Whether you think any particular falsehood is a big deal or not, there’s no doubt Kavanaugh hasn’t been honest or truthful. Now the senators just have to decide whether they care.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
let’s look at some of the things Kavanaugh has said, many of which concern Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her:
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“I never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation,” Kavanaugh said in his testimony. Dr. Ford described a small gathering of fewer than ten teenagers at which beer was consumed. But his own calendars reference such gatherings.
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“Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a long-time friend of hers. Refuted.” This is false. The people in question said they have no memory of the event, which is very, very different from refuting the idea that the event ever took place. Since nothing of note happened to them at the gathering, there’s little reason to think they would recall it all these years later.
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Kavanaugh repeatedly characterized his drinking as regular but moderate, insisting that he has never been so drunk that he couldn’t remember what happened the next day. “Like most people in college I went to parties and had beers,” he said to Judiciary Committee staff. Yet multiple people have now described him as being frequently stumbling drunk in high school and college. “He frequently drank to excess,” one classmate said . “I know because I frequently drank to excess with him.” Another said , “I definitely saw him on multiple occasions stumbling drunk where he could not have rational control over his actions or clear recollection of them.”
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“And yes, there were parties. And the drinking age was 18, and yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there,” he said in his interview with Fox News. In his testimony, he repeated the same idea: “My friends and I sometimes got together and had parties on weekends. The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school, and was 18 in D.C. for all of my time in high school. I drank beer with my friends.” This is false. The drinking age in Maryland was raised to 21 in 1982, when Kavanaugh was 17. There was not a single day during his entire time in high school when it was legal for him to drink.
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In one of his friend Mark Judge’s books, a memoir of his time in high school, Judge uses pseudonyms for other people he describes. At one point he refers to a “Bart O’Kavanaugh” throwing up in a car. Sen. Pat Leahy asked, “Is that you that he’s talking about?” to which Kavanaugh got indignant and accused Leahy of trying to “make fun of some guy who has an addiction,” meaning Judge. Pressed on whether “O’Kavanaugh” was him, Kavanaugh finally said, “You’d have to ask him.”
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His yearbook refers to him as “Beach Week Ralph Club — Biggest Contributor.” Beach Week is a yearly bacchanal of drinking, drugs, and sex that DC-area prep school kids engage in with little or no adult supervision, but Kavanaugh claims that all that was being memorialized was the fact that “I’m known to have a weak stomach and I always have…whether it’s with beer or with spicy food or anything.”
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Kavanaugh claimed that a series of sexual references in his yearbook actually amounted to a vernacular unique to him, in which commonly understood slang terms took on meanings different from what every other person anyone can find understood them to mean. He said the “Devil’s Triangle,” which refers to a threesome with two men and one woman, was actually a drinking game similar to quarters, despite the fact that there is no reference anywhere on the internet to such a drinking game, and claimed that “boofing” referred not to one of its two common meanings (anal sex or the practice of taking drugs as suppositories) but to flatulence. A reference to “FFFFFFFourth of July” was not a sexual one , but mocking a classmate who stuttered.
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He claimed that multiple references to him and his friends being “Renate alumni,” referring to a young woman from a nearby school, were not sexual boasting and slut-shaming, but were merely included on their yearbook pages to show their affection and admiration for her. “That yearbook reference was clumsily intended to show affection, and that she was one of us,” he said. That must have been why one of his classmates, joining in the show of “affection,” included a poem: “You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate.” When Sen. Richard Blumenthal raised it, Kavanaugh affected deep umbrage, claiming he actually thinks “she’s a great person.” If there’s a single person in America who believes that yearbook reference was meant to show affection, they have yet to make themselves known.
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“I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college.” This picture of Kavanaugh is absurd. He went to an elite prep school with other children of wealth and influence, he got into Yale as a legacy (his grandfather went there ), and one suspects that being a Yale undergrad didn’t harm his chances of getting into Yale Law School.
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“I grew up in a city plagued by gun violence and gang violence and drug violence,” he said in his first round of hearings. Kavanaugh grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, a wealthy suburb where there is almost no gun violence or gang violence. Though there is plenty of drug use, since the drugs are taken by wealthy white people, the police don’t get involved and there isn’t much violence around it.
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When Kavanaugh was working in the Bush White House on judicial confirmations, a Republican Senate staffer stole Democratic documents and shared what they contained with Kavanaugh, among others. In his hearings, Kavanaugh claimed “I never suspected anything untoward” in the information he was given, despite the fact that it contained references to confidential information about Democrats’ internal discussions and strategy that they had no legitimate access to.
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He claimed to have no knowledge of the sexually explicit jokes, comments, and emails by Alex Kozinski, a judge for whom he clerked and to whom he remained close afterward, and who was recently forced from the bench when his history became public. Another of Kozinski’s former clerks wrote , “I do not know how it would be possible to forget something as pervasive as Kozinski’s famously sexual sense of humor or his gag list, as Kavanaugh has professed to in his hearings.”
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Taken in total, what we have here are some apparent outright lies, some deceptions, some mischaracterizations, some evasions, and a general picture of someone who decided that giving truthful answers to all these admittedly personal questions would only get him into more trouble. Does that mean Brett Kavanaugh shouldn’t serve on the Supreme Court? Sen. Jeff Flake told “60 Minutes” that if it became clear that Kavanaugh had not been truthful in his testimony, then he should be rejected.
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We went this whole thing here about Ford's inconsistencies, according to the Republican hired prosecutor.
What about all Kavanaugh's lies, evasions and misrepresentations?
This is all about abortion. I wonder if all the conservative men who are trying to ram this appointment through, and all those liberal-hating citizens who are supporting them, have thought this through. Conservatives accidentally impregnate women just like the rest of us. They have teenage kids, and dreams of them achieving greatness. What will they do when their dreams are dashed, and their extramarital affairs result in the destruction of their families because abortion is no longer an option.
I look at this list and I see a varying degree of seriousness.
In an objective sense, I think the lie that he bever attended a "gathering" like Dr. Ford had described is pretty serious, since what she described seems to be the exact sort of gathering he often attended. So why would he say that?
Simply, to try and discredit Ford.
He should be turned away by the Senate.
Because he never attended a party like the one she described, with her, Ms. Keyser and his two friends. As he said, " all of the people identified by Dr. Ford as being present at the party have said they do not remember any such party ever happening."
Oh please.
Sure John. Keep taking statements out of context. It's the only way you can manufacture the Kavanaugh lied allegations.
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If you think Kavanaugh is being truthful you should go apply for a job in the tax preparation department of the Trump organization.
The dems didn't create this, good grief.
How ridiculous an accusation. The person who created this is Kavanaugh and him alone.
The person who created this is Kavanaugh and him alone.
Some would say McConnell suits that role better.
Nope! College kids don't have drunken orgies! (at least I was never invited to one).
I will give them a little bit of a benefit of the doubt because they were high school kids, but he and his friends sound like a bunch of pussies. First of all, real beer drinkers don't use kegs, they drink from bottles. Maybe cans if they are outside for the entirety. Serious beer drinkers do not like tap beer, because it is weaker than bottled or canned beer.
Second, no self respecting beer drinker brags about having thrown up. Kavanaugh and his pals announced to people in the neighborhood that they liked to drink a lot and throw up a lot. What the fuck. What a bunch of weaklings.
I have known guys that could drink 15-20 beers , bottles of beer, or more, in one sitting and get in their car and drive home with no particular problem. At an all day event like a picnic it would be more than 20. No puking that I am aware of.
Kavanaugh was a rich kid who thought he was living out an Animal House fantasy. But if he was throwing up all the time he wasnt much of a beer drinker.
McConnell is responsible for politicizing the court even more than it was.
Actually I doubt whether Senators-- on both sides of the aisle-- will be swayed either way. I predict the vote will be on strict party lines-- regardless of trivial matters such as the actual facts!
(Well, maybe Murkowski will be an exception-- but probably not).
And to take it a step further-- I predict that Kavanaugh will indeed be approved for a seat on the court-- and will soon be seated!
(And while I'm in the business of predictions, I predict that the so-called "Witch-hunt" is actually further advanced that many people realize-- and it won't be long before we learn the reason why Trump has been so obsessive about refusing to reveal the contents of his Income Taxes!
It won't be long before all will be revealed!!!
But the question is will "All being revealed"change a damn thing. I suspect NO.
Because I suspect the powers that be already know what they have, and have known to a large degree all along.
I predict he won't be. I don't think the votes will be there in the end.
If Murkowski votes for Kavanaugh she will lose the 'Native Alaskan' vote. Kavanaugh has stated that he wants to remove 'protections' for native Hawaiians, American Indians and Native Alaskans. Is she really that stupid? Or afraid of the Trumpers?
Check Kavanaugh's dissents a judicial writings. All was discussed in the first hearings. Pay attention.
You're expecting far too much with that guy.
Ask and ye shall receive:
Advocates for Alaska Natives, who were crucial to Murkowski’s re-election in 2010, tell HuffPost they’ve been flooding her office all week and urging her to oppose Kavanaugh.
They’re raising concerns about his record on climate change, which is already causing real damage in Alaska. As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh in 2017 held that the Environmental Protection Agency lacks the authority to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals linked to global warming. They’re also unhappy with his record on voting rights. Kavanaugh voted in 2012 to uphold a South Carolina voter ID law that disenfranchised more than 80,000 minority registered voters.
The most pressing matter, however, is a case the Supreme Court is reviewing on Nov. 5 that could devastate Alaska Natives’ subsistence fishing rights. The case, Sturgeon v. Frost, raises questions about who has the authority to regulate water in national parks in the state ― the federal government or the state of Alaska. The case arose after Alaska resident John Sturgeon, who was on an annual moose-hunting trip, was riding a hovercraft on a river running through a national park when Park Service officials threatened to give him a citation. Sturgeon is arguing that his ability to use his hovercraft in this scenario is about states’ rights and that federal authority should be eliminated.
Kavanaugh has previously ruled to limit federal power in cases before him. If he gets confirmed and votes with the other four right-leaning justices in favor of Sturgeon’s argument, it will destroy the way of life for tribal communities who rely on subsistence fishing in protected federal waters, some Alaska Native rights groups say.
“This would be a death knell to us in Alaska, absolutely,” said Heather Kendall-Miller, an Alaska Native and an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. “If this goes down, Alaska will be in a state of chaos when the fishing season begins. There will be lots of civil disobedience. It will be explosive.”
Kendall-Miller wrote an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News this week laying out some of these concerns about Kavanaugh. She said her organization has been in talks with Murkowski’s staff and has been meeting with the senator’s office this week.
“We continue to cycle people through her office with these concerns,” she said.
(Cont'd from comment #4.2.4, above):
“Native foods and fisheries are declining, and tribal access to traditional foods and medicines is often limited by reservation boundaries,” Pata said in a statement .
A Murkowski spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on how much of a factor Alaska Natives’ concerns are in her decision on Kavanaugh.
But the Republican senator owes her 2010 re-election to tribal communities, so anything harmful to them is going to be a significant issue for her.
That year, Murkowski unexpectedly lost her primary to a tea party challenger. She responded by running as an independent, launching a write-in campaign and winning the race against all odds.
Whose support didn’t she have? The Republican Party. Whose support did she have? Alaska Natives, who turned out for her and fueled her victory.
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Most don't care and never did, they just see him as a GOP vote on the bench (and that is all but about 3 of them far as I can tell). The SCOTUS is completely politicized now, it is no longer impartial.