anyway. The most likely explanation for the Democrats desire to stretch out the confirmation is because that is what the GOP did to a Democratic nomination TWO YEARS AGO, not 20.
My friends, this is all not going to end well. Even if Kavanaugh is placed on the Supreme Court, when the Democrats regain control of the Senate and House they will impeach him. There is already talk of it. They will also restructure the SC so that there are more justices, the new ones being "liberals".
We are facing the likelihood that the Supreme Court, America's court of last resort and final opinion, will be put in disarray in the near future. America is entering a phase of mass unrest. Start praying everyone.
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I'll just say this. The United States is becoming a more liberal and diverse country, particularly as a reaction to Trumpism. The future of the country will be more diverse.
If the Supreme Court becomes a rubber stamp for right wing ideological positions, it will mean the end of the Supreme Court as we know it. We will not have a country that is more and more progressive , and also at the same time have a culturally regressive Supreme Court.
ALL future Supreme Court nominees should be moderates. Also, if it requires adding more justices to the Court in order to restore objectivity to the Court, that is what should happen.
The US has been becoming more diverse since its founding. That's not new. There is currently a knee-jerk reaction to Trump, but the pendulum swings to and fro and always has.
There is zero evidence that is about to happen.
You're presuming the sky will fall. Stop. We have survived worse than this.
It's a long overdue correction and the response of excessively privileged angry white guys like Kavanaugh, Graham and Grassely is very revealing.
Kind of like the liberal zoo that the 9th has become?
GOP is in protection mode for Trump and themselves. 'The Russia Investigation' must be stopped. Kavanaugh is the key. Sex accusations are meaningless. Ask Trump.
There’s something very odd going up in this Senate hearing room. It appears that Senator Flake, who had come out in Kavanaugh’s favor this morning, has been having “discussions” with Sen. Chris Coons and seemingly having some second thoughts about his choice. It’s really not clear what he’s doing. But they were supposed to vote at 1:30 PM. They’ve now gone past that time. There are a few possibilities. One is that he’s changed his position. That seems hard to believe. But possibly he has moved toward insisting on some kind of investigation. We don’t know. But there’s clearly some hitch.
Oh no?
First of all, she's a psychologist and as ironic as that sounds, that's a strike against her.
Why Shrinks Have Problems
Need to heal thyself?
Second, she says she suffers from claustrophobia, anxiety disorder, and PTSD. There's also the possibility she suffers from other disorders, because those listed disorders are often accompanied by others. PTSD in particular can dramatically impact memory.
Trauma, PTSD, and Memory Distortion
Third, she admits to drinking at the time, when she was 15. She claims "one drink" but we already know she was a 15 year old sneaking out of the house to go to parties where she drank. Her integrity is in question as is her response to the alcohol she was drinking. A 15 year old is not going to respond to alcohol in exactly the same ways an adult would.
Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage
ADVERSE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON TEENS’ BRAINS
Those last two should be targeted toward Kavanaugh, not Ford.
You could certainly target them at Kavanaugh, but your assertion that it should not be targeted at Ford flies in the face of the evidence.
Really? What evidence it that? Please be specific.
First, she admits to drinking on the day of her attack. She says it was one drink, but who really knows. In my experience, people underestimate how much they drink, especially if they're concerned with what people think of them.
Second, remember all the talk about her memory and how she can remember some things but not others. Specifically, she remembers details of the attack, but not how she got to or from the party or where and when it happened. Why is this so? Her reason (and I don't disagree) is that we remember the significant events but forget the insignificant ones.
So let's take a look at something that was so insignificant, she can't remember it. i.e. going to parties and drinking alcohol at 15 years of age . I'm no prude about alcohol. God knows I've been drunk several times in my life, but not at 15 and not so routinely that it wouldn't be worth remembering. You can bet my kids aren't going to who-knows-where at 15 and consuming alcohol and I would think (hope) that would be true for most families.
Dr. Blasey was treated with kid gloves by the committee. No one asked her how often she attended parties or how often she drank. Of course, this was for fear of being accused of victim-blaming or slut-shaming, but that's not why it matters.
If she engaged in this behavior regularly, it would have had a profound impact on her ability to form memories and on the accuracy of the memories she did form and retain. It would also have an impact on her present day ability to look back on those times accurately (see links above).
There was much talk about the partying practices of Kavanaugh's school and others in the area and this was put out there to convince people that it was therefore more likely that Kavanaugh himself engaged in this extreme alcohol driven party lifestyle. Guilt by association.
Well, what's good for the goose, as they say . . . i.e., if it means Kavanaugh was involved, it means Blasey-Ford was too. We saw a lot of awkward questions about pages in Kavanaugh's yearbook in the hearing, but apparently some folks have gotten ahold of her yearbook , too. Republicans, however, were bending over backward to be nice to her, so they didn't use it.
Suppressed Blasey Ford Yearbooks Reveal Fast Times at Holton-Arms
Here's a link to some of the pages from her yearbook:
Shocking Truth on Kavanaugh’s Accuser: Christine Blasey Ford's High School Yearbooks
None of this means she wasn't ever attacked, but it does mean she could very easily be misremembering key details, like exactly what was done to her and who did it.
If you accept her statement that she was 'drinking' on the day of the attack, then you should accept that it was one beer too.
But she DOES remember going to A particular party and drinking alcohol at 15 years of age. It's in her written statement.
FAIL.
The thing is, Ford isn't the one who claimed that she wasn't a drunk in HS.
THAT was Kavanaugh and HE painted himself in a corner by doing so.
That's a YUGE if. Yet we KNOW that it WAS a regular behavior of Kavanaugh, he admitted as much. So why accuse HER of memory loss and give HIM a pass? 100 kegs or Bust...
Kavanaugh was the one who opened that door wide open. He went on Fox and claimed Choir boy status which caused some of the people that KNOW him to call BS. Then suddenly, he changed his story and became the 'ya I like beer, do you like beer' guy. He jumped on the 'what HS guy hasn't done that' bandwagon.
Or perhaps it was irrelevant. But to course, that won't stop you from speculating. It's weak whataboutism.
BTW, if Kavanaugh was involved that means he PERJURED himself and should be REMOVED from the court.
The thing is, if Ford's allegation is true, it doesn't fucking matter if she drank too and it doesn't fucking matter what her yearbook says. Pretending that they do is mere deflection.
Here did 'Timmy' live and what was the floorplan?
No. People lie about their level of alcohol consumption all the time, and how much she had to drink is extremely relevant to the quality of her recollection.
Yes. The problem we will have for years to come is that proving either of them correct is going to be impossible.
Then you agree that Kavanaugh's FREQUENT drinking would effect HIS recollection exponentially.
The FBI has 6 more days...
BTW, what makes you think that the House can't investigate?
I don't believe Ford or Kavanaugh. That's a simple "she said/he said", and there won't ever be any resolution for that. I view those two as offsetting testimonies.
I form my opinion based on third party "evidence". At the moment, the primary influence in my thinking is her "lifelong friend's statement that she has no idea about any party and she's never met Brett Kavanaugh.
You have much more faith in the House than I do. I would not trust them to investigate their own navels.
What? Why???
And it clearly wasn't a special occasion for her. That's the point. For most people, at 15, it would be unusual and therefore significant. The fact that it clearly wasn't significant enough to remember is telling about how many parties she went to to drink alcohol.
No, it's actually a very reasonable "if" and it's rooted in solid science.
I didn't give him a pass. You asked me why the drinking thing applied to her. I explained that but you clearly aren't happy about it. Your feelings don't erase the truth of it, though.
Sigh. This is a word you and a couple others love to use when you don't have a substantive point. And it's almost always used inappropriately.
Again you use a word incorrectly. It's not deflection. Everything I wrote about impeaches her credibility.
Actually, Keyser's lawyer said that she had no recollection of that SPECIFIC party and did not KNOW Kavanaugh, NOT that she had 'never met' him.
If you insist that Keyser's lawyer's statement is your touchstone, it's exact content would seem relevant.
Consistency?
WTF are you talking about? She DOES remember the party. Sheesh.
Your 'if' isn't rooted in anything but your own speculative fantasy.
There is NO TRUTH in you speculative fantasy. That's not a 'feeling', it a judgment based on the content of your fabricated narrative.
Not by me and definitely NOT in this instance.
'They hurt him with his yearbook but what about HER yearbook...'
Nope.
It is.
Everything you wrote was fabricated innuendo completely devoid of facts and actually reflects more on your credibility than hers.
Wait WHAT? Tacos! insists that Ford was too drunk to remember the party.../s
Oh and BTW, Keyser NEVER said she 'never met Kavanaugh'. Her lawyer said she doesn't KNOW him.
Not so much. She doesn't remember where it was, when it was, how she got there or how she got home. This means (by her own argument) that traveling to and from a drinking party at the age of 15 was a common, ordinary event for her.
I've explained this three times.
You pretend there is some sort of meaningful difference.
I also look at Kavanaugh's reputation with the ABA, including endorsement by self-described liberal feminist lawyers.
So for decades this guy is supposedly a fine lawyer and a fantastic judge, interacting with thousands of people displaying impeccable integrity.
But suddenly the experiences of all of those thousands of people are invalid? Because one woman makes a claim from 36 years ago with no supporting evidence and an exceedingly sketchy memory of the event?
Anybody that ISN'T at least skeptical about this has questionable judgment, IMO.
Enough to figure out that it matches with Kavanaugh's calendar 'skis' party @ Timmy's.
I have two words for you
Catholic Church...
Ya, the meaning of words don't really matter, ya, that's the ticket...
How many of the decades old Priest rapes had corroborating evidence Tex?
Here, why not start with the list of 71 from the Baltimore Archdiocese. BTFW, some of the accusers REMAIN anonymous...
It's not deflection. It's an example of similar circumstances.
Here, let me see if I can get even you to understand. I'll paraphrase your own words.
Not a single corroborating piece of evidence or testimony from anyone for the vast majority of the victims of the Priest rape claims.
Not one shred of physical evidence, no police reports, no medical reports, no nothing!
That can happen when stuff is made up.
Does that help?
It seems that you can lead some Texans to water but you can't make them think...
I often feel the same way when I read posts from the right. I do my best to refute the BS and hope that I manage to make a dent in it...
Be patient, the FBI is working on it.
We all have to learn to handle disappointment.
We have a peanut gallery? Who knew?
There is a first time for everything.
She did not appear to be crazy or irrational or prone to flights of fancy nor did she appear to be liar ...
First, she's been caught lying about things like her inability to fly. Or Grassley's willingness to have the questioning done in California. So appearances have nothing to do with it, she's a liar. Appearances or not, there is no corroboating evidence and all four of her supposed eyewitness (in this version of the event) refuted her testimony.
We know liberals and science don't mix, but the idea that anyone in 2018 could be so naive about the fallibility of human memory is staggering. Please look at the work of the innocence project, and all the people who've been cleared from death row based on false identification by victims. The idea that her vague, evolving accusation, is in and of itself some sort eternal truth that must be accepted as Gospel truth in the face of all the opposing testimony is simply idiotic or disingenuous in the extreme.
The research is voluminous.
The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works. Many people believe that human memory works like a video recorder: the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. On the contrary, psychologists have found that memories are reconstructed rather than played back each time we recall them. The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.” Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.
Many researchers have created false memories in normal individuals ; what is more, many of these subjects are certain that the memories are real .
Stress and time lapse exacberate the problems. We are talking about a memory that first emerged in therapry 30 years after the fact. And guess what,
Some memory errors are so “large” that they almost belong in a class of their own: false memories. Back in the early 1990s a pattern emerged whereby people would go into therapy for depression and other everyday problems, but over the course of the therapy develop memories for violent and horrible victimhood.
In order to judge the likelihood of a memory of trauma being a false memory, one would have to know many details of the therapeutic sessions to see how much leading was done by the therapist, how the story emerged, and in what initial detail. It is literally impossible to judge the veracity of any story that comes out in a therapeutic session unless there’s a lot of independent corroboration.
Sean , the false identification you are referring to usually comes when an eyewitness sees someone for the first time.
Christine Ford knew Brett Kavanaugh before that night. She knew he was and knew what he looked like. The idea that it was someone else and she thought it was Kavanaugh is just silly.
Now, it's possible that she is lying. I don't think she is , but it is possible.
But it's not a case of mistaken identity.
He lied many times yesterday. IF he is going to make up BS definitions to boof and devil's triangle, and lie about Renate alumnius and his life being ruined what won't he lie about?
Yes, let's see how his HS buddies define those terms when asked by the FBI. Will they lie to the FBI?
His crying about his life being destroyed was just sickening.
It's not destroyed if he doesn't get the nomination unless and until he gets impeached or removed from his current judgeship. It didn't look like his family was leaving him and his rep is intact among republicans.
Where is the destruction?
He's an angry white guy.....the world owes him a seat on SCOTUS!
How cute.
Seems like most white guys I know don't feel anything is owed them, they just don't want to have what they have earned taken from them and given to some entitled POS.
And, how many white guys do you know come from "privilege" and, are told from time they can understand that they are special and, entitled to things that the "common folk" aren't entitled to. Trump and, Kavanaugh were raised that way, they both feel that they are entitled to all kinds of things, that's why they throw tantrums when they don't get their way.
Wait, he hasn't earned the seat, he hasn't been confirmed. Nothing has been taken from him.
He will be confirmed. Then what's next?
You lose the house, the senate and the WH.
We will see won't we.