Re: Kavanaugh and Ford
Ford has accused of assaulting her when they were teens.
Kavanaugh has denied the accusation.
It is possible Ford is not telling the truth. She could be lying, but there are a variety of reasons why she might believe what she's saying but it still not be true. e.g. she did suffer an assault and mistakenly associated Kavanaugh with it. It would be unfortunate for Kavanaugh to be the victim of a false accusation.
It is possible Ford is telling the truth. This implies Kavanaugh is lying. This constitutes two reasons to keep him off SCOTUS: 1) committing the assault is a severe character flaw; 2) lying about having committed the assault is a severe character flaw.
Some Kavanaugh defenders diminish the significance of #1, because he was young - and there is no pattern of this behavior over the course of his adult career. That is debatable (my wife, who was sexually assaulted in high school, denounces this view - she'd like Kavanaugh prosecuted), but #2 seems indefensible.
Should we believe Ford? Should we give Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt? This is not a criminal trial, so "innocent until proven guilty" needn't apply. Would you want him approved if she's telling the truth? Would you want him approved if we can't know what the truth is, but we know he might have done it and lied about it?
Kavanaugh has denied the accusation.
It is possible Ford is not telling the truth. She could be lying, but there are a variety of reasons why she might believe what she's saying but it still not be true. e.g. she did suffer an assault and mistakenly associated Kavanaugh with it. It would be unfortunate for Kavanaugh to be the victim of a false accusation.
It is possible Ford is telling the truth. This implies Kavanaugh is lying. This constitutes two reasons to keep him off SCOTUS: 1) committing the assault is a severe character flaw; 2) lying about having committed the assault is a severe character flaw.
Some Kavanaugh defenders diminish the significance of #1, because he was young - and there is no pattern of this behavior over the course of his adult career. That is debatable (my wife, who was sexually assaulted in high school, denounces this view - she'd like Kavanaugh prosecuted), but #2 seems indefensible.
Should we believe Ford? Should we give Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt? This is not a criminal trial, so "innocent until proven guilty" needn't apply. Would you want him approved if she's telling the truth? Would you want him approved if we can't know what the truth is, but we know he might have done it and lied about it?
Comments (756)
I just can't get behind the guy 100%.
A large portion of conservatives have expressed...interesting positions on it, but I'll hold my tongue on that until I hear your response.
I am not familiar with that charge but if you have a link I would be interested in reading it.
Quoting Maw
Looking at you quizickly... how many decades ago, were they both underage or consenting of age? Have you ever personally been involved with or a friend who was with a partner who is making allegations like these?
Quoting Maw
I am at a disadvantage as I don't have much more than my phone for news outside the ranch I am caring for so I am not sure what the conservative views are. I only know what experiences I have to draw on. That and the knowledge that a man or woman should be judged on a totality of their actions not on one alone.
I've been fairly busy with work, so it's not a digression I really have bandwidth to get into, but it's easy to google and read up on for yourself
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
I don't see why how long ago it occurred matters. It's grotesque regardless of when it occurred, or whether they were of age, or underage. Her account is clear: he attempted to rape her. And to my knowledge I don't know anyone who was raped or almost raped, although I've no doubt that it has happened to someone I know.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
Generally this is true, but someone who attempted to rape someone else should not sit on the highest court in America.
Kavanaugh would have been a minor at the time, that is true, but calling him a "child" incorrectly assumes he was merely morally clueless, or inept, despite having been 17 years old at the time, and was a year away from attending one of the most most prestigious universities in the world (Yale).
There have been a lot of comments from conservative media essentially saying, well he didn't do it, but if he did do it, he was only 17! Imagine telling a teenage girl today that one of her peers could rape or attempt to rape her, and could still potentially sit on the highest court in America.
The issue of Kavanaugh seems to be an attempt by the dems to get reps to trip up, come out strong in favor of a supposed rapist and to be able to play this card in elections now and in two years time.
Regardless of whether there is substance in those accusations, it is a minefield for the reps to express anything and it is also difficult not to say something. So considering the counterfactuals, this is some very neat political media-play by the dems.
The fact that the accusations play so neatly for team democratic makes me think the accusations are most likely unfounded.
I doubt this will actually stop Kavanaugh's confirmation, but if it does it's a sky-fall moment for the reps. That in itself makes this even more important to handle properly, and something that a typically impulsive move might ruin. It's an almost perfect play, and as such almost certainly the accusations aren't substantive.
I'm from northern europe. I watch American politics out of.. I don't know why I do it exactly. There is a kind of experience of Meaning in it, which I don't think is illusory.
So, in 2013 when Barack Obama was President and Blasey Ford described the rape attempt to her therapist, do you think she knew this would play neatly for the Dems five years later? And when she told Dianne Feinstein not to release the information because she thought she wouldn't be believed and knew she would be attacked by the right (which is happening now) she secretly wanted someone to release it and knew they would? ...Do you think she believes that all the death threats and verbal abuse she's getting now are worth it as long as it "plays so neatly" for the Dems? Also, does the fact that multiple woman accused Roy Moore of sexual assault played so neatly for the Dems mean all of them were liars too?
What you're espousing, given the facts of this case, is, in essence, a conspiracy angle that's insulting to victims of sexual assault and essentially gives immunity to any sexually abusing politician (or powerful figure) on either side when it "plays" well for the other (as it generally does given the nature of politics). In other words, your conspiracy position "plays neatly" for politicians who are sexual abusers. What conclusion, using your own "cui bono" logic, should we draw from that?
Finland. Helsinki area.
We've a Trump-esque controversy right now with a wacky populist foreign minister who attended anti-abortion rallies in Argentina, on an official business trip, and claims that he is allowed to do so as a matter of freedom of religion. In violation of the nation's international political stand. Elections next spring will see this particular asshole out of power permanently. The populist wave that brought him to power broke into pieces a while ago.
Thanks for the criticism. I wasn't particularly precise about what I meant. The famous political line "I misspoke" comes to mind. To be more precise I would say that it's an extremely transparent accusation. No original report or investigation, a supposed crime from 35 years ago when the accused and the accuser were 17 years of age? How is that meant to reflect anything at all with respect to judge Kavanaugh?
The extraordinary thing about it is the tie in to adolescent sexual behavior. Everyone knows kids do extremely stupid things at that age, but to come out and say that in the current media-environment would be akin to an outright endorsement of rape-culture among adolescents. That is the trap. I admit it sounds a bit conspiratorial, but politics in these meaningless tidbits of media soundbites often is that way.
The other cases of sexual misconduct you lay out are far more serious, and as far as I can tell (I'm not that well informed of the individual cases), they seem to concern politicians, not judges. Politicians who hold pieces of sovereign power often engage in dubious sexual behaviour as they have so much opportunity for it. Recall Kissinger's famous words on the subject? They do need to be watched carefully, and even under the lens they get away with shit like you wouldn't believe.
It is a current GOP strategy to claim the event happened, but that Ford is confused on the identity of the person who attacked her. That's not likely to be true. That's a political move, not a rational assessment of the evidence.
Why would Ford make up a story that places a witness who is likely to be against her at the scene? To me, that one fact alone brings a lot of credibility to her complaint.
This is good evidence she's not lying, but couldn't she still be mistaken? Not that I think she's mistaken, but this is why I'd like to see some investigation done.
A bunch of 17 years old guys tackling down a 14 year old girl and feeling her up against her will would have been either assault or aggravated assault even in the 80s.
What matters more than what he did in high school is what he has done since about 1982, 36 years ago (Kavanaugh was born in '65).
Who could crack this sphere of complete opacity? Not the FBI, no no! :sweat:
So far there doesn't appear any way of determining who is telling the truth. That may change, we'll see.
Quoting Relativist
Agreed. The Senate is free to reject Kavanaugh for any reason.
Quoting Relativist
No way. But then we just elected a President with far more such accusations, so perhaps molesting women is no longer a disqualifying factor.
Quoting Relativist
It would be better if we had a candidate no one is accusing of rape. But that won't solve a whole lot as Trump will just select some other conservative to fill the empty seat. Sooner or later the Senate will have to confirm one of his choices.
I admit I do have some concern that the "me too" movement is designing it's own demise. I've repeatedly heard Ford described as "the victim" based on nothing other than her claim, which appears not to be backed up by any substantial evidence. That kind of sloppiness will undermine the movement if it continues, which would be a real shame.
In the good news department, Bill Cosby has a sentencing hearing tomorrow.
At best, he's guilty of sexual assault, a misdemeanor. He supposedly got on top of her and put his hand on her mouth, a serious violation if true, but not attempted rape, attempted murder, or attempted kidnapping or whatever else you need to justify a lynching.
Prosecuting someone 35 years after a crime not only makes it a practical impossibilty (many witnesses are now unknown, evidence is lost, and memories have faded), but it seems a complete disregard for the rights of the accused. Do we all suddenly have such great trust in our criminal justice system that we raise no objections to politically fueled prosecutions of ancient charges?
But let us say we decide to charge him, how exactly does that work? If the juvenile court finds him guilty (as he was a child), how long does he stay housed in juvi?
Why does that surprise you? Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes. Are you unaware of that? Does the idea that a sexually abused fifteen-your-old was too scared or ashamed to go to the authorities seem strange to you?
Quoting Questionall
Absolutely not. He's already been demonstrated to have likely been dishonest in his Senate testimony, and his positions as a judge are highly objectionable to many. In any case, the operative word in your sentence is "seemed".
Quoting Questionall
There's a small chance anyone could be falsely accused of a serious crime from a long time ago. You can't conclude from that that any particular accusation or even a significant number of such accusations are false. Instead, you need to look at all the circumstances you can that surround the case and make a considered judgement. Even better, have a proper investigation.
Quoting Questionall
No. Evidence is required for anyone to end up in jail.
Quoting Questionall
Your whole post is based on misunderstandings and obvious falsities, so it's unsurprising you come to a conclusion like this.
Your lack of empathy for the alleged victim is also notable. The fact is you can't know that she is lying or is even mistaken. But you give zero weight to that. It doesn't seem to matter to you that she could very well be a genuine victim of a sexual crime. A victim who is a now being threatened and harassed further. So your post says precisely nothing except "I don't care about the victims of sexual assault". If that's all you wanted to impart, you've successfully done so. If you wanted to add anything of substance to the conversation, on the other hand, you've failed utterly.
Quoting Jake
Strictly speaking, she should be called the "alleged victim". But her claim, conspiracy theories aside, is credible, and people will choose their language based on that. Note that the other side insists on referring to Kavanaugh in positive terms despite the fact that there is a significant chance that he did this and is lying about it. It's nothing to be surprised about.
Quoting Bitter Crank
If he had come out and admitted it and apologized in an appropriate manner, I might agree that it might not be disqualifying. But what he is doing now by, if it is true, is lying about it and putting his victim through further punishment, which absolutely is disqualifying.
Anyway, why is it so hard for people to admit the obvious: We don't know yet (and we may never know) but we have to weigh up the credibility of both sides and consider what they have to gain and lose. So far, what Blasey Ford has to gain (if she is lying) is nothing and what he has to lose is a lot. There's much more motivation for him to be lying than her.
And allegedly tried to rip her clothes off. I suppose that was because he was just helping her to get changed, right? Why are you trying to minimize her negative experience and maximize his by hysterically referring to it as a "lynching". I don't know if you've noticed but the President and a significant portion of the Republican party are aiming their nooses at her not him. Plus, the idea that some privileged elite who has an accusation leveled at him is being treated worse than a 15-year-old who thought she was being raped is severely wrongheaded.
Quoting Hanover
Does the accused suddenly have the right not to be prosecuted much later? Nazi war criminals were prosecuted long after the war. The only people that objected to that were Nazis.
Quoting Hanover
See above. There is no right to get away with crimes just because you weren't caught quickly enough except in cases where statutes of limitations apply.
Quoting Hanover
It's odd that it takes a potential prosecution of an elite conservative to bring out your concerns about a justice system that is highly weighed against the poor and unprivileged.
1. She's lying (He didn't do it)
2. She's mistaken (He didn't do it)
3. She's not mistaken and telling the truth a) But he believes he didn't do it and isn't lying.
4. She's not mistaken and telling the truth b) He knows he did it and is lying.
1. Conspiracy theory angle. The fact is that she brought it up years ago with her therapist and she didn't want the information released. It was leaked against her wishes. For her to be lying you would need to concoct a fairly fantastical story involving a cadre of malicious actors.
2. Theoretically possible. But she says she's absolutely sure. The fact that she's a high functioning professional seems to mitigate against her being absolutely sure and still being delusional enough to be wrong about it. A psychological assessment might help with that. And one should be done in my view.
3. Mark Judge was allegedly there. So, if Kavanaugh did it and doesn't remember (blacked out), it's extremely unlikely his friend would have hid it from him.
4. There are no problems with this theory. It's very possible that a drunk young man would do this to a young woman (although I doubt it's as common as some Republicans seem to think). It's also highly likely that given the potential consequences of an admission, Kavanaugh would deny it.
Conclusion: Possibility 4, that he did it and he's lying, is the most likely scenario. Given that, further investigation should obviously be undertaken and he should not yet be confirmed until at least more is known in his favour.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If he did, of course it says something about him. Not every adolescent is capable of jumping a girl, putting their hands over her mouth, and trying to rip their clothes off, drunk or not. It goes far beyond "stupid". At the same time, as I've already said, what absolutely disqualifies him, if it's true, is lying about it and being willing to lie under oath about it, which is a crime in itself.
This was my point for the whole post. I am deeply sympathetic for people who have been sexually assaulted. It is her and her lawyers job to prove that she was assaulted in this way. They have no evidence whatsoever.
My whole post and what I believe when it comes to this case is simple and fact driven. Your only argument is that I lack "Sympathy" for someone who has never proven that they were a victim of sexual assault." Essentially you saw someone who disagreed with you, but you have nothing to base your disagreement on so you decided to try and shame me into silence. Then when you were done with that you just said that my post was based on misunderstandings without providing a single misunderstanding.
First, yes I do know that. Going back to what you said earlier, "Evidence is required for anyone to end up in jail." No evidence means no jail and it also means that he can be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Also you said that she was a "sexually abused 15 year old." After reading what she described as happening you will find that she does not even claim he sexually assaulted her. She was in a room with Kavanaugh and one other person. They fell on a bed together and she thought he was going to do something so she left the room. That is her version of the story. She said that she thought he was going to do something. Therefor she was never sexually abused. Nothing happened.
I have been actively keeping up with the Kavanaugh investigation and such. He has not been proven to likely be dishonest yet and he was chosen as a candidate because he has essentially no objectionable positions as a judge. He has proven to follow what he believes the Constitution was written to mean, which is the job description of a Supreme Court Justice.
You are making a fool of yourself now. The details of her allegations are all over the internet. For a concise summary see Wikipedia (or any number of other sources):
"On September 16, 2018, she publicly alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, in what she described as an attempted rape.
Kavanaugh, intoxicated, held her down on a bed with his body, grinding against and groping her, covering her mouth when she tried to scream and trying to pull her clothes off. She recounted escaping when the second boy jumped on them both and they all fell."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Blasey_Ford
That's her version and if true, that's sexual assault and a crime. Note that she not only accuses him of sexual assault but also of attempted rape.
Quoting Questionall
Given your complete ignorance of the allegations, no, you obviously haven't. If you don't even know the basics, please stop fouling the place up with silliness like this.
"All we factuality have is the memories of 3 people of an act from 35 years ago. That is it. Every thing else is speculation."
A couple days ago, I might have agreed. But now we have Trump and McConnell's statements. McConnell said Kavanaugh will be approved, implying that Ford's testimony is irrelevant, and no other evidence need be (or will be) considered. Trump essentially called Ford a liar. These comments have tainted the process, and are sufficient reason to reject Kavanaugh. I could give Kavanaugh a chance only if he were to rebuke McConnell's and Trump's statements. A competent judge should advocate for open-minded evaluation of the full set of available facts.
At this point the case is one person's version versus another persons version, delayed by 35 years time. There is no way to prove very much about this case. You believe women. Baden scores 10 points from #metoo.
It would not surprise me if the boys behaved badly toward the girl. People (males, females) often behave badly.
Kavanaugh could have offered a strategic apology, but he said he didn't do it and is sticking with his story.
I've never been enthusiastic about people's sexual activities being weighed up for political and professional judgement. That's a very old-fashioned attitude now. Franken should not have resigned, should not have been excoriated by the Democratic Party. John F. Kennedy's presidency shouldn't be judged on how many women were procured for him. All this goes for a quite a few other politicians. There are better grounds to reject Kavanaugh (and probably everybody else Trump appoints) than teenage misbehavior. If we were going to hang Donald Trump, he should be convicted on grounds of endangering the nation -- not on being sexually crude and licentious.
How far back should we go to hold people accountable? There was underage drinking going on in that house. There are adults who were responsible for obtaining, making available, or not protecting the teenagers from alcohol. Are you in favor of leveling charges against them 35 years later? If not, why not?
I don't fully believe anyone, but in my judgment her telling the truth is the most likely scenario, and I gave reasons why. Reasons that nobody has questioned so far, incidentally. So, let's not get up on a cranky horse about the #metoo movement. That's not the issue here. If you want to ask me about my position on that, start a thread on it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The issue is about criminal sexual activities, not all sexual activities. Sexual assault and attempted rape are criminal offenses. That's what he's being accused of. If he likes to wank off his pet dog in his spare time, that's fine by me. Couldn't care less.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No, because I don't care. Why would I? And you asking that question makes me wonder if you've been drinking, frankly. I mean do you think holding down a 15-year-old girl, groping her, and trying to rip her clothes off while holding your hand over her mouth is as insignificant as buying a drink for someone who is underage? What are you trying to say? And please put down your drink while you type your reply in case you spill it all over the keyboard.
:up:
How about 1 week? Hold Kavanaugh accountable for lying about his teenage misbehavior.
On the milder end, we have @Hanover characterizing the victim as suffering from a "misdemeanour" (while leaving out the important detail of the attempt to remove her clothes) in opposition to the accused who is apparently being "lynched". The misdemeanour claim btw:
Quoting Hanover
Being dubious: e.g.
"Sexual assault, which is defined as an individual touching another person for sexual gratification without that person’s consent, can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony depending on the circumstances of your case."
https://www.wksexcrimes.com/when-attempted-rape-is-not-a-violent-crime/
On the extreme end then we have @Bitter Crank and @Questionall who seem to think the sexual assault wasn't even an assault at all, but mere "misbehaviour".
Let me ask you this: If any of you had a 15-year-old daughter or a close relative who told you that an older boy had held her down, hand over mouth to the point where she feared she would suffocate, groped her and grinded his body against her, and then tried to pull her clothes off, and that she thought he was trying to rape her, would you just tell her to laugh it off and then do nothing about it? Would you be more worried about the reputation of the accused? And how would you feel about those more interested in protecting him than her?
"Sexual assault and rape are among the least reported crimes in the United States. This
paper hypothesizes that this reflects the psycho-social costs of reporting a rape or sexual assault,
which, in turn, reflect the stigma suffered by rape and sexual assault victims."
"Of the 1247 cases analyzed in this study, only 39.17% of them were reported to the police. "
"The degree to which rape and sexual assault exist within our society is masked by substantial under-reporting. In order to address this under-reporting, it is essential to understand the unique costs of reporting that the rape victim faces. As the analyses in this study confirm, rape and sexual assault victims consider the stigma that they are likely to suffer upon reporting. When these victims choose not to report, perpetrators go unscathed. Furthermore, the public remains uneducated on the prevalence and nature of the crime. Rather than merely encouraging victims of rape and sexual assault to report their victimization, policies and programs need to be instituted to debunk common misperceptions on the subject. "
"Furthermore, educating the public on the phenomenon of victim-blaming may stimulate individuals’
recognition of their own victim blaming tendencies."
I was addressing the specific issue raised by Bitter Crank ("How far back should we go to hold people accountable?"). So while one might argue that a 35 year-old incident should be overlooked, a recent lie should NOT be overlooked. This completely negates his point, but it doesn't settle the entire matter.
I'll bet the President is carefully studying that report as we write this.
....
hahahahahahahahahahaha!
You fail continually to see the reality of the matter. You seek to label me as an uncaring person because you have no evidence or facts to argue with. All you have is many many emotions towards a crime that may or may not have occurred 36 years ago. You ask what we would think if someone we love told us that they had been sexually assaulted or raped. The opposite of this scenario is this. How would you feel if you were falsely accused of a crime. This crime was said to have happened 36 years ago and has no evidence what so ever to support it. Now your career and whole life in general is being destroyed of baseless claims.
The only evidence brought forward by Christine Blasey Ford has been witnesses who were at the party. They have all so far said that they not only don't remember this happening, they don't even remember Brett Kavanaugh going to any of these types of parties. The most recent witness even said this: “Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women,”
This article can be found here. https://nypost.com/2018/09/19/kavanaughs-prep-school-pal-fords-wrong-i-was-never-at-party/
Um no, you said something that showed you were completely clueless over the whole matter, and you got called out for it. Trying to pretend you didn't and it was I who got something wrong is just digging yourself deeper into a hole.
You said this:
Quoting Questionall
Now, do you understand yet how completely and utterly wrong this is and how thinking it may have led you to all sorts of false conclusions? Let's try to clear that up first.
Quoting Questionall
They don't remember it happening because they weren't in the room. There were no witnesses to the alleged crime except Mark Judge who was an accessory, and a very close friend of Kavanaugh, so obviously he has reason to deny it. And in fact, he refuses to testify under oath. Do you wonder why?
Quoting Questionall
So what? Of course, his friends are going to say this. Even murderers can drag up character witnesses from amongst their circle of friends.
I think we can agree that mere accusations ought not to be sufficient grounds for assuming the guilt of the accused. On the other hand, the testimony of high school friends doesn't amount to much. The alleged party only had a few people present, and their observations of his behavior while sober has little bearing on how he might behave when drunk - ESPECIALLY if he did not drink very often. Not that this should be fully discounted, but it cries out for a thorough investigation - don't you think?
With regard to this, I gave you, for example, the evidence of her testimony to show you were wrong about what she was alleging (it's right there above). So, I ask you to please try to concentrate on what is happening here otherwise the conversation is likely to be unfruitful.
It calls for as much investigation is possible. The FBI are not able to investigate it of course, but the police can. The issue is that there isn't much to investigate that they haven't already investigated. Short of a time machine, I fail to see what the investigation would find. They have already questioned all known and available witnesses as well.
You are once again dodging around the fact that you have no evidence. Her testimony is evidence of nothing except for the fact that she has said that Kavanaugh did something. That is as factual of me accusing you of something right now.
No, that's not the way it works. Eye-witness testimony is evidence. It's amazing to me that you don't know that. Actually, no, I'm not all that amazed. Anyway, are you ready to get your facts straight on whether or not she is accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault? Is she or is she not?
Yes she is accusing him of sexual assault, but not rape. It is amazing what you don't know. Eye-witness testimony is evidence, but usually from others than the person who is accusing someone of a crime. If that is really good enough evidence to consider firing someone, then I could get you or anyone else fired for anything at any time.
Nobody said she was accusing him of rape. It's attempted rape as I said. And the fact that it took you this long to figure out she is accusing him of sexual assault suggests you are too ignorant of the facts to be worthy of anything but bemused pity here.
Quoting Questionall
Quoting Baden
Quoting Questionall
You've just conceded the point. The rest is irrelevant.
I wonder what explains this.
An accusation on its own without any context isn't conclusive. No one has claimed it is. Each accusation has to be examined on its own merits, weighted thus, and preferably followed up with a proper examination. And Kavanaugh is not being threatened with firing, but simply not getting a promotion.
That's clear anecdotally from what I've witnessed comparing the Al Franken case to this and the Roy Moore situation. Again, conservatives and Republicans are more OK with ignoring sexual assault accusations (and by extension with sexual assault) when it's their side doing it than Democrats are. But there is clearly some partisanship on both sides. And there shouldn't be any at all.
Yes, in this case. But charges were not pressed and the statute of limitation on this event has expired; the alleged perpetrator was drunk, and underage himself. You weren't interested in the alcohol connection to the crime:
Quoting Baden
Drunken adults can behave worse than usual; this is even more so for adolescents who generally have less experience with alcohol and poorer impulse control on a good day. But even if they drink a lot, someone is aiding them in obtaining alcohol, which contributed to bad behavior. Alcohol was probably a contributing factor.
Had charges been pressed, had the case been tried and had Kavanaugh been found guilty, he might well have not been able to pursue education. Adolescents should be cut more slack than adults. But even in the case of adults, a relative minor sexual offense can crash a life, never mind a career. A prison record a public sexual offender list can make one untouchable.
If what is alleged to have happened did happen as described, I would still maintain that an adolescent should not be penalized for life.
At the present time, in Minnesota, what happened in Maryland would be 5th degree sexual assault
Fifth Degree – Engaging in nonconsensual sexual contact (not including touching a clothed butt, but including attempts to remove clothing covering victim’s intimate parts if done with sexual or aggressive intent) or knowingly masturbating or exposing one’s genitals in the presence of a child under 16.
Punishment: Fifth Degree – Typically a gross misdemeanor, it’s penalty is up to 1 year imprisonment and a fine up to $3,000.
Predatory Offender Registry - Most of these offenses will get you on the Minnesota sex offender registry. This severely impacts your life, including where you can work and live.
Even adults convicted of low level criminal sexual crimes should not be subjected to life-crashing events, where some public services are rendered unavailable; where suitable work will be difficult or impossible to obtain; where housing may be very difficult to rent, where credit is ruined, and so on and so forth.
What about the victim? People who have been sexually assaulted in a high or low level offense should receive appropriate counseling. Men who are assaulted (violently and sexually) are kind of expected to get on with their lives. I think women should have similar expectations. What is alleged to have happened to Ms. Ford should not have resulted in so much trauma that Mr. Kavanaugh should have forfeited an effective life. And of course, shouldn't forfeit an effective life either.
Violent first degree rape with prolonged trauma and significant physical injury is NOT what we are talking about here, and first degree rape has serious penalties attached, which is appropriate.
I wonder why this is. Maybe I'm oblivious to it, but there doesn't seem to be such partisanship here in the UK. When an MP is accused of wrongdoing I don't think about their party at all (and most of the time I don't even know it, or care to know).
You've conceded the point that it is an alleged crime we're talking about. Whether the statute of limitations has passed now or not is irrelevant to that fact. As for charges, they were not pressed because like most sexual assaults (see statistics above) the victim was too afraid and/or ashamed and/or traumatized to report. Plus, being drunk is not a defence against sexual assault. Plus, being under 18 (he was 17) is not a defence against sexual assault.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm sure that's emotionally upsetting for them but so is being held down with a hand over your mouth while someone strips your clothes off. In some cases, you might be right that the punishment is too harsh, but you seem inordinately concerned with the abusers and markedly unconcerned about the victims. Why?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Why? Try putting yourself in the mind of a fifteen-year-old girl who thinks she's being suffocated and raped. Is it so hard for you to imagine how that could result in serious continuing trauma? Really? And is it so hard for you to imagine that that outweighs the interests of the abuser who would suffer missing out on some opportunities. If it did happen, he chose to do it to her and to say she should have just shrugged it off is just to demonstrate either an inability to understand how the mind of adolescent females and vulnerable groups in general work, or just a lack of empathy for them, which is odd to me considering how much you seem to care for those who commit sexual crimes.
Just to add, if Kavanugh had fessed up, explained he was drunk, and has changed since then, and apologized to Ford in the right manner, I've said already maybe that should be the end of it. But he hasn't. So either he didn't do it at all, or he did do it and is lying and about to commit perjury which is a felony and punishable with jail time, and therefore is obviously disqualified. There's no middle ground now.
This comment seems misguided in two respects. First, there is the issue of the standard of evidence. That the accused must be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt is a standard that applies to criminal proceedings. It doesn't apply to Senate investigations, which are not criminal proceedings. The President as well as most GOP Senators are opposed to there being a criminal investigation, although I hear that there isn't a statute of limitations for this sort of crime in the relevant jurisdiction, so that it would still be possible for Mrs Ford to file a complaint with local authorities.
Secondly, even in the case where there is a criminal prosecution, the burden of proof doesn't belong to the victim of the alleged crime, or to her lawyers. In fact, most victims of crimes such as rape, robbery or murder don't have any need to hire a lawyer at all. They simply file a complaint (unless they've been murdered, of course). It is rather the law enforcement authorities who are tasked with investigating and, if they find sufficient ground, recommend the case to the prosecutor. If the prosecutor takes up the case, and files charges, they then have the burden of proving that the accused is guilty as charged. The victim may be called as a witness but doesn't personally have any kind of a burden of proof. Victims of crimes don't generally have the means, let alone the duty, to conduct a proper investigation.
Politics is horrible everywhere but American politics seems even more of a cess-pit than the UK or Ireland, for example, both in terms of politicians and their supporters. Particularly on the Republican side. Look at Mitch McConnell: When Roy Moore's accusers came forward, he famously said he believed them, but it seems that was only because he didn't like Moore, and was hoping he would step aside and a replacement candidate would be found, who was more electable. Now he does like Kavanaugh, so he says he'll "plough through" with the nomination no matter what. In other words, sexual assault means nothing to him except for the political consequences. You couldn't get away with that in the UK, you'd be slaughtered in the media. But in the US, everyone has their own media and it's just par for the course, apparently.
Q: Who has ever lied to Congress? [Who has not ever lied to Congress?] It is a cess pit after all.
A: This might be a tough one to answer comprehensively especially because it is extremely rare to see charges brought. In fact, a study from 2007 found just six successful convictions of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the previous 60 years.
Kavanaugh's tailor need not order some nice orange polyester fabric to make his honor a jump suit.
Maybe you're right. I haven't looked into the statistics, but that it might not condemn him to the depths is not the issue so much as that it will, if so discerned, prevent him from attaining the heights. And rightly so.
It's been reported that the State of Maryland doesn't have a statute of limitations for the crimes of rape and assault.
Oh yes, it's a classist thing, where privileged elite folks ought have less sympathy than those who happened not to be so lucky. I have a sneaky suspicion she too didn't have too many financial struggles during her upbringing, as if that matters.Quoting Baden
You reference Republican hysteria but then your next sentence actually attempts to draw an analogy between sexual assault and genocide, as if they're at all comparable. You appear far more hysterical than me or the Republicans.
Anyhow, let's see, why might your analogy be flawed? Could it be perhaps that genocide is a far more serious crime than sexual assault at a party?
The reason there exists statutes of limitations in criminal matters is to protect an accused from prosecution after witnesses and evidence have been lost when the government could have prosecuted the case earlier. In the case of the Nazis, one reason the government didn't prosecute the Nazis earlier is because it was the government that was committing the crime. I suppose Eichmann could have argued that he ought be freed because the Germans failed to prosecute him earlier when they had a chance, and then the Nuremberg judges could have tried to make sense of that argument, just like I'm trying to make sense of your argument.Quoting Baden
Again, your comparison of Senate confirmations hearings with Nuremberg. Just withdraw this argument. It's nonsense.
My reference was to the political nature of this whole affair. All we have are competing claims. She says it happened and he says it didn't. They both have plenty of motivation to lie. The consequences of his confirmation will be devastating to the left, and the consequences to him personally will be devastating on the other side of this coin.
And let's not pretend that she came forward now only because she felt safe with the #metoo movement. She told Feinstein back in July about her claims and Feinstein revealed it just before the confirmation vote. Feinstein's motive was to block a candidate for the Supreme Court she doesn't like. She doesn't give a damn about that girl. Quoting Baden
Why because I'm part of the elite? I was pretty much a middle class kid who went to public school (and public means government funded in the US, which I understand is oddly the opposite in the UK), we took exotic trips in our station wagon to the Georgia coast every year, and I don't remember any country clubs. But, whatever. I thought the Clarence Thomas lynching was just as bad, and yet he was hardly from an elite background.
This is an aside also. It's an ad hom. I guess I could tell you that your only motivation in holding your position is because of your disdain of those elite country club kids who you looked upon with envy from your hovel as a child.
I think no one, from the right or the left, suggests there ought be a dissolution of the distinction between juveniles and adults. We all understand that kids lack capacity to make decisions that can effect the rest of their lives, and for that reason they are treated as protected citizens, incapable of fully engaging in society. Juvenile records are sealed usually because we don't want the sins of youth to destroy one's life. I generally think that's a good thing. My guess is that you do too. As I've said, and which no one can answer, is how do you think he could be prosecuted now as an adult for a juvenile offense? You can't wait for someone to turn of age and then prosecute them as an adult. That's not how it works. A 17 year old who commits murder and who is tried as a juvenile can only remain in custody through age 21. Children are children. Do you really not see an absurdity of prosecuting a 52 year old for his actions when he was 15, or do you really consider your Nazi analogy that persuasive?
I would think myself incapable of providing an objective answer because I was personally impacted by this crime, as it was my daughter. If summoned as a juror on such a case, I suppose I'd be removed for bias, as it was my daughter who was the victim.
If I were the prosecutor, my concern would be proving the case, and I would speak to all the kids at the party, perhaps inspect the victim's clothes, look for visible sign of injury on the accused and accuser, go to the scene and look for signs of a struggle, and pay close attention to social media posts from those involved. I would track down the leads and see where they led.
If I had nothing to look at other than the vague recollections of those involved due to a 35 year gap between the event and the reporting of the crime, I think I'd probably offer the victim's family what comfort I could and explain to them that this is just not prosecutable at this stage.
And the flip side of the coin is what would you do if you felt your son wrongly accused of attempted rape and he faced public scorn, ostracism, and exclusion from college for something he did not do. Would you not fight his battle with the same passion as you'd expect the accuser's father to fight her battle?
We've just established there's no statute of limitations in this case, and suggesting in any case that I was suggesting an equivalence in severity of crime between Nazi genocide and this sexual assault rather than merely pointing out the failure of your attempt at establishing a non-existent right not to be prosecuted when such a statute doesn't apply is something I should really spend considerable time mocking and berating you for, and only won't because I'm too lazy to move from my mobile to my laptop where typing is more convenient.
Quoting Hanover
What's her motivation to lie? So she can have her life threatened and suffer harassment and mockery from the right-wing hate machine? As opposed to him avoiding having his career wet dream spill wastefully into his pyjamas. Hm, let me weigh those two up.
Quoting Hanover
Please don't tell me your biography. It makes it look as if you think I care about you. Which is icky.
Quoting Hanover
Sorry, we didn't have country clubs in Ireland when I grew up. Only hovels.
As for the rest, I'm not calling for his prosecution but just pointing out he has no right not to be prosecuted. That's the law and so should it be.
And Baden, the US and the UK aren't in the same league. The UK is on par with Massechusettes maybe.
The potential political motivations that Ford and Kavanaugh may have aren't the only ones that must be alluded to in order to make sense of their claims. While it is understandable why he could be lying, in case where the alleged incident took place, the converse scenario would require for a much more elaborate scheme for making sense of Ford's motivations. We would need to make sense of her motivation for having privately told of a made up incident to her therapist several years ago. Also, she only came out about the allegation following intense pressure as a result of the leaking of her story, and of her identity, which you conceivably can blame on the Democrats for, but not her.
Yeah, agree with that.
Maybe Maryland has fewer crimes covered by statute of limitations than other states. It doesn't seem like statutes of limitations are entirely rational. In Minnesota, for instance, trespass has a 6 year limitation while wrongful death gets 3 years of limitation! I would think wrongful death would get more time than trespassing but... I guess property matters more.
MD has some crimes covered by limitation, but it appears that most are not. I couldn't figure out (from a quick search) whether Kavanaugh/Ford would be covered or not.
The thought experiment is only intended to provoke a little empathy for the victim. This woman is not a political player and asked for none of this, and she is being treated as if she is and did. But to your point, suffering a sexual assault is worse than suffering an accusation of sexual assault. I would be considerably angrier at someone who sexually assaulted my daughter than someone who falsely accused my son of sexual assault.
Ireland has country clubs now? Who allowed this outrage? GET BACK INTO YOUR HOVELS, IRISH SWINE!
Andrea Dworkin -- a wigged out anti-pornography activist -- made the crazy claim that an erection was equivalent to rape. Crazy, not merely militant.
Franken was denounced for something a good deal less than assault. "Misconduct?" I don't think it was misconduct -- but it certainly wasn't a crime either.
Re: statue of limitations, there has been a trend to remove these in instances of sexual abuse of children, so Maryland is not exceptional in this regard. Nevertheless, it is still unclear in this particular case- they have no statute of limitations for FELONY assault, and it's ambiguous as to whether or not this would qualify. That wouldn't stop her from reporting the crime, and possibly getting a police investigation. My guess is that it's unlikely they could get enough evidence for a conviction, since the hurdle is "beyond a reasonable doubt." And of course, that needn't be the standard in the case of a judicial appointment. "Beyond reproach" would be a better standard.
I think @Hanover's argument appears to derive some of its force from the considerations @Bitter Crank brought up regarding the societal consequences from having been convicted of sexual assault. But this is a consideration that ought to justify law reforms such that penalties aren't disproportionate to the crime, on the one hand, while the standard of proof remains that of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, on the other hand. As a result of such a system's fairness, women will regrettably continue to have the worse of it, in one respect, since the crimes at issue will remain difficult to prove and hence many perpetrators will continue to evade condemnation. This is a regrettable consequence that would need to be remedied by means other than law. But it's precisely because of this unavoidable imbalance that being falsely accused will be less consequential than being a victim of sexual assault. So long as the standard of proof remains suitably high, such that innocents will not be scapegoated, falsely accused individuals will seldom be condemned.
We have grown fat and can no longer fit in them. We all live in country clubs now, surrounded by cigar smoke and sexist jokes.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sure, and this case is neither the most innocent nor the most severe. It's bad enough to be of note though and should not be dismissed as insignificant.
Quoting Bitter Crank
And even given that, note that the Dems did not attack the victims and let Franken go. We may disagree over whether he should have been let go, but the difference in attitude is striking.
I agree with that, and particularly that punishment should be proportionate. I read of one ridiculous case where a woman was given 20 years for forcing a male minor to touch her breast (partly because she wouldn't plea bargain). Kavanaugh, on the other hand, spent most of his life getting off scot-free (if he did it) and missing out on his promotion would not be an unduly harsh case of societal Karma.
I think that's true to a degree, but in this case the partisan split seems more explanatory of the likelihood of a given actor rushing to Ford's defence. Wish that wasn't the case but...
Lying under oath crosses the line. If there is a preponderance of evidence he lied, that seems a reasonable standard.
Couple of days after those first remarks I'm not sure what my idea was either.
From your remarks I am concerned that you may be presuming that a high degree of compassion (agreeableness) or negative emotion (neuroticism) is a desirable characteristic in a judge. Kavanaugh, if appointed, will have to deal repeatedly with situations that require the suppression or lack of negative emotions, and indeed a disregard for empathy. To be emotionally cold is a desirable characteristic for a supreme court judge. I am confident in asserting this without further discussion.
Second, it happened thirty-something years ago. Every cell in his body has been replaced five times over at this point in time. I don't think you can read anything from this incident (for now I'll just assume it's true), given that he has had an unblemished record since. If he was, shall we say, aggressive and unable to control his sexual urges, it is rather doubtful he could have got this far.
And third, the accusation is not extreme in the slightest. Teenage boys go beyond stupid like that. It's not excusable, but it happens anyway. Instead of being a product of hormones or unchecked aggression and sexual urges, it is the difficulty of abstracting out how to deal with relating to the opposite sex. I would challenge any man who has no such experiences in their past, that they are a damned privileged **** for getting through this task with such ease and no horrible memories to haunt them.
On a related note, I'm not playing for team rep in this. My major interest in American politics is that things ought to get done. Energetic political activity is important to carry the business of a nation in the modern world.
On a related-related note, if I got to be the president for one day, I would argue for a constitutional convention: In the original constitutional framework the federal level of government was not designed to be in charge of major policy making. It was made to be inflexible and inefficient with the embedded idea that major political activity should take place in the individual states. The civil war changed this and the federal became sovereign, and for 150 years America has had a serious organisational fault at the heart of it's politics.
He wasn't accused until a few days ago, so sure, he has gone "scot-free" the same way all of us who could have been accused of something (whether we did it or not) have gone scot free. A little shoplifting, petty theft, slipping state secrets to the Canadians, driving while intoxicating and possibly running over somebody that one time on a dark night in Alabama (Oh shit! that was an awfully big thump!!!), buying some extra Xanax in Mexico and selling them to your step-mother and friends who took too many uppers, torching that outbuilding, getting carried away in the back seat with your girlfriend/boyfriend/or-both and going farther than almost all the way several times...)
Sure you have. And ve have vays of correcting zis problem... So you vill fit.
Quoting Existoic
Well, take a look at the 18 items under Section 8: There's lots of potential policy there.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
13: To provide and maintain a Navy;
14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government...
18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
There's more, of course, and
is quite important.
But should you become president, remember, as such you don't have a role in organizing a constitutional convention. It's the responsibility of (currently) 34 States to call such a meeting and then (currently) 38 states to ratify it. So you could start in the state where you live and get your state to BE THE FIRST to call for a Constitutional Convention.
Casting my vote for this.
What seems to be under appreciated is that the #metoo movement, a very just cause, is threatened by sloppy standards and a rush to jump on a politically correct bandwagon.
Crime victims need to keep in my mind that, however difficult it may be, they have a civic responsibility to report crimes to the police because failing to do so puts other people at risk. If they fail to fulfill that responsibility, their credibility is naturally going to take a hit, and maybe it should.
You didn't address the issue of Kavanaugh possibly having lied. I suggest that IF he lied, it would be inappropriate to approve his appointment. Even if these hearings are 90% political theater, I would hope we can all agree that they ought to mean SOMETHING, and accepting lies implies the hearings are completely worthless.
We don't know that he lied, and I certainly don't think a mere accusation is sufficient reason to assume he did. But the possibilty that he lied should be taken seriously, and this is ample reason to take both her and Kavanaugh's testimony seriously, and to obtain as much additional evidence as they can by pushing for a more thorough investigation. I think each Senator should make a judgment based on his/her view of the preponderance of the evidence: i.e. if they think it's more likely than not that he lied, then he should not be approved.
My challenge is to whether any court has jurisdiction over the offense. If we elevate the offense to a felony because apparently you're one hard core prosecutor who likes to push the envelope, we still have the issue of prosecuting a 52 year old man in juvenile court, which I am quite certain can't be done. I just don't understand how we do this or why we do this. Why must adults answer for their misdeeds committed when they were children without the capacity to commit crimes like adults?Quoting Baden
Her motivation to lie is to stop the Court from making a hard right that will last for decades. But why speculate? People say things that aren't true for all sorts of reasons. I'd also say that you've created a pretty dangerous system when you just accept whatever a sex abuse accuser says because "why would they lie"?Quoting Baden
Now, now Punkin. You make my point with this comment. You accused me of defending an elitist out of my kinship to all that is elite and beautiful, and I responded by saying the attack was (1) ad hom, and (2) that it didn't even make any sense because I had no kinship to the elite and explained why that was. So, if you're going to make ad hom attacks and call me an elitist, a cat hater, a bad dancer, or any other super mean thing, expect me to defend myself by telling you how I'm just a regular Joe who loves the kitty cat and who is tired of being a wallflower and wants to just dance the night away.
Not to nitpick, but the Franken accusations came from multiple women, all while Franken was very much an adult, and one accusation was of an event that occurred while he was a Senator. And, then there's the matter of the picture of him groping a woman's breasts while she was asleep. So, yeah, Franken and Kavanaugh are so close as to almost be indistinguishable, the main difference being only that the Democrats removed him honorably, whereas the Republicans refuse to show any class.
Quoting Jake
You don't get to use #metoo to discredit my arguments. Period. If you want to address my points, do so. If you want to criticise #metoo, do it in a discussion about #metoo. And standing up for victims of sexual abuse, especially child victims, has nothing to do with political correctness either. It's what's known as common decency.
Quoting Jake
She was fifteen, and most likely very scared and traumatised. But let's blame her rather than criticise the abuser. Again, all your post demonstrates is a lack of empathy for the victims of these crimes. It does zero in terms of analysis.
She says something happened; he says it didn't happen. Obviously he is lying. Hrumph.
Why would a woman not tell the truth about what happened?
a) her truth may have drifted away from what actually happened.
b) she might feel some personal guilt about what happened
c) she might resent that someone who was her classmate and who she thinks was mean to her is getting above himself
d) she might not remember what happened. Really? Even after 35 years, one would not remember exactly what happened? How dare you! (fucking male chauvinist pig... asshole... etc) Well, sorry dear, but yes... memory is less reliable than we would like it to be. Every time a memory is summoned, every time we think about something we remember, it is changed ever so slightly. Perhaps it is changed ever so slightly in the same direction, moving from something merely embarrassing to something now viewed as an attack.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Maybe Kavanaugh's memory has changed too.
I know I don't remember some events the same way other people remember them. Sometimes the differences have become (I think) quite different.
Memory's failings are one of the reasons statutes of limitation exist. Another reason is that 35, or 75 years later may simply be too long, too late. Too bad. Next time don't wait.
So sanctimonious. We all have the same empathy as you for those who were actually sexually abused. The question here is whether she was, not whether we'd feel for her if she was. And there's also the question of empathy for those wrongly accused and the needless suffering they endure. The idea of protecting the accused is actually a progressive idea. It's not an oversight in the system that we'd rather let 10 rapists go free than to send a single innocent man to prison.
I don't want to nitpick either as I think it was right to dump Frankenstein (predictive text error but I think I'll just leave it), and I have nothing positive to say about his behaviour, I condemn it fully. But they were not almost indistinguishable in the sense that Franken's victims did not think they were going to be suffocated or raped and none were fifteen years old. But whatever, I have no sympathy for this kind of thing on either side.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, why (presuming Ford testifies convincingly) not just move on to the next candidate and push through in the lame duck? We all know that's what they're going to do anyway if Kavanaugh goes down. Why discredit themselves?
My point was that that Kavanaugh might be innocent. Franken clearly wasn't. That is the distinction worth noting. The Republicans would pull Kavanaugh's nomination if there were real proof of his crime. Had Franken been facing a single accusation that he denied, I wouldn't be in favor of his being removed unless there were something more convincing.Quoting Baden
People aren't disposable. They would discredit themselves if they pulled his nomination based on these unsupported allegations. If you were accused of something you didn't do, you wouldn't find it honorable for someone to stand beside you and defend you, especially if it meant harm to that person's reputation?
This is probably the most naive thing you've ever written. Forget about me though, I'm only empathy normal. There are plenty out there with more empathy for the sexually abused than me who would rip some of the posters here new arseholes for the crass and insensitive way they talk about these victims. No, the idea that we all care equally is frankly nuts.
"We don't know what actually happened. "
I agree. I'm just asking if you agree IN PRINCIPLE that 1) if he did lie, he ought not to be approved; 2) that the judgment of whether or not he lied should be based on a preponderance of the evidence (i..e. it's more likely than not).
"Does "lying" carry the same weight as "misrepresenting the facts?"
Not necessarily in general, and I don't see how that's a factor in this case - but I'm fine with taking that into account if that is indeed a factor.
In any day it's a serious crime. It's gravity isn't diminished simply because it occurred during a time when people didn't take women seriously (at least, less than they do now). Brett Kavanaugh's life isn't "over". His life isn't "wrecked". He merely shouldn't be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States, just like 99.99% of all Americans. He should withdraw his nomination as quickly as possible, and I guarantee he will be offered other lucrative, entitled positions.
Oh, Frank! You have no idea how much dastardliness I have had to endure -- the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! It's just fucking appalling. It's a miracle from Jesus that I am able to find the strength to wake up in the morning, get out of bed, and go through yet another day of quiet desperation. You know, I can just feel other people's suffering -- such sensitivity comes from all the horrible things that have happened to me--the rudeness, bad taste, ungentlemanly manners, mismatched clothing, calloused hands pawing my private parts -- Frank! You can't even begin to imagine how horrible it is.
Oh, and Frank, you can't predict the past can you?
One of the biggest standouts of the article:
Fine, double down on your sanctimony and let me know how deeply you feel and inform me that I couldn't care any less about people being abused. I just find your approach horribly unjust, with less regard for the truth than to simply make a feel good declaration about how supportive you are of those who've been abused.
My approach here is universal. Whether you're accused of child abuse, sexual abuse, drunk driving, or jay walking, you're innocent until proven guilty. I know that's a wild notion. If you want to take all the sexual abusers and throw them under the jail, I'll be there with you first thing in the morning with my shovel, but I sorta need to know the folks we're throwing under there actually did what we think we did. There's that.
What? I thought you were in favour of them showing some class. Anyway, it's not a court of law. He's not in danger of going to jail on the basis of this, so the charge doesn't have to be proved, it just has to be credible enough to make it too risky to allow him on the highest court in the land. You know that already though being a law-talking dude an' all. But let's be real, if he was a lefty, you wouldn't be making these points, so it's not about the merits of how he's being treated but the fact that he's a conservative that's key for you. Am I wrong?
I thought it was "throw them under the bus". You even abuse clichés.
Christ, cry me a river. I even said "they" so you wouldn't think I was talking about you.
Quoting Hanover
That's a crock of laughable horseshit. Franken wasn't convicted and you supported him being dumped for a start. But of course he wasn't a conservative. Plus, suppose someone wanting to be a principle at the local school was credibly accused of sexual assault and it wasn't yet proven. Just ignore it? Vote the guy in? This is kids stuff, H. This is not about your principles, it's about your team.
If he ever runs for pope I hope you'll bring it up at the last minute.
You are wrong actually. This is a truly a big issue for me. I see all this as a system for allowing people to be thrown away and discarded. It's inhumane in a very real way. When the Franken thing first hit, I was supportive of him, thinking that the Democrats were tossing him out with minimal proof based upon unsupported allegations just to be able to protect their base Of course, the evidence was overwhelming against him, and I changed my mind.
Quoting Baden
Quoting Hanover
Now, now, now...
Nope, you don't know me. You really don't. I believe in forgiveness and salvation in the sense that I think that people really can change who they are and become something much greater, and I find it profoundly inhumane to discard human beings to fulfill some personal goal. People are never to be treated as a means to an end.
I would vote against Franken 100% of the time and I'd hope he'd lose 100% of the time. I would not, however, cheat him of his seat and force my guy in to an unearned position by throwing up unsupportable accusations at him. I don't play dirty pool.
I also again find your concerns about me ad hom and therefore irrelevant. But to the extent you continue to offer these accusations, you're going to be further exposed to icky personal data about me.
Feinstein withheld the allegations until it could have the greatest impact. She's no champion for the rights of the abused. She wouldn't have returned Ford's phone call if the abuse allegation didn't have political use.
No, what's inhumane is what your team is doing to Blasey Ford, a very credible victim of sexual assault. Kavanaugh will almost certainly keep his old job and avoid jail, which is more than he deserves if he is guilty, and on the slim chance he's not, he will still be rich and privileged and supported as a martyr by conservatives everywhere. Yet you continue to ignore Blasey Ford, the victim's interests in favour of his And why? Because you always unapologetically support your team Hanover, so the idea that you're being objective here and would have made all these posts defending Kavanaugh if he were a lefty is just absurd. I'm almost even insulted that you would think I would think so highly of you as to believe that.
Just guessing that you find them all credible all the time.
Don't make me say something rude to you BC. I like you too much. Read my posts about assessing credibility, and look at the circumstances surrounding Ford's allegation, her respectable position and so on. If this was some random person who just came out with this, it would be a lot less credible.
I would ABSOLUTELY do the same for a lefty, and if I wouldn't that'd make me a hypocrite. So you are wrong about me personally, but I'm having a real problem trying to figure out why it'd matter logically if I were a hypocrite.
She is a victim, at this point, of an unproven accusation, an accusation that will most likely stay that way. #metoo and Blasey Ford make an accusation and you (you being a very big plural here, not the singular referring to Moderator Baden) automatically assume grave harm was done. Maybe it wasn't.
Okay, let's take a break. You're getting more pissy than usual and you're taking it too personally. This is a true difference of opinion about what justice demands and no one here thinks that sexual abuse is any way acceptable.
Baden, you should take a break and watch an hour or two of funny cat videos on YouTube.
Unless they are victims of sexual assault who get in the way of Republicans plans to turn the Supreme Court conservative. But, of course, you really don't care about that at all, this is all about your principles and your quest for objective sainthood. Look, I accept you're not completely cynical and you're generally a good guy (and I totally resent you making me say that and will exact revenge later) but you are not going to convince me you are not at least somewhat biased here. Which is fine. I've seen a lot worse in this discussion.
Quoting Hanover
A conservative-peddled conspiracy theory. Ford told Feinstein to keep the allegations secret and she did. She did not release them. They were leaked. While it's quite possible the conspiracy theory is true and this was all part of Feinstein's evil plan, repeating it as undisputed fact further undermines your claims of objectivity. Why not give Feinstein as much benefit of the doubt as Kavanaugh? The answer is obvious.
Quoting tim wood
I'm not really understanding this line of reasoning. I'm also not discounting or downplaying the fact that he openly lied before, which would be enough to disqualify him. Anyway, I thought Ben Wittes had a good article in The Atlantic several days ago, in which he outlined why the burden of proof is arguably on Kavanaugh to confirm his innocence.
That was a joke, doofuses.
First I heard of it. When did this come up? Didn't see it on the news last night.
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
He's toast.
I saw it. It's just annoying. It's annoying that it's brought up without any proof at the last minute. What are we supposed to do with that?
That said, BC is a shithead.
From my point of view, I've said I'd reserve full judgement, but thought it was likely he was guilty, but with a second allegation now, I find the chances of this all being made up too fantastical and believe the women. At some point, you have to make a judgment.
Let's not go down the flaming route, any of us. Let this be one highly charged subject where we don't start to call each other nasty names. Amen.
A lawyer says he's representing a third.
https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1044006928416825344
Sorry, I missed it earlier. Well, Kavanaugh and his upper-class friends engaged in a lot more juvenile sexual behavior than ever went on in the State College dorms when I was a student. However, as a college freshman (18 and up) Kavanaugh does have adult liability (I guess... 18? 21?) But it sounds like there will not be solid corroborating evidence in this second account, either: "The Case of the Dastardly Dildo".
I thought women were supposed to remain virgin until married. Is touching a penis as totally contaminating an event as intercourse?
Quoting Baden
Not sure if he's dead yet, but this does hammer several more nails in Kavanaugh's coffin.
What we are supposed to do is to go through an independent investigation (which shouldn't be problematic since the GOP didn't give Garland a hearing for months upon month), or the GOP, or Kavanaugh himself, should withdraw the nomination and they can just choose another cardboard cutout Originalist shitbag that will uphold the laws they want upheld, or strike down the laws they dislike. Otherwise, every decision Kavanaugh makes on his lifetime position will have a very large asterisk next to his name.
Honestly, I wasn't flaming. It's what I really think.
That's a disturbing thought. It would be nice if there was some proof.
Of course it's possible that I am shit head; but it's also possible that I am not. It's probably a matter of your opinion--to which you are, of course welcome.
Quoting frank
perhaps, but you could be lying.
In any event, no law has been broken in this exchange.
This is a whole new level. Kavanaugh and Judge feeding women, who were then gang-raped by men, drugs. If this is true (and it really is just an "if" for now, it's too big not to require further evidence), he should definitely be prosecuted.
The solution is a proper investigation.
Quoting Hanover
I'd said several times before this that I only thought it was likely Ford was telling the truth. So, given I said this:
Quoting Baden
...you are arguing from false premises here.
After you said the above, I've responded to the second allegation by saying I am willing to make the solid judgment now that Ford is telling the truth. The third allegation concerning drugs and gang rape I make no judgment on yet. But if you are interested in the truth, why haven't you been calling for a delay and further investigation? You say he hasn't been proven guilty but apparently have been supporting the moves of Republicans to confirm him before there is any chance he could be proven guilty. There should be a proper investigation now into these claims and let's find out the truth. If truth is what you're interested in, you should support that.
I apologize if I gave that impression by the way with any of my comments. I'm trying to be objective too, believe it or not. I'll use more emojis or something. :rage: (Maybe not that one... )
Quoting Hanover
You don't, but some others seem to think a certain level of it is acceptable or at least no big deal. That attitude needs to be pushed back against.
A former Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Deborah Ramirez told Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker that he allegedly shoved his penis in her face while she was intoxicated.
What do you mean by this?
That's a bit serious, isn't it? Not entirely beyond the bounds of credibility though, social facilitation, drugs, and hormones in a combination that is not unknown in colleges, along with an old-fashioned attitude to women that is possibly more inclined to being conserved by conservatives. The good old days when men were men and women were resources to be protected and/or exploited. My daughter needs protecting, but your daughter is quite good looking and no better than she ought to be. Justice.
"The evidence on false allegations fails to support public anxiety that untrue reporting is common. While the statistics on false allegations vary – and refer most often to rape and sexual assault – they are invariably and consistently low. Research for the Home Office suggests that only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to the UK police are found or suspected to be false. Studies carried out in Europe and in the US indicate rates of between 2% and 6%."
This basic fact combined with the credibility of Blasey Ford's background, previous conversations with therapist, and request for confidentiality are why I tend to believe her. The idea that it's just 50/50 he said/she said is absurd. You actually could just believe every accusation and be right 95% of the time. Better though to look at the context carefully and make a considered judgment. And with every new accusation the chances of this being a conspiracy of lies fades into absolute insignificance. This is why it's so wrong-headed to continue to bat for the accused over the victim or to pretend there's some kind of equivalency of probability there.
Edit: + http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077801210387747
This paper gives a 5.9% false reporting rate for the US.
I am addressing your points. And please recall two things, we have the same goal, and I've invested a ton of my own personal time in serving as a political advocate for crime victims, and was part of a process of changing a major public safety law here in Florida.
You're getting carried away, as is pretty much the entire culture right now, and that getting carried away is a threat to the #metoo movement. If anybody can be declared a victim simply by making a claim, eventually none of the claims will be seen as credible.
Let's assume Dr. Ford is a victim, that her claim is true. She is of course within her rights to talk about that, or keep it private. But if she wishes to use her personal experience to comment upon public policy, she's regrettably gone about that in an unhelpful manner. No police report, no public statements about her experience until the very last minute of a highly charged political decision 35 years after the alleged crime etc.
Whether she is a victim or not we can wish her well, but we can't use her as a model of how crime victims should influence public policy with their personal stories.
Yes, I can agree with all this.
Personally I don't want him on the court whether he lied or not, but that's another subject.
No, if you bully the 95% of claimants who are statistically found to be telling the truth by unreasonably doubting them then not only will more of the public unreasonably think they are liars, but they will be less likely to come forward, and that will encourage more crimes against them.
Quoting Jake
What comments did she make about public policy?
Quoting Jake
The information was leaked by a third party so her insertion into politics at this particular moment was not of her doing. Please familiarise yourself with the details of the case before commenting.
Quoting Jake
No, what we do with victims, if she is one, is provide them justice.
Like I said, you're getting carried away.
I'm an upstanding citizen with no criminal record or other black marks against me, and I claim that Baden tried to rape me 35 years ago during a spring break in Daytona Beach. I have no proof, no evidence. But readers should believe me because I'm a nice guy claiming to be a victim. Given the above, there's no way we can accept Baden as a moderator on the forum, because when he rejects my claim he might be lying.
This is very silly. I already said every accusation has to be taken in context. And the context of this accusation is you trying and failing miserably to say anything intelligent. Besides, I can prove I wasn't in America at that time, and you're definitely not my type. :)
Look Baden, Dr. Ford told her story to her congress woman at the time of the nomination. She didn't tell her priest, she told her congress woman. She wanted her story to influence the decision.
Please come down off your politically correct morally superior high horse and return to your usually very sensible self.
Or, if you are just making a case, much as I might pretend I was Hitler's attorney and make his case, ok, that's fine. But in that case please just state that is what you are doing.
More lies from the rapist!!! :smile: I sure was your type that day on the beach!! Again, you have no leg to stand on here, because I am claiming to be a victim, without any evidence at all, and thus everything I'm saying surely must be true.
Jake, you need to go read the details of the case before commenting. She told her therapist she was assaulted before any of the recent political events. Plus, she asked Feinstein that the information remain confidential.
Quoting Jake
But, of course, I never claimed that. So, OK, this is actually the third time I've posted the below. Can you please read it carefully and try to understand that I am saying any accusation should be analysed in context. Also, please do not jump into threads without reading them. If you want to argue with me, you need to know what my position is.
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
Again, just read. It's that easy.
There's a difference between some anonymous person making a claim on the internet and someone publicly requesting an FBI investigation and agreeing to sworn testimony before the Senate. It's easy to be willing to lie in the former case, less so in the latter.
Ford has already had to move home because of death threats and would face charges of perjury and/or lying to the FBI were she making it up. And for what? To stop one particular conservative from being nominated to the Supreme Court, when he'd just end up being replaced by another were she successful in her attempt? I think her telling the truth is more likely than her being crazy irrational.
You need to stop claiming to be the morally superior holy roller expert on the subject, because you certainly are not. As example...
She told her therapist, but nobody who could actually do anything to remove the alleged rapist as a threat to the public. This lack of action was a public statement that what maybe happened to her was not really that big of a deal.
She allowed him to become a lawyer, a high ranking public official in the Bush administration, a judge. 35 years of opportunity to right the wrong that she perceives. 35 years of opportunity to protect the rest of us from someone she sees as being seriously flawed. A single police report would have probably ended Kavanaugh's career before it ever started, but instead, for 35 years she chose to ignore us.
She had a right to ignore us. But we also have a right to review this record documenting a lack of concern for the rest of us, and find her credibility weak.
She contacted her congresswoman with the intention of her story having an influence upon a major political decision, a fact I see you are intent to ignore. She willfully entered the political process, and is now being evaluated by that process. It's reasonable for people in that process to evaluate her claim as not being useful, given that she brings little to the table other than a claim.
Look Baden, I'm all for crime victims bringing their stories in to the public political realm. I spent a year of my life facilitating that very process. But this is not how you go about it.
As the mod of philosophy forum, and a normally sensible commentator, you should be able to realize that if we accept claims without evidence, then the credibility of all claims are undermined. Such a process is not helpful to the #metoo movement.
If we accept claims without evidence, it's only a matter of time until others begin fabricating claims in order to get money, fame etc, and then nobody will believe anything.
Ford should be allowed to tell her story under oath, not that this will accomplish anything more than boosting TV ratings. She should be respected as a person (unless it can be proven she's lying). But after that, she sucks as a witness, and is basically wasting our time.
She wanted to be anonymous. And she didn't request an FBI investigation for 35 years, thus, from her point of view, putting lots of other women at risk.
But I've said several times already we should analyze all claims in context. The claim itself is evidence of wrongdoing though it's not on its own, conclusive evidence. Other evidence, corroborating evidence, should obviously be looked for. Which is why I think the fairest thing is to have a delay while some investigation be carried out as it was in the case of Anita Hill. I've never taken anything other than the view here that we should neither immediately accept nor immediately reject any claim. I did mention the fact that the vast majority of claims turn out to be true to illustrate how the 50/50 he said/she said perception is misleading. That should be a consideration in any judgement.
Quoting Jake
But then you go to the other extreme and simply reject her out of hand even before she has a chance to tell her story. Why should she bother in that case?
To interpret a lack of action as a statement that 'it was not a big deal' is both naive and incredibly misinformed on at least two levels. Psychologically, it is well known that sexual assault is massively under-reported as a result of overwhelming feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment, and the fact that Ford has in fact spoken about this to friends and psychologists previously, indicate that she's been carrying around such feelings of shame for a quite literally decades. One doesn't go to a therapist and speak about something that happened years before because its 'not really that big of a deal'.
Socially, the intensity of the power dynamics that have to be negotiated in reporting a fellow student at an elite institution are massive. Reporting sexual assault is not going to the DMV and filling out a form. It is to be subjected to intense scrutiny (rightly so, to a degree) and it is to have to relive and retell a traumatic experience (not rightly so). It is being called to account, publicly and procedurally, for your own intensely personal victimization while having to face down the pressures of a judicial and socio-cultural system that is overwhelmingly not staked in your favour.
Finally, the focus of your post in her 'allowing' a predator to advance in his career and putting 'other women at risk' is just victim-blaming in all its puerile glory. The perpetrator puts victims at risk. Not other victims. It takes a certain kind of madness to hypothesize his guilt and, on the assumption that he really is guilty, still place the focus on a victim as the locus of agency. That's absurd.
You have the right to confront your accusers and subject them to cross examination. Any system that doesn't allow an accused to fully (and I mean fully) question their accusers on anything of relevance is unjust.
Corroborating yourself with your own prior comments seems a bit flimsy doesn't it? There was a supposed attempted rape at a party, yet exactly one person has any recollection of it. Am I to believe that a there was a party filled with sociopaths, some of whom were aware of the goings on at the party, but none of whom were at all alarmed by the behavior? No one recalls what would have been an extremely distraught young woman literally running from the party? What have her parents said or her best friends said of that night? Wouldn't someone somewhere have seen or heard something or would have been a confidant at the time of the incident?
So, could there have been a woman silently almost raped in the midst of a party filled with people, with the only witnesses being extremely loyal to the rapist and refusing to turn him in? Yes, could be, I guess, but this approach I'm taking is the flip side of the coin you're taking, where you try to make the other person's story seem incredible.
It's no more crazy to question why Ford would tell her therapist about an incident decades prior that didn't happen than it is to ask how a violent crime occurred in a crowd of people where no did anything, said anything, or can remember anything.
There were only five people attending this party according to Ford. There was only one witness, Mark Judge, in the room where the incident allegedly occurred. It's possible Judge was also inebriated and didn't (or would rather not) make a big deal out of the incident. If neither Judge, Kavanaugh or Ford told what happened to the other two people who weren't in the room, then Judge remains the only potential witness. That neither Ford or Judge (let alone Kavanaugh) would have told anyone is nothing out of the ordinary.
It's possible also that everyone was drunk and all recollections are faulty. It's also possible that Judge is an upstanding person who would never permit someone to commit attempted rape in his presence and would have expressed outrage at the occurrence. It's also possible that Ford was very close to her mother and would have told her of this immediately and then her protective father would have charged over to that house and wrung some necks. It's also possible that Kavanaugh almost raped her, but she got away and the group of childhood friends entered into a pact of silence and she remained too embarrassed and humiliated to tell anyone. It's also possible Ford hates those guys for all sorts of historical reasons and has a vendetta even though nothing ever happened to her.
Speculation is like creative writing. We are only limited by our imagination.
You have moved the goalpost quite a bit, from arguing that Ford's allegations are implausible to arguing that it is possible that they are untrue. But I was merely countering your argument that they are implausible, which was grounded in part on the unjustified premise that the party was "filled with people".
I was adressing the question of motivation - why now? - as are most who (including Ford herself, I imagine) cite this fact. I.e. it makes this less likely to be some kind of midnight hour conspiracy.
You clearly didn't even read Ford's account of what occurred. The rape attempt didn't take place in the middle of a crowded fucking room.
It's a pity that you still haven't even researched what happened and are making your comments, like other supporters of Kavanaugh here, on the basis of an ignorance of the facts.
But what's the probability when a big political decision is at play? Why is it that accusations come out right before someone controversial is about to be elected or appointed? Isn't this accusation from decades ago when he was 17?
I'm not sure that's enough to bar his nomination. Seems to me there are better, more recent reasons to oppose the nomination. Maybe Ford is telling the truth, but the Democrats are definitely using it for political reasons (not that the Republicans are above that either).
Go and research what happened. And you'll find the answers. Or maybe read the thread.
I doubt that. From what I've read and heard so far, opinion tends to break along political lines.
But I'll agree with the posters who said each Senator should weigh the testimony of both and the available evidence, for what it is, and come to a decision.
You're wasting everyone's time here if you don't even know for sure what age he was when this happened or the circumstances surrounding how the accusations were released and the background to that. All the information is available both on this thread and on Google.
Those questions were rhetorical. The one that wasn't was about statistics involving controversial political positions.
This question doesn't make sense to me as being rhetorical:
Quoting Marchesk
There's a factual answer to it. What is your point? If your rhetorical point is the conspiracy theory angle, that's been dealt with several times already in this thread.
Calling it a conspiracy theory makes it sound like politics doesn't involve attempts to smear people or dig up skeletons to prevent them from taking office.
And how it's been dealt in this thread doesn't change my sense that the accusation is being used politically. How do you think the Senate vote will go? Democrats against, Republicans for?
^ Those two questions are rhetorical.
Then why are you arguing on the basis of things that weren't said? You expect us to respond to your false version of Blasey Ford's claims? If you are trying to discredit her claims, you need to be accurate about what she is actually claiming, obviously.
It is, but I question whether humans are reliable enough to count it as evidence. There have been cases of picking the wrong person out of a lineup, or remembering the wrong face where a person gets convicted, and is later exonerated by DNA.
The Steven Avery rape case is one famous one. Another involved a man driving home with his fiancee who looked like the perp and was picked out of a lineup. The accuser became convinced it was him, and he was convicted. Years later, an investigator tracked down the actual culprit and got a confession out of him. The case got overturned.
There was also the whole false memory thing with the recovered memory therapy that was big in the wild 80s and 90s Satanic Ritual Abuse cases.
Of course, it does. But the circumstances surrounding the information's release mitigate against Ford being involved in a conspiracy to "take down" Kavanaugh.
Quoting Marchesk
I agree it's being used politically. But that's not necessarily the victim's fault. And that's where we need to disentangle things and be careful how we approach the issue. Anyway, I think in the end one or two Republicans will vote no.
Agreed. That's up to each senator.
But you demonstrably don't...
Yes, eye-witness testimony is problematic. But again, look at the details of the case. This was someone she knew and went to the same school with. She identified a close friend of his as being in the room, and that person is Kavanaugh's close friend, and a pattern of behaviour with regard to both of them has been identified that supports the plausibility of the "drunken party" situation. With regard to confabulations, that's why I suggested earlier a full investigation including a psychological assessment of Ford should be done. The way to get to the facts is to look for them. The Republicans don't want to do that. Therein lies the problem.
Fair enough.
Do you support a proper investigation then to get at the facts?
The most complicated and convoluted explanation to this is that it's a big conspiracy theory with Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez (and other as yet unnamed accusers) collaborating with Dems to take down a conservative nominee (even though his replacement is likely to be just another conservative nominee).
And there are plenty of other possibilities in between.
How to distinguish? Investigate. Why don't the Republicans want to investigate? Because they know, like all of us, that the simplest and most straightforward explanation usually turns out to be the true one.
This is such nonsense. Yes, I overstated the number of people who were supposedly in the vicinity of the alleged event, and so you may now modify my statement to comport with the Ford's rendition, which changes nothing. An alleged attempted rape occurred in the close proximity of a handful of people, yet despite what I would assume to be a violent event (assuming, as I've never been witness to such an atrocity) there were no witnesses to it occurring or of the aftermath.
Is an "Acquisition" somewhat of a cross between an inquisition and an accusation?
On edit: He now has deleted the tweet and reposted a corrected version.
What a freaking drama queen. Everything is either the best or worst ever for Trump. He gets to appoint another judge if Kavanaugh is "destroyed".
Senate minority leader Schumer said back in January he would "use everything he's got" to stop the confirmation. Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that the Democrats are doing what they said they would and are prepared to throw everything they can at stopping the confirmation?
And why do you trust the single person who has said Kavanaugh was a bad kid when hundreds of women have signed a letter affirming his good character?
I suppose, but I don't know what it would entail other than what we already know. He said he didn't. She said he did. Unless there's a super surprise witness who's going to spring into action and tell us he saw the whole thing, I don't know what else there is. Are we going to look closely into each of their eyes and decide who looks most believable?
The reason they rope off crime scenes is to preserve evidence, but they're like 35 years too late here, and I fear some things might have gotten moved and contaminated. So tell me what sort of "investigation" you envision taking place.
Really? So now you're claiming you're not ignorant of the facts? Then why did you say this:
Quoting Hanover
When Ford's claim is this:
"Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help."
Quoting Hanover
And why did you overstate it? Why did you say this:
Quoting Hanover
When this is what Blasey Ford said:
"The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others."
So apart from Kavanaugh and Judge who were in the room, your crowd filling the party was two people.
"At one point when REDACTED jumped onto the bed the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other. After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me. Both loudly stumbled down the stairwell at which point other persons at the house were talking with them. I exited the bathroom, ran outside of the house and went home."
https://obrag.org/2018/09/transcript-of-letter-prof-christine-blasey-ford-sent-to-senator-feinstein-accusing-judge-kavanaugh-of-attempted-rape/
So where did the party filled with "sociopaths" idea come from? Where did your idea that there is anything implausible at all about her leaving the party without the other two people (who were probably drunk and were talking with Kavanaugh and Judge when she left) seeing her or noticing something wrong?
Quoting Hanover
The claim is that an alleged rape attempt occurred in a locked bedroom upstairs where music was being deliberately played to drown out any sounds. And there were only two other people in the house, who were downstairs.
If you had actually bothered to read the transcript, I guessed you never would have written that post. So, I charitably presumed you were just ignorant of the facts rather than trying to unfairly discredit the story.
The fact that you can't comprehend how the FBI or local investigators could possibly uncover any more facts in this case is irrelevant. If you're interested in the facts of any alleged crime or in justice for either party then you do an investigation. You don't throw your hands up and say because you have no idea how professional investigators uncover facts that maybe they shouldn't bother trying. There just is no other option in terms of getting closer to the truth.
No, because that isn't what he meant. For example, if I say, "I'll do everything I can to stop you beating me in our game of tennis next week" and then you get mysteriously murdered, it doesn't mean I killed you to prevent you winning. It's just a figure of speech. Getting involved in a conspiracy like that would destroy his career and the likely outcome would be just another conservative nominee. More to lose than gain.
I do do that sort of thing myself sometimes. It's a lot funnier when he does it though. :D
Ford's description makes sense. What she describes is pretty common. The simplest explanation is that Kavanaugh has a history of sexual misconduct.
...This is not a serious approach to Ford’s allegations, and senior Republicans have as much as admitted they have no intention of letting Ford’s account factor into their votes. “What am I supposed to do, go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation?” Sen. Lindsey Graham hyperbolized on Fox News Sunday—an unintentionally clear invocation of the fact that for powerful white men, not getting a promotion is what counts as life-ruining. Still, he said, “she should come forward. She should have her say. She will be respectfully treated.” This is contradictory rot.
It’s worth watching, then, how the GOP implodes through the internal pressure of their own oxymoronic mixed messaging: loudly announcing their indifference to a nominee’s alleged attempted rape while just as loudly promising to investigate it. ... On the other side of all this is Ford, whose account has not changed, and who has—after suffering an inundation of threats—had to go into hiding while trying to negotiate with an intimidating and hostile body the conditions under which she will testify. On Friday, the day Grassley demanded she answer him in one of several ultimatums, she was meeting with the FBI over death threats she’d received."
It's hard not to be deeply saddened by the cynicism and misanthropy on display.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanuagh-christine-blasey-ford-mistaken-identity.html
There's at least three women accusing him of sexual assault. Avanetti has stated that he knows of multiple witnesses. His old roommate has also said that "based on my time with Debbie, I believe her to be unsually honest and straightforward and I cannot imagine her making this up. Based on my time with Brett, I believe that he and his social circle were capable of the actions that Debbie described."
And are you referring to the letter Grassley released? It was 65 women, not hundreds. Incidentally, one of them seems to have changed her mind after learning about a rude reference to her in his year book.
You seem to be (intentionally or not) understating the attacks and overstating his defence.
Quoting Hanover
And Senate majority leader McConnell said back on Friday that "we're going to plow through" the accusations to put him on the Supreme Court, so the simplest explanation is that the Republicans are doing what they said they would do and are prepared to throw everything they can at getting the confirmation.
Although like your claim, I don't understand the relevance of this to the veracity of the allegations. Are you perhaps accusing the accusers of being Democrat stooges who are lying to sabotage the confirmation? I suppose I could just as well accuse Kavanaugh's defenders of being Republican stooges who are lying to save the confirmation.
So what's our recourse? How about an investigation and requesting (or subpoenaing) the sworn testimony of all relevant parties?
I think this might answer your question, if it is a genuine question rather than a rhetorical expression of wilful incredulity.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/24/christine-blasey-ford-brave-woman-brett-kavanaugh?CMP=fb_gu
It's no accident that sexual assaults are under-reported. There are plenty of reasons for why victims don't come forward. But finding out that your assailant has been nominated to the Supreme Court is clearly sufficient motivation to speak out.
Could also be that he might be instrumental in overturning Roe v Wade if he's nominated. But there are other accusations, so ...
ROFL. Are you thinking what I'm thinking about Stormy's description of der Fuhrer's mushroom? (I actually think she was trying to get Melania's attention).
What really happened is an after thought now. And the people involved have just turned into pawns.
Poltics is....political. Why lament this fact? It SHOULD nevertheless be relevant what the facts are, despite the political theater. It's still good to discuss what we think is the right thing to do, despite the fog of politics.
I also suspect that the political theater isn't really going to change any votes. If a couple Republicans fail to vote to approve Kavanaugh, it may very well be for reasons of good conscience.
He could nominate Merrick Garland. He's owed a hearing.
Quoting Rank Amateur
Well, yeah. You don't get to pull a stunt like that and just expect no repercussions. What's the point in one party playing fair if the other is going to abuse the system at every opportunity?
There are two levels to this. It may not be unreasonable to suggest the Democrats have made some choices driven by politics (such as failing to notify the entire committee of Ford's original letter). I'm reserving judgment on that, but let's assume they were. Optimizing political gain from facts doesn't imply the facts aren't FACTS. Since there's going to be politics being played, I'd rather it be played this way than by making stuff up (as Trump does..almost every day).
Thumbs up. I agree wholeheartedly.
Appears very credible. And confirms Kavanaugh's alleged pattern of behaviour. No doubt the right will swing into left-wing conspiracy theory mode. But a proper investigation should easily show her to be lying if she is, so they'll be calling for that, right? No, of course, not. They'll be trying to get Kavanaugh nominated as quickly as possible before it's shown beyond doubt that this is true.
His alleged behaviour is consistent with a virgin who has repressed his sexuality.
I went to an elite, boys-only Catholic High School in Houston, and I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn of one my rich, entitled classmates doing what he is alleged to have done. Plus, the cliques stuck together, so it would be easy to get a friend to corroborate an alibi.
Really, you were privy to gang rapes of drunk girls, and the typical assailant was wealthy? Fascinating. Kavanaugh must be guilty.
I think it'd probably be more important to locate the rapist and the various accomplices, as opposed to someone who supposedly was nearby.
It seems you've concluded he's guilty, so why do we need to have the investigation?
Everyone risks perjury if they're found to be lying under oath, so it's doubtful anyone has ever lied under oath except like really dirty looking people who are poor and have nothing to lose.
This topic is about what Kavanaugh did.
Quoting Hanover
You really can't work out the answer to that yourself?
Who's right? It's hard to tell the difference between genuine belief or disbelief versus political expediency these days. Maybe we can never know because of the amount of time between the alleged events and now. I will say the Reps have shown themselves to be especially slimey these last few years so that counts against them somewhat.
Despite there likely being little evidence to corroborate these allegations, a full investigation is the only sane course of action. We should respect the institution of the Supreme Court enough to do that.
Exactly, which is why this is proof that Trump colluded with the Russians.
Another nail in the coffin for the Republican smear campaign / conspiracy theory effort.
I don't know if he's guilty or not. I was just saying that reports of his being a virgin during that period don't carry much relevance to me with regard to his innocence.
IMO, he should not be approved if there's a good chance he indeed did any of the alleged acts. I wish there were more discussion on the standards we'd like to see applied, and less on our personal judgments.
Ah yes, just like the old good times when Obama was President and had his candidates for SCOTUS and the GOP had Capitol Hill.
Make that four with witnesses.
Obvious non-sequitur.
Quoting Hanover
I hope eventually the apparent sexual abuser, who apparently almost nothing will stop you batting for, does get put in front of a jury because with four accusers, conspiracy theories notwithstanding, he very likely deserves to be behind bars.
Yes, that adds some credibility at least. As does the fact that she now has witnesses who heard her specifically mention Kavanaugh as being the one who assaulted her way before he was being considered for this post.
There are plenty of good reasons to vote NO on Kavanaugh without defining juvenile behavior as sex crime.
You are corralling too much behavior and too many people you disapprove of into the category of criminal sex abuse. An adult forcing / coercing a child to engage in intercourse is the classic definition of sex abuse. Rape, forced sexual intercourse by an adult on an adolescent or adult, is another definition of sex abuse.
What adolescents do at parties may be appalling breaches of taste, etiquette, good sense, and more but a boy doing what the young Kavanaugh allegedly did to this girl (Ms. Ford) is not a crime and is not sex abuse. It's juvenile sex play. What should be done about juvenile sex play? What should be done is provide adult supervision. Apparently there was none on hand at this famous party. Is juvenile sex play insignificant? Maybe not -- but it isn't a criminal matter. It's an educational issue: teaching juveniles how to engage -- or not engage in sex -- goes for boys and girls both. Once the juvenile becomes an adult, THEN juvenile-style sex play (if that's what the adult was doing) could be criminal.
Let's save the term "sex abuse" for the real thing.
I'm not trying arguing this on behalf of Kavanaugh. I don't want to see him approved by the Senate. What Weinstein did, or Trump did, or what Cosby did, or what a serial rapist did, and so forth is not what Kavanaugh did.
Be against Kavanaugh because he will probably be a very conservative judge, if you want a good reason to be against him.
It doesn't matter how many people heard her discuss Kavanaugh's behavior. It wasn't criminal when it happened and being brought up 35 years later doesn't make it criminal now, either.
That's beside the point. If Ford is telling the truth, then Kavanaugh is lying to Congress and that's sufficient reason to deny his promotion.
I don't care how many lie detector tests Ms. Ford takes. She can swear on a stack of Bibles that Kavanaugh was not nice to her. Kavanaugh can deny he was unkind to her till hell freezes over. It's irrelevant. EVEN IF she produced a video tape of these clumsy adolescents on a bed, it would still be irrelevant.
Everybody (bar none) misbehaves at times. Everybody (bar none) behaves unwisely at times. Everybody (bar none) has their own memory of what did or did not happen in the past. "His lies" depends on "her truth". No. I don't automatically believe what women say. Sorry. They have to have something more than to just allege men doing things that they didn't like. Even if it happened, it wasn't a crime then or now. And even if it did happen, it still doesn't determine what kind of man he is now, what kind of judge he is now, or what kind of judge he will be in the future.
I'm not demanding you believe Ford at this point. I'm asking you to acknowledge that IF she is telling the truth then clearly Kavanaugh is lying, and IF Kavanaugh is lying, then he ought not to be confirmed.
This is not judging who is telling the truth. This is asking about principles, because principles keep getting blurred by people expressing their opinion about who is lying and who should be believed.
There are four complaints out there now. Only one of them is Ford's and the latest is from 1998. And I've said several times re Ford's accusation already that if he had owned up to it and apologized sincerely, my attitude would have been much more forgiving. But you refuse to listen to me and seem intent on repeating your prejudiced impression of what I'm saying instead of actually responding to my position. Having said that, the idea that what happened to Ford was just "juvenile sex play" is absurd. No-one is arguing that we should punish consensual sexual exploration among teens of the same age. But that wasn't the case there.
I didn't reject her or her claim. I specifically said she sucks as a witness, because she can bring nothing to the table but a claim.
My point is that Ford has now become the poster child for the metoo movement, due to the huge importance of this particular case. That's not good for either Ford or the metoo movement because she isn't standing on solid ground. If the other guy who was supposedly in the room would confirm her story that would change the situation dramatically.
But until something like that happens, the metoo movement is now being branded as "anybody can ruin someone's career just by making a claim with no evidence". That's not good for the metoo movement because it's going to taint all the claims to come in the future.
Think of this case as an important branding moment for the metoo movement. This case is going to heavily influence many people's relationship with that movement, and the players involved just aren't up to the challenge.
Unfortunately, it might well be.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/rape-sexual-assault-ban-frats?CMP=fb_gu
I've made my position clear several times and it's that no unexamined, unanalyzed, decontextualized allegation in and of itself should be the basis for presumption of guilt about anything. What it is is the basis for suspicion. Then you put it context, investigate it and see if you can either dispel the suspicion or confirm the allegation, or at least come to a greater level of certainty as to its truthfulness. A very high level of certainty should be required for a criminal conviction, a lower burden for a civil suit, and for simply being denied a promotion (or equivalent) a lower level yet as the severity of punishment should be to some degree proportional to the level of certainty of guilt achieved (and there should be a critical cut-off point of probability where the allegation is dismissed outright and no negative consequences for the accused accrue. We're not there with this case). Now, that's my position. I'm not going to argue with you about your presumptions about #metoo as that's irrelevant to anything I've said.
One might even be inclined to consider judgement based on the company one keeps...
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/09/20/a-flag-of-underwear-photo-from-kavanaughs-time-shows-dke-hijinks/
The good christian virgin must have come in for a bit of ribbing from his Frat-bros, eh?
Or rather, inconvenient to what you've said.
This type of thing would be less damaging for Kavanaugh if he hadn't done the Fox News Interview where he painted himself as a paragon of purity in a way that's inconsistent with a stream of evidence now being brought forward. The chances of him not being a bare-faced liar even on that score are very slim and that in itself should be disqualifying for a judge.
I'm not part of the #metoo movement, and I don't know much about it or its official response (if there is one) to this ongoing story. Also, it's just a recognized principle around here that we address each other's arguments rather than just say things at each other.
Exactly. It was a strategic mistake on his part to go full pure virgin on this one.
You've been busy positioning yourself as an avid supporter of the metoo movement, whatever you're going to say about that. That's the bottom line underneath all your many arguments. Your intentions are good, and I share your support of metoo. But, your analysis of what is good for the metoo movement is less than fully sophisticated.
You're fighting the he said / she said fight that is consuming everyone right now. My point is that it may not be helpful to the metoo movement to fight that fight unless it can be won in a convincing manner, and that doesn't appear to be the case here.
The enormous scale of this situation is the problem. The Supreme Court is on the line, the midterms are on the line, the House of Rep and thus the Presidency are on the line. And, the claims being made are arriving at a very precise political moment. Nobody said anything about any of this for 35 years, until the exact moment at which the claims would have maximum political impact.
I'm not evaluating Ford's motivations, which I'm not in a position to know. I'm evaluating how all of this looks to the public at large. I'm evaluating the branding impact this event will have on the metoo movement. And whatever the reality of the situation may really be, it LOOKS very much like a political smear job.
Rightly or wrongly, justly or not, whatever the hard facts may actually be...
The metoo movement is now going to be heavily associated with political smear jobs and other agendas which have little to do with achieving justice for victims.
This situation could be radically changed for the better if hard evidence to support the claims could be delivered. Maybe that will happen, and I'd welcome that. If hard evidence could be put on the table then the perception would change to this situation really being about defending injured victims.
In case it matters, I'm a Bernie Sanders liberal geezer hippy commie pinko. :smile: I definitely don't want this guy on the court. I'm not defending the nominee, but the metoo movement.
I don't need any movement to help me come to the conclusions I've come to. It's common sense to me.
Anyway, please quote me from this discussion the parts where:
1) I positioned myself as an avid supporter of the #metoo movement
and
2) I analyzed what is good for the #metoo movement.
Quotes only. And then I'll tell you what I meant by those quotes and what, if any, connection there is to what you said.
Do you see the irony here? You are criticizing those who think Kavanaugh looks guilty because you think they lack evidence other then the accusations. But you think you have the right to characterize these accusations as a political smear job on the basis that they "look" like that to you though you haven't produced one shred of evidence that they are. You see the problem? You need either to produce your evidence or be defeated by your own logic.
No, I don't, because there isn't any irony.
Let's say that I make a very public claim for which I have little evidence. Such an unsupported claim would undermine the credibility of any other claims that I might make. Right? That's what's happening to the metoo movement in this case.
As to all the other stuff, I surrender, you win.
I understand your general point, but it's not a particular claimant's fault there isn't much evidence to support them. And it's not unusual for assault victims to take a long time to summon up the courage to speak. Combine those two facts with only a presumption that the truth should be told and there is no wrong being done here. It might be an unfortunate side-effect of a particular claim being uncorroborated that it sediments a general impression of the unreliability of such claims. But the alternative is the injunction that victims should not speak the truth of what happened to them simply because they might not be believed, which is worse, as the absolute guarantee of not being believed is to not tell anyone in the first place.
So, I find your position self-contradictory from two perspectives:
1) You profess to be worried that sexual assault victims will be not be believed, but you discourage them to come forward except on certain conditions which would preclude many of them of having a chance of being believed.
2) You object to assault victims being believed when evidence is lacking, but you actively discredit Blasey Ford as being involved in a political smear job on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. You say it "looks" like a political smear job. OK, and Kavanaugh "looks" guilty. Where does that leave us?
Three separate accounts, two notorious fraternity memberships maybe doesn't add up to a conviction, but neither does it subtract down to an unsupported claim.
I agree, and didn't claim that it was her fault. I'm making a TACTICAL argument, not a moral "who is to blame" argument.
Quoting Baden
Apologies, but you're not actually reading the posts you are so eager to reject. My point is that this is a huge, pivotal, hyper-public case so it's not in the interest of the metoo movement to fight this battle unless they have a good chance of a convincing win.
However, I readily agree that if Ford sees coming forward to be in her personal interest she is entirely within her rights to do so. What you seem determined to ignore is that after 35 years she's chosen to come forward at a very specific political moment, which is reasonably going to raise questions about her motivation. This may not be a problem for her, but it is a problem for metoo.
Quoting Baden
No, I did not say that.
Quoting Baden
No, I did not say that either.
Without a victory for metoo. Whatever happens in this case some very conservative person is going to be elevated to the supreme court, and the metoo movement is going to take a hit. The first outcome was inevitable, the later was not.
So, you don't object to assault victims being believed when evidence is lacking?
Quoting Jake
So, you don't believe Blasey Ford's accusations are part of a political smear job? Or you have evidence this is a political smear job?
Let's just get those two cleared up at least.
If these claims were being leveled against me, a total nobody, they would have far more credibility because nobody is going to get rich, famous, or obtain political advantage by accusing me. Thus, all those agendas removed, a search for justice becomes the leading theory.
On the other hand, if the claimants had a chance of winning a billion dollars in a court settlement by accusing me, then their motives and credibility would be questioned far more closely because now there are other compelling agendas which MIGHT be motivating them to stretch or invent the truth.
That's the problem we face in this case. The stakes are control of the government of the world's most powerful nation, a stake far exceeding a billion dollars in scale.
The three women may have pure intentions. They may be telling the exact truth. But that's not how it's going to be perceived by a huge segment of the population, for pretty reasonable reasons.
A solution to this problem would be much more compelling evidence, such as for example, the 2nd man said to be in the rape room coming forward to confirm Ford's story. If that were to happen, my concerns are addressed, and the metoo movement's credibility protected.
We're talking past each other. You're intent on having a moral conversation, whereas I'm discussing tactical concerns.
Anyone is entirely free to believe Ford if they so choose, no complaint from here. My point is that the whole nation is focused on this case, and she appears not to be in a position to close the deal, and that doesn't help metoo.
Quoting Baden
I don't know what her motivation is, and neither do you. I'm NOT talking about that, but rather what the perception will be for large numbers of people. Those perceptions of smear job motivation are reasonable, given the highly precise timing of the claims. We're not going to be able to dismiss those perceptions by beating loudly on the moral superiority drum.
The 2nd man alleged to be in the room has already been identified. Do you know who he is? Do you know what his relationship to Kavanaugh is? Can you put those facts together to understand why, if the story is true, he probably wouldn't want to corroborate it? You give the impression of not knowing the basics of the case.
No, they're not reasonable because they are based on an ignorance of the circumstances surrounding the history of the case. Do you know why that is? Or are you going to ask me to repeat the facts that strongly mitigate against Ford's major motivation being to politically smear Kavanaugh? Because I already outlined them.
Yeah, but actually that's bollocks. Whistleblowers of all sorts nearly always pay a huge price, and the higher up the hierarchy their complaint is directed the more they are discredited penalised and so on. One typically becomes unemployable as soon as one makes this sort of complaint, and the success rate in terms of gaining any tangible advantage is minuscule.
But those death threats she's receiving are worth billions. And who wouldn't want to go into hiding?
Um, this has nothing to do with the words of mine you are responding to, but uh, ok, thanks for sharing.
Hey, how about this? Why not stick this whole idea you have that you know what's going on and I don't up your bum? :smile:
What's actually going on here is that I'm trying to fulfill my job as a poster on a philosophy forum, which I see as making a good faith attempt to add something to the conversation that's not already there.
The whole culture is all wound up right now in a near hysterical he said, she said morality melodrama, and some of us here, mentioning no names, are merely recycling the very same melodrama which is already being endlessly repeated on every media outlet.
What I'm attempting to do, however imperfectly, is to add another dimension to the conversation by exploring the tactical angle. Will this event serve the goals of the metoo movement, or will it prove to be an obstacle to those goals?
Baden seems intent that his own interests and abilities ABSOLUTELY MUST form the boundaries of appropriate conversation. He is free to make that case of course, but I respectfully decline to be limited in my analysis to what Baden understands and is interested in. If that's objectionable to any reader, the solution is simple, don't read my posts. I'm fine with that, no problem.
That's bollocks too. An accusation levelled at a person of wealth power and influence is much more believable than one levelled at a nobody, because they are far less likely to advantage the accuser, and far more likely to seriously disadvantage them. You claimed the opposite and you are entirely wrong.
Quoting Jake
Yes, I think I'll take your advice.
You're deliberately ignoring the points I am making so as to argue against assertions of your own invention.
Did you know that you can sue rich people and obtain large settlements if you win? I can assure you that nobody suing me is going to obtain a large settlement.
Yes, one basic of discussing an issue is you know the basic facts concerning the issue. I have no idea why you think that's unreasonable and not knowing what happened is Ok. But fine, let's leave it at that.
Again, up your bum please.
And
"The FBI should have investigated your charges as they did in the Anita Hill hearing, but they did not," Durbin said to Ford. "Mark Judge should be subpoenaed from his Bethany Beach hideaway and required to testify under oath, but he has not."
He continued: "Judge Kavanaugh, if he truly believes there's no evidence, no witnesses that can prove your case, should be joining us in demanding a thorough FBI investigation. But he has not."
Wonder why? Ans: They don't want the truth.
You'll see it on Youtube later. It's brave and beautiful.
“I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media, and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me,” she said, before proving her strength. “Those who say that do not know me. I am a fiercely independent person and I am no one’s pawn. My motivation in coming forward was to provide the facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you can take that into serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed.”
On the positive side when even Fox News can now say this:
Chris Wallace: "This was extremely emotional, extremely raw, and extremely credible... This is a disaster for the Republicans."
The writing is on the wall.
Hurrah!
Unsurprising that he's not taking one then.
It's funny-not-funny that you called it a "trial".
Hearing then. It's what it looks like, so I forgot that it's not one and that there was no formal investigation appropriate for the crime...
Yeah, which is terrible.
It descends into absurdity when Republican Senator Cornyn says her testimony is "fine" but there are no corroborating witnesses... Would that be, for example, because you and your team refused to subpoena Mark Judge, who was in the room at the time, to testify, by any chance?
I need a freakin' drink.
I need a new world that's less ugly and vile, and has more people like Christine Blasey Ford in it.
I don't know how these lizards can maintain the voice of righteous indignation and fairness while simultaneously implying 'You should be grateful that we had a hearing for this' and brushing the other women that came forth even more under the carpet.
She'll go down in history. The lowlifes who put her through this will fade into oblivion.
Let's hope so. The flak machine is going into overdrive.
The mention of his daughter and subsequent emotional breakdown will likely gain some sympathy though.
"Hyphenated Ford listen up. No matter where you go, no matter where you work, no matter where you live, no matter what you do, you will always have a much deserved target on your back. You will be taken out one way or the other.."
Well when two people give radically conflicting accounts of an event and we have no way of knowing who to believe, then sure, the credibility of the participants is all we have to go on. And we base this on their performance.
My take is that (at least democratic) politics has likely ALWAYS been about the spectacle, going all the way back to ancient Athens where sophists trained aspiring young men on how to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of others in order to achieve their desired ends. Politicians are strange hybrid between priests and actors, and our society is becoming increasingly politicized, with a resulting increase in manipulation. I think the cynicism is warranted.
I would like to read Debord's book. All is false may be an overstatement, but "most of life is false" sounds pretty accurate - esp in world of politics. Many better minds than my own have taken such a position (e.g. Nietzsche).
Edit: I originally misread the Debord quote. "The truth is a moment of the false" sounds like an accurate assessment of our world - assuming I'm understanding it. Even genuine sincerity (a redundancy) is viewed with suspicion as being indicative of a shady person working some dishonest angle.
Indeed, in Periclean Athens, leading politicians (including Pericles himself) took part in a kind of spectacle, political theatre. Yet, there was an entirely different regime of truth; direct democracy functioned without the medium of mass media. In Society of the Spectacle, it is absolutely impossible to find out the truth. If you compare CNN with Fox News, you will find the two utterly incompatible (but extremely plausible) versions about Kavanaugh vs. Ford.
On edit: And then, minutes ago, there was an interesting exchange between Feinstein and Grassley where Grassley revealed that he was quite confused regarding the nature of the leaks. He got caught into the contradictions of his theory and fell silent. The Republican conspiracy theory seems to be falling appart, under close scrutiny, but I don't think this is going to have much of an impact on the outcome of those messy public hearings. There is presently a huge rally for Kavanaugh's side on the Predictic prediction market.
That's the Republican spin, but Feinstein was directed by Ford not to release the information and there's no evidence she did. Also, according to Ford, her friends knew about it and word could have got out to the media from there. She had a journalist come snooping around her house just before she went public. We don't know how it got out.
Yes. Grassley was attempting to corner Feinstein, asking her how it might be possible that the press got a hold of the confidential letter if Feinstein or her staff didn't leak it, and if Ford merely talked to close friends about the allegations. But Feinstein told Grassley that the letter itself never was leaked, to her knowledge, and only some of the things Ford confided to her friends did. Thereafter, Ford began being hounded by the press. This is when Grassley fell silent. The Republican strategy to blame the Demograts and pretend not to be hostile to Ford at all was misfiring.
(On edit: Both Grassley and Cornyn were involved in this exchange)
The second from the left on the bottom is pretty much what I envision you look like.
Looks like a pointed rebuke of Graham's hyperbolic and unjustified rant. And an indication he's going to go "no".
It could be read both ways. He may be signaling to Kavanaugh that his forthcoming "no" vote is a prudent statement of uncertainty rather than an indictment of him; or signaling to Ford that his forthcoming "yes" vote doesn't entail that he categorically takes Kavanaugh's word over her's either. He may also still be undecided.
Yes. Good points.
I also believe Judge Kavanugh believes he did not assault Dr. Ford.
These are not incompatible beliefs based on 36 year old memories from teenage years.
which after all this testimony is really all we still have.
I imagine the second from the left on the top row is what you look like--on a good day.
I've posted my picture you could post yours.
The picture is untouched. The brightness is the result of my Transfiguration which was beginning that morning.
I think Ford might agree with you but Kavanaugh wouldn't. It's conceivable that things happened roughly as Ford remembers them and Kavanaugh was too drunk to remember any of it. It's also conceivable that something happened to Ford, in a party where Judge and Kavanaugh were present, which she now misremembers in some fashion. However, Kavanaugh isn't allowing either one of those two possibilities. He is rather arguing that, whatever happened to Ford, he couldn't possibly have been present to the party she is remembering (or misremembering). This is why his take on the events require more of a conspiratorial mindset to make sense of in light of both of their admittedly imperfect memories.
Of course they weren't justified. The ends don't justify the means.
Kavanaugh sounded generally credible, but on the other hand he would clearly have a motivation to lie. His best points centered around his 1982 schedule.
His worst points were his attacks on Democrats. Nothing the Democrats did has bearing on the facts, so bringing this up seemed a deflection that hurts hus credibility. Beyond the question of his guilt/innocence, a SCOTUS candidate should refrain from partisanship, and he should show respect for due process and fact gathering.
Bottom line, based on the limited evidence available, I have a reasonable doubt about Kavanaugh's guilt. However I could not affirm his appointment because there's a sufficiently good chance he did it (>50%), and I think that is far above the threshhold that ought to be applied.
I missed the melt down and Kavanaugh's ranting (heard excerpts later).
So... we shall see what happens next.
Shit happens.
I can see why some people would think I was being insensitive. I do understand that Dr. Ford was psychologically damaged by the assault upon her. Kavanaugh was drunk at the time, and his roommate at Yale noted that he became belligerent when drunk. I've lived with mean drunks, and a guy who is sunny and charming when sober can become a tough customer when drunk. And that's speaking of mature men.
Ford spoke about her own brain development (incomplete at 15) contributing to her trauma. Kavanaugh's brain was also incompletely developed. My understanding is that development isn't complete until 25 years on average. I'm pretty sure my brain wasn't done even at 25. The length of time required for the brain to finish developing is why juveniles are not responsible, and why their finished character isn't set at 17.
Actually shit doesn't just happen.
The long green part has a lot to do with it.
I don't have that much hair even on a good day.
Ok, so you're a cross between Karl Marx and Santa Claus. :100:
New rule. It's OK to flame Karlaclaus. He probably deserves it. :fire:
so true, so true...
Yes, it's consistent with him being drunk and not remembering doing it. And it's consistent with her making a mistake about it being him. However, he paints a picture of himself as almost certainly not even being at that party, and she says she's 100% sure it was him. I think Mark Judge is key. If he was really in the room, it's highly unlikely he doesn't remember what happened. Refusing to subpoena him and ruling out the FBI though make it very easy for him to maintain his denials and almost impossible to fully resolve the issue. It looks most likely we'll be left in that limbo with Republicans quickly voting Kavanaugh through and the public not getting fair closure. Even more polarization and animosity to ensue.
Also related to high-school slang: one Senator asked Kavanaugh about the "Renate Alumni" reference in his yearbook. The Senator was inquiring about the meaning of the expression. Kavanaugh already had apologized to the woman about that. But now he was implying the expression didn't even mean anything of a sexual nature and he was scolding the Senator, disingenuously suggesting that the Senator himself was trying to sully the woman's reputation rather than prompt Kavanaugh to acknowledge (as he had already done when he apologized to her!) that his bragging was rather offensive.
Odd. Never heard of that. Innocent me...
Just want to add here, btw: Whatever anyone thinks about either of the two main protagonists in this case, the sheer scale of emotional destruction caused by this whole thing is horrible. Just on a purely human level, no matter what happens with the vote, this is not going to be a victory for anyone.
Neither had I, regarding the "devils triangle" thing. I heard of it when it was reported that the Wikipedia disambiguation page for this unusual phrase had been recently edited in order to make the definition match Kavanaugh's testimony. The source of the edit was traced to a Congressional IP. So, it looks like a Republican staffer Googled the phrase "devil's triangle", was directed to the Wikipedia page, saw that it referred to a sexual act involving two men and a woman, though this was rather inconvenient for Kavanaugh, and edited it to make it refer to a drinking game instead.
The partisanship seems to be owned wholly by the republicans by refusing to call Mark Judge to testify or to have the FBI look into Brett's moral character in more depth.
Why doesn't that surprise me...
I don't know. I've been very interested in politics, particularly the U.S., for a long time, but the level of poisonous hatred and dishonesty out there at the moment, brought into sharp focus during these testimonies, I find increasingly disturbing. Things are in danger of becoming truly dysfunctional, and I think we need to take that very seriously and do our reconciliatory bit where possible to work against it.
The American Bar Association is now calling for the nomination process to be put on hold, and for the FBI to investigate. And Alan Dershowitz, of all people, is seconding their motion.
:gasp: Woah.
To be fair, he's always been a very loose cannon.
This is really the only way to go. Brushing this whole thing under the carpet now and "ploughing through" is just wrong. Whatever the explanation for this mess, it needs to be thoroughly searched for. I don't see how any fair-minded person could be against that. A simple "yes" or "no" without more information is going to rip the country to pieces and would be little more then a pyrrhic victory for either side.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/27/alan-dershowitz-postpone-kavanaugh-confirmation-until-fbi-can-investigate-accusations-against-him.html
Quoting Pierre-Normand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-MFsRfPoys
Brookes told Cuomo she and “a number” of her Yale colleagues were “extremely disappointed in Kavanaugh’s characterization of himself and the way that he evaded his excessive drinking questions.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale he was a big partier, often drank to excess,” she said. “And there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember. In fact, I was witness to the night that he got tapped into that fraternity, and he was stumbling drunk in a ridiculous costume saying really dumb things. And I can almost guarantee that there’s no way that he remembers that night.”
...
At the end of the interview, Brookes accused Kavanaugh of “blatant lying.”
When he was pressed on this issue, he and the other Republicans appeared almost schizophrenic. On the one hand, they were arguing that the Senate handling of the allegations against him amounted to nothing more than a devious McCartyan show trial, and that the politicized process was more painful to Kavanaugh than living Hell. But when the possibility of a FBI handling of those matters was raised, Kavanaugh was insisting that he was delighted to being subjected to this process before the Senate committee, and that the very wise and respectable committee members were much better equipped for handling those delicate matters than the bumbling and clueless FBI.
So it's quite obvious that for some reason the Republicans are very worried of losing the majority in the Senate and want to confirm Brett now even though the upcoming seats opening up are mostly held by Democrats already and as such that outcome is very unlikely as well. Even if they lose the majority, the process still seems to be that the President proposes the candidate which for the foreseeable future is still going to be a conservative/Republican candidate. It's just not going to be Brett if the Democrats would gain a majority, so it's still not a big loss for the Republicans. It seems tactically and politically stupid from where I'm standing but perhaps I'm missing an angle I'm not considering here.
Maybe the Republicans don't mind so much if it isn't Kavanaugh who gets the seat. But Trump minds very much since Kavanaugh is the only one who asserted that a sitting President can't be indicted and that he ought to be able to fire at will a prosecutor investigating him. And the Republicans are bound not to make Trump and his base too angry.
A very good point! Something's definitely fishy about this. A couple Dems almost seemed apologetic about the hypothetical investigation after Kavanaugh's impassioned remarks on what these proceedings have done to his family and reputation. I'm normally cynical but at one point I was struck by how sincere one of the Dems sounded (forgot which one) when addressing Kavanaugh, imploring him to embrace the idea of the FBI looking into these affairs for closure so they could all move forward with possible confirmation. That was my impression at least - a genuine desire to get to the bottom of these troubling allegations.
Furthermore, his repeated attempts to keep the focus on his many achievements during that time - impressive as they are - seemed designed to distract. Being an exceptional student and athlete etc. does not preclude one from also being a douche who drank too much on occasion and acted (at the very least) like an ass. He clearly tried to create that false dilemma. Sure, he acknowledged his drinking habits, but he did so in a strange way that upon further reflection seemed pretty manipulative. Hard to pinpoint exactly what it was but I do think he had a clear strategy in mind, that this wasn't quite as improvised and "from the heart" as I'd originally assumed.
My amateur analysis as nothing more than a reasonably competent bullshitter.
Would that be a case where Trump doesn't necessarily need that it be Kavanaugh specifically, but he needs that a fifth conservative seat be filled ASAP?
I don’t know if it’s conservative issue.
That's interesting. But this article doesn't make clear if there is anything about Kavanaugh that could lead us to expect that he would decide such as case differently than any other conservative judge.
"It strikes me that Republicans are scared of Ford because she is essentially a class traitor. Two of the accusers whose names we know, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, were immediately marked as outsiders by the circle of old school friends and Republican operatives that closed around Brett Kavanaugh from the start. Deborah was, the Times reported, “the daughter of a telephone company lineman and a medical technician” — nearly a townie, half Puerto Rican, doing her time scrubbing dorm toilets and serving her classmates food while Kavanaugh was, according to his roommate, coating his dorm bathroom in vomit. Julie Swetnick was worse, by the lights of Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep defenders: “Never heard of her. I don’t remember anyone from Prep hanging out with public school girls, especially from Gaithersburg."
On the dynamics of power at play with respect to how nobody is talking about the other accusers at all.
As to credibility of Brett, I decided to look at Brett's wife through his hearing. It's interesting at times but obviously not conclusive. Another thing I noticed is when he's asked on FOX News whether he ever met Blasey Ford; he doesn't attempt to remember or recollect if he does but immediately replies that he may have met her but implies that he doesn't know her. He never looks away from the interviewer, he's totally concentrated on his message which contain obvious lies. I find that odd and unnatural behaviour. Now compare this with how his wife talks in the same interview, she smiles, looks away at times and basically isn't a robot. This is what strikes me about Brett most of his replies and answers, they're not recollections but studied and prepared replies.
That said, I believe his story about the calendars, it's clearly confirmed by his wife's reaction and recollection of his dad are real and one of the few moments he really remembers (and we know what he looks like when he's recalling events). It's one of the few moments he's a human being. In sum, Blasey Ford offered testimony, Brett mostly offered a prepared speech that wasn't anything like testimony.
In total, I suspect Brett was a stupid and often drunk teenager who definitely groped and was too aggressive to women at that age. The Blasey story and the dick-in-the-face with Ramirez seem like the kind of stupid shit "normal" boys could get into, especially as members of fraternities. I'm not necessarily convinced about the gang rape accussations and suspect that if he did partake that he was shit-faced drunk. He probably was present at parties where such things happened. Julie Swetnick's statements are, in that respect, not conclusive as she's observed efforts to spike punch (the goal of which is her interpretation but we cannot know Brett's mind), she saw a line of boys including Mark and Brett and was subject to one gang rape where Mark and Brett were present at the party but nothing that is conclusive that Brett and Mark raped her as well or raped other girls. It's not certain Brett was successful in spiking punch or drugging girls or that they carried it further than groping and forceful kissing. So possible and plausible but doesn't seem provable at this point.
In all this, what strikes me is the casual lies about his drinking habits. To date that seems substantiated by other people over and over again. It's an unnecessary lie and undermines his credibility and that is what makes him unfit for the position in my view.
This is why the Democrats dragged their feet on even having a hearing until yesterday.
In most human situations it's common for there to be one or more memorized group consensus positions which get repeated over and over again. Nobody has the time or ability to carefully think through literally every situation which arises, so we tend to often just pick a side, join a group consensus herd, and then wave that flag. This case seems a pretty good illustration of that, given that the vast majority of us probably had made up our minds on this situation before hearing any testimony, and whatever was said yesterday is simply being used to support the conclusion we'd already come to, based on what social grouping we typically associate ourselves with. This is the way of the world and it's never going to change so we have to accept it and keep on living.
However, this is not the way of philosophy, imho. The role of the philosopher is to examine and challenge any group consensus from the outside, not as a flag waving loyalist of any particular team. Any group consensus by anybody anywhere has the potential to be dramatically wrong, and so the philosopher provides a valuable function by kicking the tires of the group consensus, any group consensus, to see if that group consensus can withstand a determined assault.
Imho, philosophers diminish their role by simply repeating a group consensus being endlessly repeated on every cable TV channel, whatever that group consensus might be. While the polarized partisans chant their memorized slogans in the public square, the philosopher should be looking to explore some angle which is not already being examined. The philosopher should be looking to add something to the conversation.
A philosopher can, and perhaps should, function as an attorney for whatever position everyone else assumes without questioning to be incorrect. Just as with attorney's, the philosopher's own personal opinion is not what's important, but what matters instead is how well the philosopher can make the case that few of us wish to hear.
The current cultural melodrama being examined in this thread has predictably devolved in to the usual flag waving partisan political shouting match with everyone chanting memorized slogans they have absorbed from those around them. Such is the nature of the public square.
If philosophers are not able or willing to transcend these predictable patterns in some manner or another, there's really little to justify their existence.
I have no doubt that someone tried to rape Dr. Ford (she's not making that up), but I have doubts that Brett was the one. Psychologically, it is possible, especially in the case of traumatic events, not to remember who the perpetrator was.
Furthermore, there are some inconsistencies in Dr. Ford's testimony. First, she has asked for several corrections to the written material she had already submitted in the past. Second, she got the advice of her lawyers at all times. Third, she said at one point that there were 4 people in the house, her and 3 boys. Then she said there was also another girl. She seemed confused about the number of people. And fourth, she said they took her in a room, LOCKED THE DOOR, turned the music up loud, and then Brett jumped on top of her. When Mark Judge jumped on the bed, apparently Brett fell on the floor, and she ran away. How did she run away? If the door was locked, and they locked it on purpose, wouldn't Mark Judge who was watching, take the key in his pocket? Would he leave the key there, so that she could somehow escape? And even if he did leave the key there, how come she had the time to open the door, go to the bathroom, and lock herself in there until the two guys came in?
On the other side, if Brett really did do this, then obviously he would not want this to be known, even if he doesn't get to be a Supreme Court judge, because, presumably, his wife and kids don't know about it, and would obviously be very disappointed in him. Brett's testimony seemed more consistent though, and more based on evidence. Apart from the refusal to answer the questions about the FBI investigation, and him getting lost in his words at times, I didn't see something suspicious.
You are assuming that they locked the door to prevent her from escaping. They may have locked the door so that nobody would walk in on them unexpectedly. They were drunk and may have expected, or hoped, that she would go along with their game with just a minimum of duress. Taking the key out might have been an unnecessarily threatening gesture (assuming there was a key at all; it may have been an interior spring door lock that you merely twist or depress). According to Ford, they were laughing a lot. Not all rapes or attempted rapes are premeditated.
It could be. If there were philosophers in attendance.
John Kennedy has a PPE degree.
Perhaps there was a time when this was true. These days, when truth can no longer be discovered or proven using facts, but only created by constant repetition ( :fear: ), the rich and powerful can do much as they like. :cry:
I think we can both agree that "doing as much as you like" (or acting according to your whims) is immoral. Do you reckon the poor & weak have a monopoly on morality? You seem to just be more resentful of those who have worked harder than you have.
I really wish the Judicial branch was entirely independent from all the politics of the other two branches, but I guess that's part of the checks and balances.
Still, it bothers me that Supreme Court judges are often nominated according to how the ruling party in power thinks they will rule on certain issues.
Why do you say such crazy things? I mean, I'll accept that you and your friends tend not to have female friends, but why would it arouse suspicion in you that someone has a personality that simply varies from your own?
As for why it arouses suspicion, it's because the people I have seen who seem to be around female friends frequently, they all tend to be or have been romantically involved with at least a some of them. My issue is not that their personality is different, but rather that I don't believe that there can be, with a few exceptions, relationships between men and women without a sexual element.
Really? You actually think that those who are rich and powerful gained this position by working harder than others do/did?
And have you been romantically involved with some of them? :razz:
Well certainly not all of them did gain their position that way, but it certainly requires a lot of work to keep it. And of course, some of them did gain it. Most billionaire out there, for example, are self-made.
Also, what I meant by working harder, is working harder with the accumulation of wealth as the purpose. If you just work hard with another purpose, say, becoming the best at your craft, then you may not become as wealthy as you could if you worked hard with this as your purpose.
I also have disproportionally more lady non-ex friends than I do lady friend exs!
Yes, so do some of the other men I've known who have many female friends. I certainly wouldn't have expected you to have been romantically involved with most of them.
Not fair indeed. Poor me.
Quoting Jake
Thank you for the good points! I think what deserves our attention and analyses is the situation when both Kavanaugh and Ford acted, played and performed as actors; yet, in comparison with theatre, they played and represented their own lives and biographies. (By the way, while playing a role, is an actor honest?) The real facts of their lives were entirely overshadowed by the quality and persuasiveness of their performances, and most commentators were talking just about who made a better impression. What is important here is not truth itself, but the condition of the whole game, which make some enunciations looking more or less truthful.
That's because your exes were far from being ladies.
A great topic for a new thread.
I agree with much of what you say, but disagree with your assertion, "What is important here is not truth itself". Truth is the most important thing here, even if it is not treated that way by politicians. Truth is non-partisan, and we should encourage our elected representatives to keep that in mind.
It's pretty easy to forget that someone suffered a trauma at the hands of someone else, who in all probability was the person they accused, amid the infinite recession of representations and narratives. Maybe she didn't get sexually assaulted because:
(1) it was a Democrat conspiracy
(2) her memory is shoddy of things besides the event
(3) Kavanaugh was a good boy at school
(4) Kavanaugh lifted weights
(5) Kavanugh put some events he attended on his calendar.
(6) Ford wouldn't present the polygraph results or that bit of counselling
(7) No witnesses were subpoenaed but their testimony was filed on 'on record'.
(8) she spoke to her lawyers at some point while writing her testimony
(9) it's just partisan politics at its finest
(10) won't somebody think of Kavanaugh's children
but really, come on, you can't surrender your critical agency to deal solely with optics in schism from reality. All of these things don't mean a jot, the only salient facts here are that Ford's allegations are plausible and should have triggered a criminal investigation and formal trial.
Unwiring yourself from the sea of representations, bobbing your head above water to scream truth from your vantage. That's exactly what Debord was trying to make room for; how to orient yourself towards the real when everything around you is false, even your own image colonised tongue.
He says it right at the beginning of the book:
As a critic you're supposed to swim against the current, not drown in the representation.
Definitely, truth plays some subordinate role. Debord: “the truth is a moment of the false”.
So, why don't you try to apply all these to the Spectacle of Kavanaugh vs Ford situation?
I don't know what you mean. More words please.
Dr. Ford accused Judge Kavanaugh
Judge Kavanaugh denies the accusation
Dr. Ford named 4 witnesses - who when questioned do not support her accusation
Judge Kavanaugh maintained a fairly detailed calendar/diary in 1982
Judge Kavanaugh drank, likely to excess in 1982 and college
Dr. Ford informed Sen Feinstein of her accusation in July
Sen Feinstein did not share this information with her committee
Someone leaked the letter to the Washington Post, against Dr. Ford's wishes
2 of the 4 undecideds need to vote against Judge Kavanaugh
My conclusions:
I do not know with any degree of confidence if the event took place as Dr Ford testified
Dr. Ford was very credible, and I believe - she believes she is telling the truth
I think Judge Kavanaugh's aggression was mostly anger at the democrats on the committee for how they handled the accusation and partly tactic to align closer to the republicans making is harder for the undecided Republicans to vote against him - and then face re-election.
I believe Sen Feinstein was derelict in her duties in not reporting this accusation to the committee
when she got it.
This delay was for the sole purpose of delaying the conformation hearing as long as possible - hopefully passed the mid terms
The requests for a FBI investigation now are disingenuous against the fact that one could have been done weeks ago - this is just another tactic to delay the conformation, hopefully passed the midterms.
High school and college beer drinking - even to occasional excess should not prevent nominations to the SCOTUS
High school and college beer drinking, even to occasional excess is not proof of anything other than high school and college beer drinking.
This allegation should have been investigated and addressed confidentially when Sen Feinstein was made aware of it
The Politics
This is the most important SCOTUS nomination in many many years. There is a great deal at stake for both parties. The democrats feel IMO rightly wronged by the delay of Merrik Garland. In the last 10 plus years a predominately liberal SCOTUS has in republican opinion has exceeded their mandate and have made social law from the bench. If confirmed in some way or another abortion is at stake. If not confirmed the mid terms will be a one issue election on abortion.
It is Roe v Wade that is on trial -
So because Feinstein tried to use it to her advantage Dr Ford isn't owed the investigation she's requested?
I don't think law enforcement works that way. This has nothing to do with Feinstein or the Democrats. The only things that are relevant are Ford's accusations, Kavanaugh's denials, and whatever evidence or witness testimony can corroborate either party. Let the professionals figure it out and leave the politicians (of both parties) and their agendas out of it. If the Republicans are so sure he's innocent then they can confirm him anyway, with the option to impeach after if the FBI (or state investigators) find sufficient evidence to charge him. Or they could vote against and have Trump nominate someone else.
It he's innocent then what exactly is the problem with having an investigation? Surely clearing his name is a good thing?
Edit: And let's also not forget Swetnick and Ramirez.
Yes, and we are part of the game, which is why I shifted some of the focus to us.
That's part of the checks and balances.
I think they'll probably overturn Roe in a few years. Could Democrats take the whole legislature and amend the constitution? It would be in weird circumstances.
Quoting Michael
THIS. A million times over. Can someone explain to me why this cannot be an option for either side? Why in the world is that not being suggested by anyone on the committee? The only reasoning is that once nominated his seat is secured and no future investigations could remove him. Which seems silly, but maybe that's the case. Can't really understand why this idea isn't being put out there. It is a compromise for both sides. Republicans get the seat through to prevent post midterm shenanigans, and democrats the investigation. If he's guilty then you remove him. Easy. If not then things go as they should have.
I do think it was politically well played to use Dr Ford's accusation at the 11th hour to delay the nomination process. I think as a member of the US Senate, and a member of the judiciary committee , willfully withholding this very important accusation was a dereliction of her responsibility. I also think Dr. Ford had no interest in an FBI investigation of her allegations until she was scheduled to testify, and I am suspect that this position has more to do with her lawyers - recommended by Sen Feinstein - than her desires. I understood her only desire in sending the letter to Sen Feinstien was her civic duty to inform the committee of what she believes is an act by Judge Kavanaugh that would be disqualifying. It should have been investigated immediately by the committee for that purpose.
As I understand it, there is a process in the committee to investigate concerns like these, and that process could have been done, and been done confidentially, if the objective was truth - that could have been done. The objective of this is not truth - it is politics.
Quoting Michael
You have this incorrect - if Dr. Ford wants a law enforcement investigation all she has to do is file a complaint with the appropriate one. This has everything to do with Feinstein, the Democrats, the republicans, Garland, and the most important seat on the SCOTUS in decades. It has nothing at all to do with finding the truth.
Quoting Rank Amateur
I was fairly certain it might have been to find the truth at some point. But to me the biggest tell was the insistence on the delay of the vote and the holding of evidence. You don't do this if you are interested in truth entirely. If you wanted truth you would suggest something like @Michael suggested above or not held off for so long to start said investigation.
I suspect that the Republicans are against the investigation because they're worried that he might be guilty or that it will reflect badly on them in the midterms and the Democrats are against the confirmation because they believe that he's guilty.
His guilt or innocence is completely secondary to both parties concerns. The republicans want to deliver a conservative court to their base in the midterms and 2020, which they will run on. The Democrats want to delay the nomination to the midterms and make all these elections a one issue election on Roe v Wade which they think they can win. That is all that this is about.
It's not silly. Confirmation only requires 51 votes in the Senate. Removal from office requires 67 votes.
Ah, well, guess you'll install an alleged attempted rapist then to make law for your country for the next 20-30 years. Messed up the timing. Got it.
Sad, but true - at least in the aggregate.
The list does little to change the plausibility of Ford's claims, which should have triggered a criminal investigation. The items in the list were in play. It's extremely clear that the items on the list do nothing to remove the plausibility of Ford's claims, and that such plausibility should have triggered a criminal investigation (which would have included the suppressed witnesses).
So: the items on the list are bullshit. They're bullshit extremely clearly. Nevertheless they were in play in the hearing and much of the media coverage of the hearing I've seen. All they do is muddy the waters and try to embed Ford into a bunch of delegitimising or irrelevant stories; to make us doubt, forget and engender passive contemplation of a 'complicated web of interlocking issues'. They did the same thing to Ford in the hearing (as the 'female assistant'/sexual assault prosecutor highlighted with obvious frustration towards the end of Ford's account).
The 'spectacle' operating as usual is exemplified in the second paragraph. Focussing on the interplay of that 'complicated web of interlocking issues' is an intellectual paralysis engendered by the spectacle. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't think carefully about it, on the contrary, it's to say we should think extremely carefully about what the narrative around the hearing serves, what it leaves out, and how it disconnects Ford from the reality she's lived and even the plausibility of her words. To the extent we are invited to see her as an actor in a vast drama we are also invited to forget the truth she spoke.
There's more than sufficient reason for there to be a criminal investigation and trial here. At the very least congress should have had an FBI investigation and subpoenaed all the relevant witnesses. Nevertheless anyone making these points can be drawn into the 'partisan politics' narrative as it disfavours the conduct of the republican congresspeople (which I'm sure Kavanaugh knew, as he used the trope in his defence so much).
The way things are seen is not the way things are; seemings and impressions should connect to what's real, not just stories about it. I mean, here's Debord again:
So reality presents itself within the spectacle, it always shows itself somehow. but:
You end up in a state of 'passive acceptance' if your analysis is solely levied on the level of optics. This is because you grant the framing devices in the spectacle the lion's share of what counts as real. Doing so then means buying a whole bunch of bullshit.
Hell, even the discussion of Society of the Spectacle in this context is largely irrelevant. I just got annoyed at the disconnection you showed from the events; retreating into criticism rather than approaching the event with open arms. Especially on the back of an analyst who hated that move so much he wrote a book about it.
Offer up prayers, burnt offerings, your first born, whatever you've got, that "cost them votes in the midterms" turns out to be a huge understatement, and that the 2020 election turns out to be even worse for the Republicans.
I would not consider it out of order for Trump and his cabinet, and the Republican leadership of the House and Senate to perform hara-kiri on the front lawn of the White House. It would be messy but...
Uh no. They think it will cost them a seat on the Supreme Court.
and as an aside - there was more than ample time for the committee to address this allegation to prevent an unfit nominee - if their objective was to correctly evaluate the allegation - and his fitness. That was not their tactic - Sen Feinstein, unilaterally elected to not investigate this allegations for over a month - If her concern was the truth, why would she do that ? The allegation alone was more powerful at the 11th hour, than an investigated allegation could have been.
That's what I'm talking about. This is obviously a situation where those rules aren't meant to address. His removal or dismissal from the seat should depend on the investigation afterwards, not voting. It would be a healthy compromise for both sides and we be able to get to bottom of things. Instead of the usual stupid partisanship.
The converse of installing an alleged attempted rapist to the supreme court would be not installing an alleged attempted rapist to the supreme court. Which would be nice for all parties involved, I imagine. Bar the alleged attempted rapist of course.
It would also be a psychological question. Children are immature and shortsighted. Even more so if they are intoxicated. If they made a mistake would it be okay to punish them considering they have been good citizens for the vast majority of their life and show no signs of it being an issue?
Maybe he doesn't want his nomination to be pushed back and then post midterms voted out? Maybe that's a concern? Both sides would agree to temporary recognition of the vote while setting up an FBI investigation, if they were interested in the truth. Both aren't. It's all politics. If the investigation shows he's guilty you just remove him without a vote. If he's innocent then just go on as normal. There. Fixed.
This idea that the withholding of privilege constitutes some kind of punishment is one among the more insidiously imbecilic tropes that seem to have emerged in the wider debate.
Why risk the reputation of the court by putting him on it now as opposed to delaying 10 days? Also, there is no process of "reversing confirmation." The remedy would be impeachment. The only reason to rush is to prevent the truth from coming our before he is confirmed.
Because there is no guarantee it would take that long. All you have is their word. Which in politics is useless (especially when you don't trust the other side). In the same way the democrats would not have held onto the information until the last second had they actually wanted the truth. They obviously wanted it to be about pushing it past midterms. What other reason would you hold it? If it passes midterms there is a 100% chance he isn't confirmed because the republicans will not have enough votes to get him there. It's all politics. The other alternative is that he is guilty and he knows it so they investigation would ruin him regardless and he is trying to sneak in.
See my comment on the investigation above. I know there isn't but there should be in this case. It's not a typical case. The fact that we hold so stringently to rules that weren't meant to deal with complex things like this is the problem. My suggestion would be the best of both worlds. Both sides would get something and if he's not guilty the republicans win outright. If he is guilty, well then he didn't deserve the nomination anyways. If there was a way around the 2/3rds majority in this case both sides wouldn't be able to just push politics to squeak out the result they want. Another instance of bureaucracy failing miserably and partisanship winning the day. Wonderful.
Another example just for affect. IF a supreme court judge was found of guilty of murder I feel I could about guarantee he wouldn't get 2/3rds of the vote for impeachment now, regardless of the political party. That's how toxic the climate is.
that right there is the Flake platform - and it has my vote
As an aside - I still find the National Review a valuable read
You really think the Democrats are against the confirmation for that reason? They don't want him because of how he might vote as Supreme Court justice. This is just a way for them to try and prevent it, or at least make the Republicans look bad and gain seats in the midterms.
This is all political, as far as the two parties are concerned. To think otherwise is naive.
From the perspective of political theater, Republicans look stupid for repeatedly saying they couldn't make the FBI do an investigation. Technically, they can't order it - but obviously they could ask the White House to order it, as they are doing.
From the perspective of looking for truth, this is a good outcome. It remains to be seen if there's more evidence to be had.
I hope they bring in Mark Judge. I understand he's a recovering alcoholic. If he's in a 12-step program and taking it seriously, step 8 is a pretty big deal: "Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and be willing to make amends to them all". This could either result in his spilling the beans (if Kavanaugh and he are guilty), or in if they're innocent it could result in some compelling testimony from him if he expresses his commitment to this.
Apathy kills
hahahahaha
Nah, that's just a BS mantra by society to try and shame people into doing what the collective wants them to do. So basically you should vote for the less terrible candidate instead of abstaining or voting for the desired candidate who has no chance to win, because everyone else reaches the same conclusion that voting for the lesser of two evils is the way government ought to work.
It's also an abuse of language. Killing kills, just like power is power, not knowledge.
And if we're going to be abusing terms, then it's not apathy that does the killing, it's ideology. Apathetic people are too apathetic to get worked up to do bad things to their neighbor. It's always some passionate desire to recreate or cleanse the world that inspires the killing.
Passion is what kills. Of course it's the wrong kind of passion, but then again, all things in context. Some philosopher wrote an article in the NY Times about how cats were selfish narcissists except when it comes to their young, but at least you don't see them committing mass murder, since cats can't be convinced to care about that sort of thing.
Anyway, the who-will-be-nominated game that's been played in the last few elections have nearly always been wrong, so I personally don't see the point. I would like the Democrats to nominate Warren, personally. Trump need to lose to a women, or a person of color, or both.
It's the apotheosis of white male privilege.
Yes. I'm glad it's happening this way. We will see how it develops. Hope they bring in Mark Judge as well. Could help get closer to truth. Only when they voice a limited investigation can you hope they'll get it done in a reasonable time. Anything else and politics takes over.
Don't forget apathy
As it is, he looked very partisan.
No, that's so very wrong. We in the Pervert Party have already taken over the White House, and now we are moving on the Supreme Court. And of course it's been proven that we also occupy high positions throughout the corporate world, particularly in important opinion shaping media empires.
Sure, we've taken our losses, it was a shame to see Cosby go down, but these things happen in revolutions and we will NOT be deterred by any setback.
Once our take over is complete, all of us here will be able to publicly shake our peckers in the faces of all those sanctimonious politically correct moral superiority phonies who infect threads such as this one, and nobody will be able to stop us.
You're welcome! Long live the Pervert Party!
This being the justice committee, you might think that they would agree about the suitability of such an expert to ask the right questions, but the partisanship (that is to say the injustice) is so entrenched that this woman is seen as herself partisan so that if she questions the woman on behalf of one side, she cannot question the man on behalf of the other.
Alas, the whole notion of justice is so far betrayed by both sides, that they might as well dissolve the committee and the supreme court both. Justice counts for nothing, and nobody believes in it.
Is it really curious though? How many participants in this thread seek the truth rather than a chance to express their pre-manufactured opinions in the pithiest way possible?
Maybe in a few decades the machines will be ready for us to hand such matters over to them. I can't remember which book it was, but I'm thinking off quote about how certain decisions are too important for humans to be trusted with, like running a country or interpreting law.
I don't think these are alternatives. I'm not sure about others, but I tend to think my opinions are true, and when I stop thinking they are, I change them. This is surely how a committee or a thread should function, that we express our opinions and test them against each other, being open to persuasion. The question is whether one is open to persuasion, not whether one has an opinion.
What persuades me most is a mixture of facts and my own poor logic. I don't trust your genius.
But my method, which may just be a product of temperament, requires that i spend a certain amount of time just not knowing: waiting for a scenario to ring true.
I think the adverse effect of strong opinions on my process is obvious.
Anyway how does your temperament work?
Yea!! :up:
Perhaps Frank's point was that we have little evidence in this thread that anyone is open to persuasion. And so it is in the Congress as well. Because we're all human beings. Politicians are a mirror of the public, and we don't like what the mirror reveals, so we yell at the mirror.
Eliezer Yudkowsky calls democracies vote-maximizing systems, which isn't what was intended, but it's what ends up happening.
The problem I have with US democracy is that only two parties matter, the Electoral College is outdated but will take a constitutional amendment to remove, which senators from the lower population states will never approve, large amounts of money are spent on campaigns, both parties are heavily influenced by big business, gerrymandering is a thing, and Supreme Court nominations are hugely political because everyone is worried about how the nominee will swing the court on a few key issues.
Also, debate between the two parties that matter has turned into a feces throwing contest presented in terms of good versus evil. Granted, the Republicans are more to blame for the debate degrading so much, particularly their media apparatus. But it has proved to be a working strategy, as was obstructing the Obama administration, so we can look forward to a downward spiral of that from both parties in the future.
It is amazing how the virtue of Senator Feinstein is being used against her cause. Let us review the facts:
1. After consulting with her friends, Dr. Ford herself anonymously tipped the Washington Post and sent her letter before Kavanaugh was selected -- showing it was not a general attack on any nominee, but an attempt to avoid the selection of such a flawed candidate.
2.Senator Feinstein was asked to hold Dr. Ford's Letter in confidence. Despite the fact that it would have been to her party's political advantage, she did so. There is no evidence that Doc Ford's letter was ever leaked. Thus, Sentator Feinstein acted with virtue.
3. Reporters got wind of the story late (possibly from a friend of Dr. Ford) and it was only as a result of the news accounts and the press showing up in her classroom, that Dr. Ford finally agreed to make her name known and allow her letter to be released.
Thus, there is no factual basis for the late hit conspiracy theory.
Quoting yatagarasu
You seem not to understand the American electoral system.
1. The last time I looked, the Republicans had a 70% chance of retaining control of the Senate.
2. Even if they lost control of the Senate, the new Senate would not begin until January of 2019.
3. After the elections, there would be a lame duck session of congress giving the Republicans also two months to work their will.
Quoting yatagarasu
1. As i explained above, there is no evidence that the Democrats leaked Ford's letter. So your premise is questionable at best.
2. As I also explained above, the motivation you offer makes no sense as the Republicans will maintain the majority in the senate until the end of 2018.
3. Could it not be that some Senators take their constitutional duty to advise and consent seriously and want to have the best available information?
There are still members of congress willing to work across the aisles. Sadly, Senator Flake was forced to retire by his party because he has broken discipline in the past.
There is nothing I know of that would have prevented sen feinstein from informing the committee and immediately using the existing investigating ability of the committee to conduct a confidential investigation of these charges 45 plus days ago when she received the letter. Any belief that holding that letter was anything other than to use it politically is naive.
Nothing except Senator Feinstein's honor and virtue in following the request of Doc. Ford that her name not be disclosed. In order to have an investigation, the investigators would have to know who was leveling the charges.
Do you have some means of magically investigating the matter without knowing the name of the accuser?
Yes, if Senator Feinstein put partisan advantage above honor, she could have violated Doctor Ford's request that her name not be used. Remember, the request was not that her name be kept "out of the press," it was that it not be used at all. While many may have violated Doctor Ford's confidence, Senator Feinstein chose not to. I find both their actions commendable.
Independently of judicial philosophy, man who lies with such frequency and facility, even when given opportunities to correct himself, has no place as a judge on any court, let alone the highest court in the land.
Perhaps it was his point, and perhaps it's true. I wonder what you or he would count as evidence? One could obviously count anyone admitting they were wrong, or visibly changing their opinion, but although I am both right in my opinion and cogent in my exposition, and you are open to persuasion, yet you may not be persuaded. Still, if you engage and respond, if you at least offer a counter to points that are raised, that would count for me. Whereas if you ignore different opinions or respond with diversions or insults, that would be evidence against open-mindedness. I think I've spotted some of each in this thread, but not so much of the former in the committee.
I am sorry, but I see no case for equal blame here. I see one side asking for a full and impartial investigation and a release of all relevant documents, and the other hiding documents and (before Senator Flake's courage) refusing to allow an impartial investigation by the agency most experienced in these matters. So, if you have a case for equal blame, lay it out. If not, do not make such claims.
You may well be right on that score. I'm not really competent to judge the background behaviour, only the couple of days of hearing I have followed. It does seem to me though that it would have been worthwhile having the sex crime prosecutor question Kavanaugh, since he was alleged to be a perpetrator, and it was open to anyone on the committee to allow that. That she was brought in and not used in this even handed way, seems to indicate that either she was partisan, or she was assumed to be partisan. If she wasn't partisan, but was being used by the Republicans as a fig-leaf, it would have been sensible and possibly very effective for the Democrats to use her to interview Kavanaugh. If she was partisan, then the whole thing was a charade, what we totalitarians call a 'show trial', in which everyone who participated is to blame, except Ford, the political prisoner.
In other words, I'm doing my best to be charitable to 'the other side', while really not thinking much of what has gone on.
Yes, she was a partisan hired by the Republicans on the committee to avoid the appearance of a panel composed only of male Senators trying to undercut the credibility a female victim. By denying her request for an investigation before her testimony and by refusing to subpoena, or even to allow, any other witnesses, the Republicans hoped to pit an inexperienced housewife against a trained lawyer -- effectively having a show trial. That plan was ruined when she turned out to be very credible, and Kavanaugh very evasive.
I'm with Trump on that, not merely evasive, "Kavanaugh's testimony was 'incredible".
Are US prosecutors routinely partisan in their case management, or is she a notorious exception?
No, though many have political ambitions, they are usually not political in their prosecutions. There is a systematic bias against poor defendants, as they have over-worked defense counsels assigned by the government at no cost to them. These public defenders typically press poor defendants to avoid a trial by pleading guilty in return for a lower sentence. Defendants who can afford their own layers do better. This is not political, just one of the many hardships of being poor or advantages of being wealthy.
You need to remember that though Rachel Mitchell is prosecutor for a county in the State of Arizona, she was not working in that capacity at the Senate hearing, but was being paid by the Senate Republicans. So, she did not need to conform to the ethics required of her as a prosecutor. She was just a lawyer hired to ask questions for the Republicans.
The voters of the United States elected as their leader someone for whom there is even more evidence of sexual misconduct. The democratic process has devalued personal morality, dignified demeanor, the protection of women, and prioritized other concerns. The people have spoken. Trump is just doing what he was elected to do.
Long live the Pervert Party, we are on the march!
The process was not designed to be just, nor was it designed to discover the truth. The process was designed to allow Senators, by whatever method they should choose, to select a Supreme Court Justice. Legislators answer to those who vote for them, and so those who feel that Kavanaugh will benefit their voters do what is needed to approve him and the others the opposite.
Had this been designed to find the truth and to determine justice, we'd have neutrals considering the issue. We'd have rules as to what counted as evidence. We'd have rules that might exclude juvenile indiscretions. We might have rules that require open exchange of evidence prior to any hearing, with exclusion the result of withholding. Fairness requires consideration by those without benefit by their decision. Fairness requires all sorts of procedural rules. In this instance, we don't even know how hefty the burden of proof is, whether it is preponderance, clear and convincing, or beyond a reasonable doubt or even something lesser. The inquisitors aren't even required to ask questions, but are permitted to offer their conclusions and express their outrage when they see fit as the witness looks on and wonders when the next question is forthcoming.
My point here is that nothing is betrayed. Rendering verdicts is the interest of judges and courts, not legislators and legislatures.
Who can blame a Senator for refusing to be a neutral when she is charged with protecting the interests of those who elected her, especially when the US system allows 5 unelected philosopher kings to steer the nation as they see fit? The stakes are so high and the rules so uncertain, who would expect anything other than the free for all we're seeing?
Quoting Dfpolis
Everything @Rank Amateur said. I don't consider someones honor a worth argument most of the time. Especially when I doubt you'll give the same courtesy to many of the republicans. From a political perspective it is too convenient that her "virtue" lines up with waiting until the last second. Your argument could be right but I'm doubtful.
Quoting Dfpolis
I think they are probably going to lose the seats necessary for pushing a candidate through. Good point on the lame duck session though. I wasn't aware they could push nominees through at that point. If they are able to it will make much of their "waiting for the last second" argument mute. This also depends on if they could get the nomination through in those 2 months.
Quoting Dfpolis
1. Yes, there is no evidence. More going with my political sense. Senator Feinstein seems honest but it doesn't mean all of her party members are. : )
2. Well said. Thanks for correcting me.
3. Yes, that is possible.
Hopefully the investigation helps clears up some of this mess.
We need to rely on evidence, not conspiracy theories The facts, which I have enumerated previously, do not support your view. There is no evidence that Dr. Ford's name was leaked by the Democrats. It is clear that her letter was never leaked.
.Quoting yatagarasu
The schedule is completely in the control of the Republican administration and Senate. They have about 90 days at this point. The average time for confirmation is 67 days.
Let us hope that the truth becomes clear.
Yes, that is clear, as to the process, it is a job interview not a court room. But in that case, there is no reason to be overly concerned about corroboration. You get a credible negative reference, you don't ignore it and make the job offer when there are other qualified applicants.
Quoting Dfpolis
Oh, if she was paid by a party and not the committee, that is more understandable. Bias against the poor and powerless is almost inevitable whatever the process. I wonder why the democrats didn't think to hire their own female prosecutor, then? I suppose they thought they were competent to do the job themselves, and didn't need the fig-leaf of gender equality...
Anyway, it comes to this; a credible complaint of sexual assault has been made, and is being ignored or dismissed in favour of party politics to the detriment of the justice system, by a committee whose only job is to preserve and enhance justice. Personally, I would not consent to serve on such a committee, and lend it any legitimacy. And that at a time when sexual offending by people in power is being exposed and talked about as never before.
Exactly.
Here's how it works in the real world. 99% of those who attended the meetings would shake their fist at the politicians and demand that "Somebody needs to do something about this!" But that somebody was never the speaker (except in a small number of cases). That somebody was almost always somebody else, anybody other than the person making the big speech from the audience.
We had something for everyone to do, obtain signatures on a petition which was designed to change the state constitution. We had a petition table out in front of various stores most weekends, anybody could come and help. Few did.
What I learned from this experience is that anybody who gets elected to even local political positions soon becomes realistic about the "full of crap" nature of the public. The public shouts their full of crap slogans at the politicians and the politicians politely return more full of crap back to the audience. Once a lot of crap has been exchanged, and everybody goes home, nothing having been accomplished. If the media is present the full of crap goes full volume, because everybody likes to be on TV.
Almost all of us are full of crap on almost all issues, and some of us wind up running for office so that we can get paid to be full of crap. It's the human condition. Don't expect a fix any time soon.
The biggest meeting we ever had was covered by a national TV show. So naturally, everybody wanted to be part of that and we had a big crowd. This sheriff from a neighboring county somehow wound up on stage and gave a fire breathing table pounding speech in support of the cause. He was spouting fire and brimstone like a Biblical prophet. Very impressive. All filmed by the national TV show.
I'd never met this sheriff because he was from out of our county. But I thought to myself, "This sheriff is an important new asset to our cause, I need to see how we can work together."
So I approach him in the parking lot after the meeting and introduce myself as the organizer of the meeting. He looks me straight in the eye at close range and tells me to, "Get #$%% lost", and then turns his back on me and stomps away.
Darn, where are those TV cameras when you really need'em? :smile:
Indeed, and so we have the notion of holding to account, whereby we like to show folks their crap and rub their noses in it. In this case, the cameras were there, and despite the 'what do you expect' attitudes, I expect my representatives to be honest, diligent, and servants of the nation, and I reserve the right to be pissed off when they are not. That man was not fit to be sheriff, and this man is not fit to be supreme court judge. People that know that, but acquiesce in their appointment are traitors themselves to the fundamental principles of government, whether by philosopher kings or democratic representation. It is not ok to appoint another arsehole because there are already a lot of arseholes appointed.
"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Dylan Thomas. (no relation)
Everyone everyone takes for granted that Ford was an assault victim. My personal impression from the hearings is that her story has been fabricated from scratch. And here are my reasons.
1. The woman claimed she feared traveling by air and the Senate had to postpone the hearings. But at the hearings it turned out she had traveled a lot by plane to remote places such as French Polynesia.
2. Ford named 3 witnesses all of whom failed to recollect the party.
3. She was convincing answering Democrat's questions but whe asked by the prosecutor she couldn't remember how she got home located 8 miles from the assult place. The impression is Ford had no difficulty giving prepared answers and experienced evident difficulties answering prsecutor's questions that she could'n forsee.
4. When asked who paid for the poligraph test she failed to give an answer. Her attorneys explained they paid for it. What else was she paid for?
5. Ford is an experienced psychologist, she has command of special methodologies that help her to stand public pressure, questionings and interrogations .
5. Ford benefited from the K-case. She has become a celebrity and aquired a nation wide popularity.
Now suppose these my conjectures are true and the FBI investigation will reveal the whole K-case is a sham. What will the ramifications be? American political system will be dealt a mortal blow. And it is common knowledge that the most influental person in the world who hates America and has demonstrated intentions to destroy it is Russia' Putin. Hence the conclusion: Christine Blasey Ford is Putin's agent, and the Kavanaugh case is Russian conspiracy.
The Democrats have two women Senators on the Committee and so have no need for a fig leaf. One of the women and several of the men are former prosecutors and pinned Kavenaugh on at least four lies, and made it clear that he did not want an FBI investigation. I should note since the advent of Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1937, no outside counsel has been called in to question a witness before. The last time outside counsel was used to question witnessesin a committee hearing was Watergate.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes. The reason the Dems serve is to have access to the evidence and a voice in the proceedings. Also, it was Senator Coons' (Dem., Delaware) closing statement (along with a face-to-face with two sexual assault victims) that caused Senator Flake (Rep. Arizona) to demand the FBI hearing we finally got. So, while it is dirty business, giving up is not the answer.
Quoting Dfpolis
That isn't the argument. It is that the information was withheld to push back the confirmation. That all comes down to the "virtue" of Senator Feinstein vs political gamesmanship. I believe in the gamesmanship aspect because it is convenient. Your "virtue" argument is just as much of gut feeling. Whether her name was leaked or not is not my point. They could have held it with no intention of leaking and it would still benefit them. It's not like there was any chance this would have been released after the vote.
[quote="Dfpolis;216580"]The schedule is completely in the control of the Republican administration and Senate. They have about 90 days at this point. The average time for confirmation is 67 days.
Let us hope that the truth becomes clear.
Yes. Especially if the candidate was nominated in July.
Yes. Let's hope!
So, now Dr. Ford is being blamed for overcoming her fears? Whether of not she is afraid of flying is totally irrelevant to her testimony.
Quoting Proto
Would you recall a gathering 35 years ago in which nothing special happened to you? Remember, this was not even "a party" -- as Dr. Ford testified. It was a gathering before a party to take place later.
Quoting Proto
I suggest you read up on the memory of traumatic events -- after all, this is supposed to be a philosophy forum.
Quoting Casa Palmera Staff
[quote="Sven?åke Christianson & Elizabeth F. Loftus, "Memory for traumatic events" App. Cog. Psych. (1987) 1:4, 225-239) ;https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acp.2350010402"]These results suggest that some information (the essence, the theme) of a traumatic event might be relatively well retained in memory, while memory is impaired for many of the specific, and especially peripheral, details.[/quote]
[quote="Martin A. Safer, Sven?Åke Christianson, Marguerite W. Autry, Karin Österlund, "Tunnel memory for traumatic events" Appl. Cog. Psych. (1999) 12:2, 99-117;https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199804)12:2%3C99::AID-ACP509%3E3.0.CO;2-7"]when subjects are negatively aroused by a scene, they process more elaborately those critical details that were the source of the emotional arousal, and they maintain or restrict the scene's boundaries. ‘Tunnel memory’ results from this greater elaboration of critical details and more focused boundaries. Tunnel memory may explain the superior recognition and recall of central, emotion?arousing details in a traumatic event[/quote]
Quoting Proto
What relevance does this have to her credibility? I see none. Obviously her lawyers, before taking on a pro bono case, wanted to know if their prospective client was telling the truth. What is relevant is not who paid for the test, but that she passed it.
Quoting Proto
You must not have watched her testimony. If sh had access to such methods, she needed them. I heard a notable increase in the tension of her voice as she recalled the attempted rape itself, compared to the rest of the testimony.
Quoting Proto
So, you see it as a net positive to have death threats to you and your family and have to move twice -- something you would gladly do.
I must say that this is one of the most biased and unreflective analyses I have read on this forum. I suppose it comforts you, but it does little to convince anyone approaching the case with an open mind.
1. It is common for people with fear of flying to fly (see: this)
2. No one remembers every gathering they ever attended, not if there's a number of them of similar inconsequence to them. All we know is that the gathering was small, not a big party, and it may have involved swimming.
3.No one remembers every detail of significant events, but we do remember the most impactful parts. I remember an altercation I had with a kid when I was 10 - he was bigger and stronger, and pinned me to the ground. I remember no details other than who it was, roughly where we were, and most strongly: the panic I felt due to being unable to move.
4. Are you alleging, without evidence, that she was paid to make up the story? Dismiss the polygraph as evidence, if you like, but then it's just less evidence she telling the truth, not evidence she's lying.
5. Being a psychologist doesn't prepare you for an acting performance. Did she seem insincere, or did project vulnerability and fear?
6. Benefitted? She originially wanted to remain anonymous.
Personally, I am convinced she is not lying - that she experienced the assault she described. I am a bit less confident that it was Kavanaugh.
As this is a philosophical forum can anyone tell about possible ramifications of Kavanaugh case for the USA and the the world on the whole?
Yes, but it would be nice to have evidence and a rational argument instead of a series of irrelevant and unresarched points.
Has anyone corroborated his definitions, by checking with other contemporaneous attendees of his prep school? (I expect his friends will back him up, so we'd need to hear from people who weren't in his circle).
National politics have always been played for high stakes, but at certain periods in the past the game has been played with better acting than it is being played now. Thinking back to the SCOTUS nominations by the much hated Richard Nixon, Warren Berger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, and William Rehnquist, for example. Nixon did not nominate extremists to the court. Reagan's appointments weren't scandals either -- Reagan elevated Rehnquist to CJ, and added Sandra Day O'Connor and
Antonin Scalia.
For that matter, consider the Watergate Hearings (40 odd years ago) which led to Nixon's resignation. The subject (Nixon) engaged in skulduggery and covered up as much as possible (the fatal mistake). The investigation, however, was was quite orderly and civil.
Compare all that to Kavanaugh's furious partisan rant after the Ford testimony.
We are not going to know for sure (100%) what happened, who did what to whom, who did or did not witness what, and so on. What we do know is that under pressure, Kavanaugh turned more than a bit vicious. Not a good thing for a potential SCOTUS justice to display. Not a good thing for an appellate judge to display, for that matter.
Amen
Dfpolis
You stubbornly ignore two facts that show the woman is false.
1. She traveled by air a lot for entertainment purposes visiting many remote countries as she writes in her cv.
2. When invited to the Senate hearings she refused claiming her fear of planes. Only under pressure or for money, I don't know, she agreed to fly to Washington.
That's true.Quoting Bitter Crank
I recall when Bill Clinton was first elected. I was taking a class. Two of the Republicans in the room refused to give him a chance. That just seemed like ugly tribalism to me, and a lack of respect for the presidency. The radio and news programs catering to the right since then has been equally tribal. It's not surprising when the left responds in kind.
Not surprised an "orginalist" would re-interpret past definitions in order to advance his own interests.
Kavanaugh outright lied. May have been better for him to admit that he had a drinking problem in his youth than he was able to overcome, but instead he lied under oath.
Excellent, one of the dumbest things I've read all week, and there was some serious competitors. Congrats.
1 week is hardly enough. Especially considering how hard it is to establish sufficient evidence for 'beyond reasonable doubt' in cases like these. Congress would not have given the concession were it likely at all to do anything but prove Ford's allegations as unprovable. It looks like a concession for fairness, and it manages the optics a little, but there's no way it would have been granted were it not almost certainly going to exonerate that dumpster mouthed lizard and his rat bastard coworkers.
From the start the request for the FBI investigation was about delay not truth. Very predictable.
For some Republicans this is the chance of a lifetime to shoot down Roe V Wade. For all Democrats, this is the chance of a lifetime to save Roe V Wade and all the girls who will die from botched abortions without it.
Her claims are already vindicated by her credible testimony. Has any Senator accused her of lying? Even Trump didn't do that after her testimony (although he did BEFORE the testimony). Kavanaugh has even said that he's not questioning that she had been assaulted, he just denies being the one. (rank and file folks calling her a liar just reflect on their own partisanship, not on a careful evaluation of evidence).
So the only outstanding question is: is she correctly remembering who did it? There was only one other person in the room: Judge. He will deny it, and that won't really tip the scales toward Kavanaugh, because (if guilty) he's not going to admit it.
It would be helpful if someone remembered being at a gathering at a house that included both Ford and Kavanaugh, but that seems unlikely since all the named people have said they have no recollection. If it happened, this implies it was not a big, memorable event - maybe just a few folks went to someone's house to use their swimming pool (Ford says she was wearing a swimsuit), somebody brought beers, and ...you know, drunk boys will be drunk boys (paraphrasing some prior excuses that have been made).
I meant vindicated by the standards of her detractors.
'Half-assed' is an understatement. It will be hundredth-assed. The scope of the investigation is defined by the White House while "White House counsel Don McGhan, who is the administration's leading advocate for Kavanaugh's confirmation, is overseeing the probe for the President and working closely with Senate Republican leaders." -- CNN's Ariane de Vogue, Dana Bash, Evan Perez and Kevin Liptak.
They've already decided that Kavanaugh's drinking history isn't part of the probe at all. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed what he views the proper scope of the probe to be: "They're going to Mark Judge, did you ever see Brett Kavanaugh drug women or engage in gang rape. I think that's going to be the focus of it."
I don't know what influences it, but naming patterns vary over time. Some pundits referenced Obama as "Mr. Obama" and others as "President Obama". George Bush got "President Bush" or "George Bush" quite often. Trump gets "President Trump" and "Trump". Some women use three names, most two. Some men use three names too. Black professional women use 3 names more often than white professional women, seems to me.
Several decades ago (40, 50 years) and further back, naming patterns were much more regular -- that is my impression. I never heard anyone refer to "Mr." Kennedy, for instance, or "Mr." Eisenhower. (Eisenhower could be addressed as President or General.) Kennedy was always "President Kennedy" (except in headlines where it was often "JFK".
People always referred to Secretary of State Dulles as "John Foster Dulles". The economist was always "John Maynard Keynes". What, were there so many John Dulles secretaries of state and "John Keynes" economists that one needed to use the middle name to distinguish them???
How many Ginsbergs are on the court, Ruth Bader?
And if Kavanaugh's busy ugly little Irish prick failed to find its way through Ms. Ford's various layers of clothing, wouldn't that be "attempted rape" and not "rape" accompli?
I ask the question because some papers have decided to call it rape, and in the case of Ramirez, an assault (not that it makes much difference).
I don't know what all they will investigate, but from the POV of the administration, the less of a fishing expedition the better. Very few people's reputations could survive a thorough open ended investigation. People who have led interesting lives generally have skeletons in the closet -- sometimes a whole attic full of skeletons. Not criminal evidence, just embarrassing, compromising, inelegant history.
A little thought always helps. How does the fact that she does fly show that she is not afraid of flying? How does the fact that she would rather fly to a place of enjoyment than to a place of trial show that she is not afraid of flying?
And your evidence for this is? As I have pointed out, a few days delay is not a high price to pay for the chance to resolve doubts.
Anyone who believes that the democratic objective is anything other than to delay confirmation until after the midterms is naive.
There is way to much at stake with this particular seat.
I don't doubt that's an adjacent objective, but it nevertheless takes a backseat to the fact that 1) the attempted rape allegation is credible and requires investigation, and 2) Kavanaugh brazenly lied multiple times under oath.
Besides, Congress doesn't suddenly change on November 7th. Republicans have until January 2019 to "plow through" the nomination and install Kavanaugh, which they will no doubt attempt to do, regardless of outcome on November 6th.
Their move is certainly effective. In the wake of the news of the tight grip that the White House is determined to exert on the investigation, the shares for Kavanaugh's being confirmed, on the Predictit prediction market have jumped up 10 points (from about 61 cents to about 71 cents). The reason they still remain as low as 71 cents, I conjecture, is because there is an expectation that the ambivalent Senators (Flake, Collins and Murkowski) might still vote "no" if they will feel the FBI investigation to have been a sham despite Kavanaugh having been "cleared".
The democratic drive in stalling until the midterms is to make all the races a single issue election on abortion. "If you don't give us a democratic house - roe v wade is gone". If the American people respond that way, they will make the same claim as the republicans did on Obama's lame duck nomination.
Lol that's demonstrably not the case.
They won't plow it through if more than 1 swing senator votes no. Graham has explained the Democratic strategy repeatedly now.
If you havent seen Matt Damon's performance on SNL, watch it.
I saw it, it was great.
I agree with you. It is rather strange to exclude Kavanaugh's drinking, when that is at the heart of the accusation and of his credibility. Still, more truth is better than less.
Quoting Rank Amateur
And what good will that do? They have the majority for the rest of 2018 regardless of how the election turns out.
Quoting Rank Amateur
We agree. There is no point in filling it with a prevaricator lacking judicial temperament.
Really? How about health care? Conspiracy with the Russians? The destruction of our alliances? An anti-farm trade policy? Support of racism? Attacks on women? Separation of children from their families? Balancing the budget? Environmental protection? Basic competence at FEMA? Voting rights? A rational response to climate change? The repeal of the state income tax deduction? Failure to respond to mass shootings? Open your eyes. The Republicans are on the wrong side of so many issues that they are in for a historical shellacking.
Conspiracy with the Russians? The destruction of our alliances?
Trump infiltrated American politics, and now Ford. Both are Russian agents.
It will be a referendum on Trump, and the Trumpublican party.
What the fuck are you talking about? You can't run on a platform for the midterms, after the midterms are over.
Is it a mistake to take epistemology, and justification of belief, too seriously when it comes to politics? Or maybe I should just accept that some people are clairvoyant.
The midterms are not over. My point was that the Kavanaugh debacle is only one issue among many on which the Republicans have a losing hand.
You never identified any problems, you just ignored them.
I say Ford made long air trips just for pleasure, but when invited to the Senate hearings she refused to travel claiming she was afraid of air trips. My conclusion: she is a liar, you conclusion: she is brave.
Ford named three witnesses all of whom failed to recollect the party. My conclusion: she is a liar, your conclusion: she has poor memory.
Ford failed to answer the question about payment for polygraph test. Is that realistic that a person is not aware of someone having paid for the services the person obtained? My conclusion: in no way, Ford is a liar. Your conclusion?
Ford has never mentioned Kavanaug's name in any official documents including sessions with her therapist for more than 30 years . My conclusion: she is a liar.
Finally, For what have all these lies been made?
My answer: Ford benefited becoming a national celebrity. My conjecture: She is a Russian agent who is well paid for and whose mission is to undermine American political system.
Your answer?
You either don't have any logical thinking or it fails you becaused you are biased.
Haven't read the whole thread, so not sure what problems people haven't responded.
As for the points you list:
Fear of flying
This question came up in the hearing.
It's pretty clear she's afraid of flying, tries to avoid it, but if it's not avoidable she can fly. This is how people with fears behave; their first reaction is to avoid what they fear and then if they can't they try to overcome it (to achieve other goals). It's also clear she didn't use flying to avoid going to the hearing but thought the hearing could come to her, which she quickly realized wasn't possible resulting in her flying to and speaking at the hearing.
This thing about flying is a small irrelevant detail that the conservative media tried to use to undermine her credibility. But she obviously flew to the hearing, despite her fear of flying, which is consistent with flying for other reasons too and inconsistent with the idea of having a contrived excuse to avoid speaking.
It's a super high profile committee hearing. She's asked by high profile people to do a polygraph, directly or indirectly by the democrat senators: she does the polygraph. It's completely reasonable to not ask who's paying for it and not even realize it could be paid by a party other than the government.
It's also not clear what the motivation would be to know who paid for the polygraph but then lie and deny knowledge of who paid. It's clearly information the R members of the committee can easily find out. Ergo: totally irrational to jump to the conclusion that this is yet more lies.
Ford failing to document Kavanaug's name
The pattern of behaviour established so far (according to Ford's testimony and what a few others connected to Ford have so far said) is that Ford tried to rationalize and trivialize the assault (that she claims occurred, and claims committed by Kavanaug) as she managed to escape the rape. So she didn't tell anyone. However, the experience had long term psychological affects that she decided to deal with later. Clearly it did not bother her too much that Kavanaug was a federal judge but the prospect of him being a SCOTUS judge was a threshold for her to do something; it's also a situation where the testimony has a real affect as trying to bring a decades old charge to trial in order to unseat a a sitting judge is very unlikely to succeed nor simply the accusations likely to "ruin his career", but such testimony is much more relevant in a SCOTUS hearing where the standard of evidence is much lower (it is reasonable for senators to consider an accusation of attempted rape by a credible witness, even without corroborating evidence, for a SCOTUS position). Of note, ford sent her letter before Kavanaug was nominated in the hopes that it would sway Trump's nomination choice to avoid a scandal.
Considering Ford's claims, her pattern of behaviour is consistent with them. It is still in the realm of possibility that she is lying, or imagined things, or miss-identified Kavanaug.
The whole point of an FBI investigation is to see if there is corroborating evidence somewhere.
Russian agency
You follow your conclusion that not only is Ford lying on the points you bring up but these lies are reasonable basis to further conclude she's a Russian agent, and then go on to accuse other forum members that they are "failing to think logically" or are "biased".
This is really an incredible level of irrationality. Jumping to conclusions without evidence, just stating you conclude she is lying, is not how rationality works: it's exactly how bias works.
Though it is possible Ford is lying or has missremembered or misidentified Kavanaug, there is so far no evidence to support that as the plausible explanation. A pattern of Ford making up traumatic events or seeking celebrity status (to further her value to Russian?) has not emerged. So simply making a conclusion anyway is not how reasoning from evidence works.
What has emerged is a pattern of Kavanaug drinking to excess, which he already testified to, as even a "weak stomach" does not start vomiting after half a beer without serious medical problem which would be well documented by doctors throughout his life with a strong recommendation to avoid drinking altogether (in other words it's simply not plausible to conclude Kavanaug could drink to vomiting regularly yet somehow not get drunk enough to loose memory regularly; it's conceivable but not plausible).
This in itself is a fatal blow to Kavanaug's candidacy. Past drinking habits are relevant to SCOTUS position. First it's an indication of character that might be outweighed by other indications of character, but relevant nonetheless. Second, even if excessive drinking was long ago, it creates the possibility that hard evidence does exists of crimes or scandalous behaviour (a photo sitting in a box somewhere) and this has the potential to create either a large scandal in the future that undermines the credibility of the SCOTUS or, worse, falls into the wrong hands and is used to blackmail Kavanaug. These are completely reasonable considerations for Senators to consider when considering a SCOTUS candidacy. Even small potential for blackmail based on hearsay (i.e. reputation) about a candidate's past is regularly used to deny promotions to a particularly sensitive positions (keeping nuke codes, access to foreign agent identities, Supreme Court Justice, that sort of thing) even if the candidate is otherwise fully competent and such considerations were not sufficient to block previous career advancements.
edit:spelling and clarity
edit2: and there is actual testimony, not just hearsay, of Kavanaug's drinking habits.
False. Look back a couple pages. I commented on each of your items. You responded, "The main point she seemed false for me." So it was you who ignored what I said, and your comment is consistent with my assertion that you listed rationalizations, not factors that led you to a conclusion.
I said no such thing. I just pointed out that people with fear of flying often fly, and pointed you to an article that discusses this. She was reluctant to fly; she preferred not to. This doesn't imply she would never fly. Further, it's false to characterize it as a "refusal" to fly.
I said no such thing. I simply pointed out that no one remembers every gathering they ever attended. Failure of 3 people to recall a vaguely described gathering, 30 years earlier, that had no personal significance to them is not surprising. Had one or more of them remembered, it would constitute corroborating evidence, but an absence of corroborating evidence is not evidence of lying.
She didn't "fail to answer," she just didn't know the answer. The answer turned out to be that her lawyer paid for it - it had been their recommendation to have it performed. I expect the lawyers will pass along the cost to her.
False premise to assume victims of abuse actually discuss it. Speaking out is atypical.
This is not evidence of lying, it is pure speculation that rationalizes the assumption she lied. Your conjecture is fantasy - there being zero reason to think she's a Russian agent.
While it is possible she lied, your stated case for concluding this doesn't hold water.
Indeed.
SCOTUS has become politicized, and not just under Trump. Roosevelt attempted to reshape or "pack" the Court by expanding it, then appointing justices friendly to New Deal programs. The Court led by Earl Warren, 1953–1969, was hated by conservatives (especially the extreme right) at an almost hysterical pitch.
Citizens United (2010) is to liberal Americans what Roe vs. Wade (1973) became to conservatives and the religious right: a political rallying cry.
I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know. Anyway, it isn't the Court so much as it is one group of the The People vs. several major players -- like religious organizations in Roe Wade or rich individuals and corporations in Citizens United.
The People really have to have a broader strategy than depending on the court.
I've heard that the Canadian SC is not at all politicized like SCOTUS, so it's not impossible.
I agree with almost everything you said, but disagree that Kavanaugh is necessarily being hypocritical about polygraph tests. IMO, this article makes a good case:
"Brett Kavanaugh was asked during yesterday’s hearing if he would take a polygraph test. He replied that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to, but noted that polygraphs are inadmissible in federal court because they are “unreliable. That fact is not in dispute...”
His court opinion merely, "affirmed that “polygraph examinations serve law enforcement purposes.”
Dunno why this seems so hard to grasp.
what are you actually asking?
The law that says it’s a crime to not report a crime. Here’s an example:
18 U.S. Code § 4 - Misprision of felony
However, it was ruled in United States v. Johnson, 546 F.2d 1225 (5th Cir. 1977) that "the mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 4." (it requires active concealment), and as far as I know Ford’s accusation isn’t of a felony, so this can’t be the law you’re talking about.
So show me the actual statute that Ford is in violation of.
The idea of an independent court (like an "independent federal reserve") is mainly to protect the rich from a populist government that wants to redistribute wealth (hence Roosevelt needing to pack the court for the new deal). It's a nice thought that an independent court could reign in a corrupt government, but it's actually more likely, in my view, that an independent justice system is corrupted (bribery, blackmail, or then the slow work of filtering out the non-wealthy from going to top law schools, becoming top lawyers and judges in the first place etc.). Justice is fundamentally a political thing, and so voting for key positions, like Surpeme justices, is in my opinion the best option. Which is the current system just indirectly voting for the president and then senators. Of course, first past the post system for electing supreme court justices would be terrible, but there are other systems in my opinion that are better than first past the post direct voting as well as elect a president and senators (in first past the post and not even counting votes equally, so a mix of two bad systems). Of course, even indirect voting can be improved on too (like a 60 vote threshold maybe). If the argument against direct voting for supreme court justices is that people can't recognize the benefits of impartial judges ... well what benefits can they recognize and so why should they vote on anything at all?
Trying to make any part of government independent of politics, is just an unsolvable problem.
However, I completely agree that judicial activism is terrible even when your own side wins. By short-circuiting the political process of social debate, activity of citizens for what they believe and crafting and passing new laws, the result is a schism and polarization of society (and each side focusing on pushing through their judges rather than needing to engage in public debate). For instance, Ireland only passed a law allowing abortion recently, but this reflects the real changes of the attitudes of Irish society; if one supports abortion rights then this delay caused unneeded suffering, but the alternative to democracy is tyranny and society learning new things by definition takes time.
Why this seems an impossible position for pro-choice people in the case of Roe v Wade, is because there is an assumption in the Anglo style court system that a judge must rule on every case, ultimately the Suprme court being the last arbitrator. Therefore, in this system Judges are faced with needing to invent new laws or applying incomplete laws in irrational ways; i.e. they must either serve injustice or create new standards of justice. This is a false dichotomy. The solution is that, as exists in other systems, justices can request clarification of the laws; basically throwing the ball into the legislature who can then make a new standard (with application of the the standard retroactively being an option), the standard goes back to the courts who then apply it based on the evidence.
Edit: To complete my last point, making politicians clarify the law means people can vote them out if they don't like how they vote. Again with alternatives to geographic and first past the post representation being possible also, including the politicians throwing the ball directly to the people in a referendum (again with higher than 50.1 % threshold being an option as well) and improvements on confusing, badly worded, false dichotomy referendums likewise being a possibility.
There's a lot of countries out there with an independent justice system that have no problem keeping corruption out of their system, so this doesn't hold true. In fact, from a Dutch perspective, the political identity of judges is in a sense corrupting the practice of applying the law when their political beliefs influence their method of interpretation. "Political views" is not an acceptable interpretative technique when applying the law.
Yes and no. On the one hand when writing laws, to the extent they are concerned with justice, the prerogative on prescribing what justice is, is with the Parliament and therefore a political thing. Where it comes to the interpretation of laws, however, justice,equity and fairness, ought to be the goal of any interpretation. In other words, where different interpretative techniques are possible a judge should pursue the one leading to the most just result as informed by tradition and the dictates of public consciousness.
You talk about facts but don't mention any facts. Which countries?
You mention the dutch: literally first hit on searching results in "Judges are appointed by the Crown, under the aegis of the Minister for Security and Justice [...] Individuals can be nominated for appointment to the judiciary only on recommendation by a national selection committee, made up of members from the various courts, the public prosecutor’s office and individuals active in society."
In other words, it's a political process that selects judges. It just so happens that the Dutch value objectivity and impartial judges. However, if these selection committees fell prey to partisan forces they could nominate partisan judges to advance their cause through rulings. It is simply not true to say the Dutch judiciary is independent. Just as 60 vote threshold in the US senate perhaps resulted in less partisan judges, but the process fell prey to partisan forces who lowered the bar.
I mention in my post that indirect voting for judges can nevertheless work better than what we are seeing in the US right now.
To be clear, what full independence would mean would be along the lines of A. that judges simply select their successors without any possible intervention (dependence) from elections or elected representatives (basically how cardinals and popes get selected, B. judges are selected at complete random from the population C. a computer algorithm selects judges (by coders in turn selected by the previous A or B methods).
In the context of the exchange, independent meant complete independence from politics (not a unbiased characteristic voters might wish for judges to have); i.e. no voting for judges directly nor indirectly nor any ability to impeach them.
My comment was in the response to Bitter crank's observation of "I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know." I.e. a completely independent judiciary from all "politics" to which my point is that the justice system is inherently political, so may as well make the best democratic selection process feasible (which may very well be the dutch system of selecting selection committees).
It isn't a political process. No politicians involved. The executive branch appoints, the selection committee is made up by the judiciary and legal professionals. No legislative representatives involved.
Do some basic research.
Supreme Court of the Netherlands wikipedia page: "Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by royal decree, chosen from a list of three, advised by the House of Representatives on the advice of the Court itself. "
Politicians are involved.
I agree it's a mix, but a mix is not fully independent.
I also agree that a fully independent court (such as selection entirely from existing judges) can work for a period of time.
My argument is that I think it is more likely to lead to corruption, either blackmail / bribe corruption or systemic bias in the judge selection process, than democratic processes (just as kings can work out for a period of time).
There is no doubt that she is credible, i.e., no doubt that she believes what she's saying. However, believing what you're saying is not enough to ascertain truth, there has to be objective evidence. The only thing we want to know is if there is any corroboration, or any objective evidence that supports her claims. In fact, there is no evidence to confirm her accusations, other than her memories, which may be false memories, maybe partially false memories, or they may be accurate memories. In fact, it's quite possible that her memory of the assault, which I believe happened (although just an impression) could be mostly based on faulty memory. We don't have enough information about her, her background, her psychological state, her character, etc. There is evidence that her memory, for example, is faulty, viz., she can't remember where it happened, or even give a good time frame of the assault. Based on that alone we should wonder just how accurate her memories are.
I hear people say that since this is not a court proceeding that somehow we don't need to be reasonable or require good evidence. What?! The idea is to be fair and just, to not let mere accusations destroy peoples lives, whether you like them or not. If a credible accusation is enough to destroy people, then we're all in trouble.
Testimonial evidence by its very nature is weak, even when you have two or three witnesses it can be weak. People have been wrongly convicted based on the testimonial evidence of two or more witnesses. Why is this enough to say that he is guilty? Why is it even enough to keep him off the Supreme Court? It isn't.
Is there counter-evidence? Yes, his whole life is counter-evidence. There is nothing in his character to suggest that he would do such a thing.
Finally, can we know for sure? No, we can't, but we have to base our conclusions on what is reasonable to believe, what is probably the case, not what is possible. Not on what we want to believe, or what is politically expedient, or even one person's memory of something that occurred so long ago. This is true of those on both sides of the argument.
http://pdf.iwv.org/09.30.18%20Mitchell%20Memo.pdf
Not being confirmed to the Supreme Court isn't destroying someone's life.
Quoting Sam26
I haven't been following the cases at all, but I wonder what evidence there was against Crosby and is against Weinstein?
If you think that these accusations haven't destroyed his reputation, whether he gets on the supreme court or not, you have to be living on Mars. That accusation will hang over his life for the rest of his life - innocent or not.
Sure, but there's nothing anyone can do about that. Once the accusations come in, the public are going to think what they think. So I'm not sure what you were trying to suggest with your remark.
People who are generally reasonable can be unreasonable at times, there are a number of reasons/causes for this.
Sure, there was plenty that could have been done, viz., much of this could have been done behind closed doors so that the reasonableness of the accusations could be ascertained. However, we've allowed accusations of the worst kind come into the public arena.
Allowed? Unless you want to live in some Big Brother society there's nothing that can stop someone from publicly accusing another of wrongdoing.
Obviously we can't stop all accusations, but what happened here was just a circus.
What should they have done? Not had Kavanaugh and Ford testify before the Senate in an open hearing? Confirm him regardless and then call for an investigation later (or not at all)? Tell Trump to nominate someone else?
This whole bonfire of the vanities is at the bequest of, and for the benefit of those 3, who are IMO looking for a politically acceptable reason to vote not to confirm and for 2 of them to get reelected, and the other to have a base for a run at 2020.
Just need one more.
A month ago, I thought there was a 90% chance he'd be confirmed. Now I think it's even money.
In a written declaration released Tuesday and obtained by Fox News, an ex-boyfriend of Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, directly contradicts her testimony under oath last week that she had never helped anyone prepare for a polygraph examination.
The former boyfriend, whose name was redacted in the declaration, also said Ford neither mentioned Kavanaugh nor mentioned she was a victim of sexual misconduct during the time they were dating from about 1992 to 1998. He said he saw Ford going to great lengths to help a woman he believed was her "life-long best friend" prepare for a potential polygraph test. He added that the woman had been interviewing for jobs with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office.
He further claimed that Ford never voiced any fear of flying (even while aboard a propeller plane) and seemingly had no problem living in a "very small," 500 sq. ft. apartment with one door
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/christine-blasey-ford-ex-boyfriend-says-she-helped-friend-prep-for-potential-polygraph-grassley-sounds-alarm
If there are credible claims by people who knew Ford and Kavanaugh that both of them lied under oath, they should both be held accountable for their lies. It would be unfair to deny Kavanaugh the opportunity to sit on the Supreme Court, and not penalize Dr Ford as well. She should also be denied the opportunity to sit on the Supreme Court.
You make a bold claim that facts simply establish that my opinion is simply not true (which was simply independent systems are more vulnerable to corruption than direct/indirect elected system).
As a lawyer in the Netherlands, your opinion that the system works great maybe an example of the exact systemic bias in this sort of system that I'm referring too. But let's ignore this.
Also note, my view is not that that full independence of judges choosing their successors can't work. Just like an aristocracy or perhaps more apt any craftsmen gild: a good starting point, good traditions and supporting cultural norms can result in good performance of these systems for even very extended periods of time. So, I am not saying independent courts totally fail immediately.
I qualified my statement that it is my opinion because I know these systems exist and have performed well; my view is they are not better than democratic systems and not the pathway to reduce corruption.
Perhaps a better presentation of my point is, what you would advise for improving the US system (or an even more corrupt system for that matter): more or less democracy in selecting judges. My conclusion is that if corruption is a problem, historically established or culturally supported, then independent courts of judges selecting replacements isn't going to reduce corruption. If judicial corruption is already a problem how is giving them more insulation from accountability and more power going to help? However, electing judges (of which many, many systems to do so are available) can act as a counter force to corruption.
So, as far as the facts are concerned, why did electing judges (directly or by representatives) arise in the first place? To solve corruption and class-bias problems. If a society doesn't encounter judicial corruption due to strong anti-corruption cultural norms or then lawyers and judges manage to self-discipline their judge-guild to keep it going, independence can work. In other-words, low-corruption cultures have low-corruption judicial systems whether independent or democratically appointed in some way, whereas cultures where judicial corruption became a problem, more democracy rather than more judicial independence has been the historic go to for increasing faith in the judiciary. Do you agree with this? or are you saying that in a country where corruption is a problem applying full independence of the judiciary and judges being life-time appointed and then selecting their successors would be the way forward in tackling judicial and government corruption?
I would also add that elections of judges also serves as accelerating society's learning about what makes a good judge and why impartial judges and fighting corruption benefits everyone.
A few have responded, but I think the most important rebuttal here is that it comes with the territory of accepting a nomination for the Supreme court.
If you want to be one of the most powerful people in the country, far greater scrutiny than a less powerful judge or politician is part of the process, much less a normal citizen applying at a coffee shop.
If you don't want to deal with such scrutiny or don't want to deal with potential false accusations (which are a thing): don't accept nomination for the supreme court!
Also, Kavanaugh's reputation has taken a hit because it's now firmly established that his behaviour in school and college fits the pattern of irresponsible drinking. If it was just Ford's accusation without witnesses and he had no pattern of excessive drinking and there's simply no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise; maybe true, maybe false accusation; this has happened to other politicians and it didn't "destroy their reputation". Lot's of random accusations were thrown at Obama (like being full into the gay sex scene, part of some secret black stone cutters society), but nothing came of it and his reputation wasn't destroyed since there was no well established pattern of behaviour (of visiting gay bars all the time or hopping from secret society to secret society) nor any direct evidence (i.e. the media had nothing legitimate to talk about and they remained random accusations ... except for Fox new on many occasions). So again, knowing that you have a past that easily supports reckless drunken acts, it's reasonable to expect to deal with such accusations when going for a supreme court seat. And Kavanaugh was fully aware of this, as he preemptively sought support from his friends and acquaintances to make sure they wouldn't tattletale on him. In other words, he rolled the dice on whether his drinking past would come up or not. It's completely fair to Kavanaugh as he could have refused the nomination to avoid the scrutiny. So, innocent or not, it's not a case of "poor little Kavanaugh".
The Democrats have the right to think he's not the best candidate regardless. It's already been established that Kavanaugh's accessed democrat emails with a stolen password. No one seems to be refuting this.
From a conservative perspective it maybe "of course! he's a conservative judge and gonna try to get the one-up on democrats any chance he gets: should have protected that password better. Powned!"
However, it seems pretty reasonable that Democrats wouldn't view a judge that participated in hacking their server account (stealing passwords is hacking) for partisan reasons as impartial. It's totally reasonable for any Senator to have already reached their "no-vote" threshold with Kavanaugh for other reasons or then believe a better candidate exists even without any scandal (on Kavanaugh judicial record in itself compared to other potential nominees: as with any job selection process!).
So the "turn it around ploy" and accuse democrats of not voting yes if the FBI exonerates Kavanaugh doesn't work, the FBI investigation is only part of a whole. If the conservatives haven't reached a point where they would vote no while democrats have, it's totally reasonable for democrats to continue the scrutiny process as further evidence may reach R senator's threshold.
This is basic common decision making patterns. For instance, we may want to go on vacation together but we disagree on the spot. You want to go to Paris but I don't want to, simply because I think London is better. We hear a rumour that the plague has broken out in Paris, so I suggest "hmm, if the plague is in Paris, let's definitely not go there, let's try to verify this" a reasonable response is not "woa, woa, if it turns out there is no plague, you wouldn't want to go to Paris anyway, verification is pointless! bad faith, bad faith!"
It's a simple thing, but unfortunately conservative propaganda has taken it to this level.
Edit: Alex Jones also claimed not only was Obama super gay, but Michelle Obama was a man based on her being tall and having broad shoulders ... just like a man. Their kids you ask? Stone cutter child trafficking plants! Innocent or guilty, these claims didn't ruin Obama's reputation. Now, I don't agree that corporate ToS should be used to censor political debate completely deplatforming removing all their content ToS violation or no, and I also agree with Alex that the rich do meet and conspire against the public (just as Adam Smith points out as obvious fact), but doesn't make Obama's Gaygate plausible or relevant, as there's no credibility to it. Kavanaugh's problem is claims are credible, perhaps not true nor proven in a criminal court, but very plausible given reports about his drinking behaviour and material evidence like his yearbook.
Kavanaugh throws a temper tantrum. My biggest concern is that many men will identify with his anger and have zero impact on what they think other than perhaps, "yah my ex wife tried throwing me under the bus once". People tend to make everything about themselves hence why I emphasize the gay aspect of the original post.
IMO Judge Kavanaugh played this completely wrong. He should have immediately acknowledged that he lead the frat boy life, drank too much as a teenager and in college, said and did some juvenile stuff that he is not proud of now. But completely deny the sexual attack - and make people weigh his teenage - college years versus all the years thereafter.
Political bias is grounds for substition in Dutch courts, whereas the political bias of a US judge is a given nowadays based on which president confirmed his position. The proof is in the pudding as to what extent politics creeps into these systems and the political drive surrounding Roe vs. Wade and Citizens United. It's quite clear from the current spectacle and the Garland no-show which system is embattled by corruption and it isn't the Dutch one.
Quoting boethius
Given the system you're with you can try the following:
a) increase the number of parties that can be elected to congress and senate by amending or doing away with the district system (fat chance); it's unlikely you'll get qualified majorities on barring persons for political reasons;
b) have the ABA and judges submit candidates to the Senate instead of the President; professionals tend to be concerned with professionalism;
Quoting Rank Amateur
Yeah, he could've even gotten away with saying: I don't recall it happening but if it did happen I sincerely apologise to Dr. Ford. Such behaviour was inexcusable but unfortunately many teenagers and young adults make these sort of mistakes. Like many boys at that age I drank too much and as such was less capable in making correct moral choices. I can assure you that as I grew up, I learned what an appropriate amount of beer was and what the appropriate way is to treat women. As regrettable as my actions were as a boy I don't think they should have any bearing on my role as a judge and on the person that I am today.
Or something like that.
So why didn't he? Doesn't he want the job? Is this an example of someone fighting like a cornered rat because there really is something to discover in his teenage years?
Dr Fraud perjured herself according to them...
He didn't even have to go that far. He could have just said "did a lot of partying, drank beer, like beer, had a lot of inside jokes with my friends about vaguely understood inuendo, but I am 100% positive I never sexually assaulted anyone, that's just not me." Which is how nearly anyone that was completely innocent (especially a judge) would respond given a partying past that "doesn't look good".
Lying and misleading and "what about you huh, would like to know about if you ever blacked out", especially unnecessary lies and totally implausible lies, is much more compatible (especially for a judge who presumably knows how evidence and critical thinking work) with the state of mind of someone who is guilty and panicked that it's coming to light. Not proof, but a credible conclusion to make. As Comey points out, small lies are often a indication of large lies.
Quoting Benkei
My point was that in a self-replacing judicial system, systemetic bias is one problem (mainly the bias of the class from which lawyers generally come from, and further selection bias). As is the case with bias, people generally don't see their own biases, it's just the "true facts". Systemic bias is usually class bias, not necessarily partisan bias. In this case, your participation in the system perhaps leads you to conclude that it is really the best system, rather than a system that is working for the time being in the Netherlands but it's possible self-replacement of judges is not the main factor leading to the good judging you see (but solid tradition and general cultural norms), that it is an exception and not a good model for countries trying to reduce bias. However, if education is free, opportunity fairly equal, class mobility is a thing, then even class biases can be significantly reduced.
However, let's say down the road social mobility stagnates, the gap between the rich and poor increase, do you think the Dutch judge-guild is going to rule unbiased in cases of typical lawyery crimes as well as the wealthy class in general, or is it more likely a judge-guild to be lenient on people from their guild and class and less lenient on the poor?
Now, I fully agree that the US selection system isn't good. Having representatives select judges isn't a good democratic process of the many to choose from. Even with representatives nominating judges the bar can be far higher (like going back to the 60 votes threshold or even higher as well US congress getting a say).
However, I believe direct voting for judges, and judge terms, is the best system. As a citizen if you vote on who judges you (or at least supreme court), this immediately legitimizes the system and in the case of the US would be a counter-weight to "the club" of wealthy politicians appointing the judges from their class that they like and surprise, surprise those judges then protect the wealthy from accountability. It is also social learning experience to consider a judges record, and formulate an idea of who you think is a good judge.
My original reply was to the fact that you can have a non-political process and avoid bias in the system. The court systems have their own vested interests in making sure people trust the system. Otherwise people don't use the courts any more. The most dangerous development to our court system at the moment is a retarded secretary of state who thinks it's a good idea to get rid of government funded lawyers for poor people and force them into legal insurance - except of course insurance companies are interested in settling more than winning their clients case even if they have a reasonable chance of winning. In the Netherlands the problem is more about access to the court.
Quoting boethius
I disagree with this. While I'd agree that voting for judges via a representative body could work if it isn't a two-party system, direct voting would be terrible. For instance, people always cry about judges being too lenient in the Netherlands and demand heftier penalties and longer sentences. And then this was tested several times. Ok, let's see what laymen would say about court cases and time and time again once laymen are aware of all the facts of a given case they would sentence people to shorter sentences than judges actually did. In other words, people think they know what they're talking about when they read about a court case in the newspaper and demand changes to the system but they really don't know because they don't have the necessary information. In fact, I would say the representatives don't really know either and tend to voice the same gut feelings their constituents have as they're not concerned with confirming the best candidate for the position but confirming the one that gets him or her reelected. So I think the first step of the professionals choosing appropriate candidates from their ranks is a further requirements to ensure independence and quality of the judges that get voted into office.
I'm also of the opinion that Kavanaugh is gone ... but wouldn't be surprised if they push him through to show republicans "are strong".
However, the reason for withdrawing his nomination I don't think only tangentially anything to do with the points you bring up nor even the investigation per se. Rather, it comes down to polling.
Plenty of scandals that are completely outrageous have no effect on republican polling, indeed it often polls that doing something responsible would anger the republican base.
I think the main purpose of the investigation for Trump and the other powerful republicans, is time to measure sentiment on Fox news and their base. If enough of the republican base (in particular republican women) wavers on support for Kavanaugh, that's what I see as the main factor for withdrawing Kavanaugh.
Why this might matter in this case and didn't matter for Trump (enough to lose the election) I think is that Kavanaugh is more a relateable privileged douche whipping it out (allegedly) and raping / attempted raping (allegedly) "normal" women. Trumps scandals are mostly with port stars, gold digging groupies, miss America candidates, that the average conservative women can much more easily say "they're asking to get their pussies grabbed by being in the situation" and "it's part of being super rich".
What is the appropriate way for an honorable man to respond to outright lies alleging attempted rape, assuming that's the case?
Quoting Hanover
Not to loose your cool (or temper) just like Bret "Bart the beer-lover" Kavanaugh does.
There's an old Finnish saying: "That dog yelps, which (the) stick hits"
In Georgia and I believe a majority of the states, all judges are directly elected by the people. That includes both trial courts and appellate courts, as well as the Supreme Court of the state. Some states have hybrid systems, where the judge is initially appointed and then the people can vote either to retain the judge or get rid of him. In Georgia, judges are non-partisan, meaning they don't run as either party. Other states are entirely partisan, where a judge lists himself as Democrat or Republican, runs in the primary to win the candidacy for the party, and then runs in the general election. You may remember Roy Moore in Alabama running for Supreme Court.
What I can say about it in practice is that I've never seen a trial judge removed for political reasons. It's generally hard to vote out an incumbent for these positions due to their low profile nature. Typically the right ones get voted out for being abusive to lawyers and litigants. Ineptness rarely is even enough to get a judge tossed. Only lawyers can run as judges, so as long as you keep the local bar happy, you're probably going to be ok. You do see local lawyers get preferential treatment for sure, especially in more rural areas, but I'd suspect that'd be the case if they were appointed as well because you typically are kinder to those you know.
We had one election years ago where a liberal candidate ran against a conservative Supreme Court Justice but they lost. It's fairly uncommon for any judge to face such a challenge. The county judges have power over the cases before them, but no precedental power, so an argument could be made that they ought remain elected, but the appellate court judges be elected. At the moment, though, it works here, but that might not always be the case.
The American Bar Association has been consistently of the position that no judge have to stand for popular election, but it remains subject to debate. As we can see, no system is without serious flaws. I believe (and I don't feel like looking it up) that certain federal judges (like bankruptcy judges) receive 14 year terms, renewable by reappointment. That protects them from popular opinion, but it doesn't force them on the public for their lifetime if there's a need for change. That sort of hybrid system could be used by the states, but the Constitution requires lifetime appointments for the Supreme Court.
I'm in favor of judicial elevation by merit, where you get certified as a judge (as some don't know what they're doing), you start out as a magistrate and you move up the ranks to higher judgeships based upon reversal rates, reviews by the local bar, and whatever other objective criteria can be established. Of course, some would cry elitism or whatever, so there's no perfect way.
Yeah, well regardless of how the Finns might evaluate it, if someone accused me of a rape I didn't commit and it was damaging to my reputation and family, I might say something other than "I'd prefer the fine gentlewoman from Maryland to refrain from her misstatements as they are quite distracting." To be sure, I'd expect a volatile reaction from a legitimate accuser if she should be attacked as a liar and should her past be brought before the world to evaluate.
Not as much as stake - conservative seat for conservative seat - and as you say he was a good choice. (probably means Trump had nothing to do with it )
If we bring the acceptable behaviour bar down to the level of kindergartten, then yes being accused of stealing Billy's marbles WHEN YOU DIDN'T, for sure normal to get angry, start re-intepreting all your actions as that of a good little boy and also claiming it was a setup by the Clintons from the start.
However, if the SCOTUS bar is at that of reasonable, calm and collected adults, presumably characteristics the country wants Judges to have (but not written in stone anywhere), then the expected reaction of unfounded accusations is not to get angry, deflect, go on strange diatribes about a political hit job (without providing any actual evidence), claim a calendar proves what you actually did, truly bizarre questioning the questioner. The expected response would be simply defending one's character, claiming complete surety that the accusations are false, answering questions honestly (even if true answer lend credibility to the accusations). For instance, if I'm falsely accused of sexual assault in a bar that I frequent, republicans think it's totally normal, expected, excusable that I'd then lie about frequenting that bar. What am I going to do, place my self at the scene of the crime! No, it's not normal nor does it help my cause, since it's easily verified to be false and being found in this lie undermines my claim that I didn't do it (even if I didn't do it!!).
(Most) innocent people usually react to being a suspect in a crime by being overly honest, making exactly what they know very clear, presenting all the nuances of all their relevant actions and behaviour patterns, because they have true memories (of doing things other than the crime) that it's easy to volunteer the information. A person who did the crime (or suspects they easily could have done the crime in a drunken blackout) cannot by definition volunteer lot's of true information that supports their innocence: they must lie when questioned. The problem with lying is that it's difficult, what's a fully buyable lie? What's a lie that not too believable but can't be proven to be false? What are other true details that are incoherent (though still possible) with the main lie and it's better to lie about those too? What are true details that "don't look good" but are best to be true about (world is a strange place where weird things and coincidences do happen)? When is there no good lie and it's better to simply "not remember"? Making good lies is a difficult task (especially with impromptu questioning) and it's also difficult to deliver them well (as the emotion isn't real, and must be faked too).
What we saw in Kavanaugh's testimony is someone who's bad at lying. Bad choice of lies, bad explanations, bad delivery, sometimes deciding that stone-walling, deflecting and flipping the question on the senator is a good strategy. Maybe he's lying just because he's so afraid of the false accusations he (stupidly) thought lying would help him. Maybe he's lying because the accusations are true and he needs to lie and (unfortunate for him) he's terrible at it.
Kavanaugh's problem is he has no practice at lying but decided to do it anyway. Being a lawyer and then a judge doesn't require much if any lying at all. You represent other people, question other people, judge other people; and it's part of the job to do your best even if you suspect your client is guilty. It's not like being a politician where there are copious opportunities where lying can help and you can get really good at it if that's your thing.
I think it is equally likely if he was calm and cool the narrative would be " see he did it, no one could take an allegation like that so calmly if he didn't do it "
I would put the odds of a favorable democratic response to anything Judge Kavanaugh said or did as slim and none.
Perhaps in a similar situation Hanover the candidate for Supreme Court Justice would spring up from his chair and leap up to hit one of those slimy Democrat senators for damaging your repution and family and for the political hit job they have made? That would get judge Hanover quite a following, you know.
Quoting Rank Amateur
You can deny false allegations and make a sincere, firm case that people will believe without loosing your temper. You can be credible and convincing without loosing it. As Boethius said, you do think that someone for the post of Supreme Court Justice would be able to respond in a different way.
And anyway, the display that we have gotten from Bart Kavanaugh simply shows that he is far more of a political hack than a lawyer. But that's obvious when you look at the guy's CV.
maybe a fair point if you put more weight on the last few days, than the prior 20 years.
Quoting ssu
My point was, IMO, however he responded it would have been incorrect by those doing all they can to prevent his nomination.
At least he got a hearing.
(And anyway, if it would be character assassination, far better would have been allegations of pedophilia. Like Pizzagate... assuming you can make it more credible.)
This is simply not true. If he was calm and collected, people (even those against his nomination) would say he has the demeanor of a supreme court justice when the stakes are high.
It should also be noted that it's pretty easy to deny things that happened 30 years ago, the possibility of making a case (even if he's guilty) are slim.
So him simply calmly denying it, accepting that he did drink but never sexually assaulted anyone, going through the questions of the senators (assuming there really was no corroborating evidence to support assault claims that would arise, FBI or in the press). The conservatives could then say "see, this is supreme court material", and if he had calm and reasonable answers befitting a federal judge presenting themselves for a supreme court nomination there's little democrats could say (and since they can't block his nomination, republicans would be in an easy position to tell their base "sure, she got assaulted by someone, look how great a judge Kavanaugh and his masterful display of self-awareness and critical thinking in his hearing").
Since the whole thing happened quickly, my guess is that the republican senators thought their "female assistant" would undermine Fords credibility catching her in some sort of contradiction (as it happened decades ago it should be easy to create lot's of doubts and find a contradiction or two), that Kavanaugh would be "very judge like" (because he's literally a judge), that they would do the "republican outrage" to stoke their base (because that's what they do), and then quickly vote him through in a couple of days saying it was all liberal hogwash. Once he's on the bench, nothing anyone can do, news cycle resets.
It didn't go down that way so they accepted a limited one week FBI investigation to see how things play out in the media.
Now to the part about " this is simply not true" - None of this point is true or false it is all opinion.
In the last year, a number of men have stepped aside (or been ejected) from their positions on the basis of allegations of "sexual misbehavior" that were not given a thorough hearing or examination. I am sure these guys were more than slightly angry, but they didn't have the opportunity to vent in front of a congressional committee on live TV.
I understand your point and I disagree. Had the republicans nominated some book-worm, squeaky clean goody-two-shoes, it would have been smooth sailing. And let's even imagine a false accusation (whether a "democratic hit job" or one of the millions of Americans just imagining things), and this much more boring judge would have made a much more boring and calm and reasoned response and basically end of story.
The situation is like it is because Kavanaugh is simply not what is expected of an important judge, and the illusion he is, is starting to implode even for Republicans (judge Judy has far more composure and sharp intellect ... far, far more ...). He's clearly a rash partisan from his record, as well as jumping to the conclusion that Ford's testimony must be a Clinton political hit job without evidence (jumping to conclusions that have no supporting evidence is exactly what a judge is hired to avoid doing).
It's not a situation that it's "all politics" and Kavanaugh would have been taken down regardless of his past or how he answers questions. The situation is that precisely because he's so over-the-top partisan, so loyal to the Republican party, rash in presuming everything is a liberal conspiracy, it's exactly for these qualities that Trump selected him. Making the most extreme partisan choice of the most irresponsible person (vis-a-vis caring about the constitution and forming unbiased opinions) has the affect of giving plenty of credible ammunition to Democrats (who understandably don't want an extreme partisan). R senators and the white house knew Kavanaugh's "beach week" past and that it's anyone guess what might come up. It's reported fairly powerful R senators argued strongly against Kavanaugh's nomination.
In my opinion, Trump selected Kavanaugh not only because he's the most partisan, the most extreme in defending the party, most likely to be loyal to Trump ... but also if a scandal does emerge it takes attention off of Trumps various scandals (and normalizes that "everyone has crazy scandals", which exactly what he said about everyone in the room in his most recent word-escapade). So, he gains something either way and another candidate can easily be rushed through last minute if need be (republicans control every branch and they can do what they want ... for now).
Edit: clarity
Everything that has happened after Sen. Feinstein received that letter has been about politics.
What are you talking about? Kavanaugh's record is extreme partisanship. That's not in dispute. He already got caught stealing democratic info off a gov server with a stolen democrat password. Because republicans control the process they can choose to ignore all the evidence Kavanaugh isn't fit for the office.
He was everything Republicans wanted, an extreme partisan, until a women sent a letter.
The republicans are committed to Kavanaugh now because any other nominee is obviously passed the midterm
and the Democrats are doing absolutely everything they can do push this passed the midterm.
This is about abortion and the votes it can get, and the votes it can lose -
Is this responsive to something?
This is a bit absurd isn't it? If you are accused and you cannot convince others of the falsity of the accusation, you should accept punishment under the idea that the system is holier than the individual? There is nothing honorable about a person who fails to defend himself and fight and there is nothing honorable about a system that honors such conduct.
So long as I can levy a charge that cannot be disproved, I can control the world under your system. Whatever happened to innocent until proved guilty. Do you really adhere to such a principle? Even if you do, should you be charged with a crime you did not commit, I'd defend you over your objection, even if meant bringing great dishonor to the patrol officer on the street all the way to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Would you expect less?
When did I say that a republican can't be a judge? I was explaining why it's reasonable for democrats to not vote for Kavanaugh confirmation even if the FBI completely exonerated Kavanaugh proving Ford any all other accusers are frauds, which was a response to your claim of duplicity on the part of Democrats.
Now, should the system be that with 51% of senators representing less than 51% of people can appoint a supreme justice? That's another question.
Likewise, I qualified "presumably" about the the people wanting unbiased and non-partisan judges (and a democrat or a republican judge can still strive for fair and non-partisan rulings, which would then be reflected in their record and a good basis for getting the support of 60 or maybe more senators). There's nothing forcing people to want unbiased judges, Americans are free to want judges based on loyalty to party above country and even common sense if Americans want.
Nevertheless, thanks for advising me to win an election. I'm not an American, nor ever lived in America. I won't reap the direct affects of republican propaganda (largely with democrats enabling the whole thing) gaslighting America's ability to make even simple arguments. But I do care about Americans and everyone outside America affected by the world's super power, so I take interest from time to time. For myself personally, I choose to live in the place on the planet I believe least affected by this interesting time in history.
This.
Quoting Hanover
Me and others have explained that you can make convincing, credible denial calmly.
So what does Bart Kavanaugh do? He whines about being a victim of a "calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled by the anger of president Trump and the 2016 elections" and a "revenge on behalf of the Clintons"? Is that a response of a supreme court judge? Nope. It's the response of a political hack that is basically licking the ass of Trump so that Trump wouldn't give up on him and find another candidate.
Kavanaugh isn't the first person to be stuck by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Often there is nothing one can do about the piercing except suck it up. Take Gore vs. Bush: Al Gore was devastated by the denouement of the election. There was no higher court to which he could appeal; he had to go home and deal with it as best he could. He did, and survived.
I'm going to set aside political motivation. I see two legitimate reasons: 1) the belief that no relevant new evidence existed. 2) further enquiry was a rabbit hole - one lead would lead to more, but none could ever support or refute the charge.
I found his defense powerful and effective and the responses of his opponents more whining about the unfairness of not being able to pick the candidate of their choice. The institution that has been destroyed is not the Supreme Court, but the Senate for exploring the high school behavior of a 50+ year old man.
That may indeed be portion of the motivation, but if you set partisan motivation aside - there's still good objective reason to extend the investigation: Ford presented a credible allegation.Credible allegations of sexual assault should be taken seriously. Alleged victims shouldn't be treated as liars until proven to be telling the truth.
If no corroborating evidence is uncovered, which seems likely, the evidence is equivocal. Kavanauh is not proven innocent and he's not proven guilty. Senators are free to decide what standard to apply. If it were me, I wouldn't approve him because there's a good chance he actually assaulted her and lied about it. On the other hand, were I on a jury evaluating a criminal charge against Kavanaugh I would acquit because I have a reasonable doubt of his guilt.
When's the last time you complained to your employer that being passed up for a promotion was punishment? Are all the other capable judges passed up for this position also punished? SCOTUS has a special position in society where we can and should expect exemplary behaviour because the trust in the judiciary ought to be more important than a single person's career path or indeed partisanship which underlies his ridiculous nomination in the first place.
How are the Democrats benefited by a delay?
Could be.
If they can delay and eventually deny his confirmation, they'll hope to either receive a less conservative option in the second round or they'll hope to block the second person until after the new Senators are sworn in after the mid-terms, which they hope will be Democratic majority. The idea is that every day another conservative justice is not sworn in is a good day.
They also feel a political need to obstruct due to the significance of the role, understanding that the Supreme Court has positioned itself as the final arbiter of right and wrong on right versus left political matters. Their constituency demands obstruction regardless of merit due to their underlying belief in the fundamental righteousness of protecting progressive judicial policy.
This is the "even if" argument now being proposed. That is, even if the Ford allegations were bullshit, Kavanaugh is disqualified because he denied it improperly. Even if it's all bullshit, he should withdraw to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court. Even if it's all bullshit, some people remain unconvinced. My position is if it's bullshit, it's bullshit, which means that's the question we ought continue focusing on, not conceding it's not true but then arriving at other reasons why it doesn't even matter if it's not true.
I thought they wanted to see whether he's lying about his high school behaviour, to determine his credibility. If one cannot accept responsibility for one's own past actions, how could that person be accredited to the Supreme Court without destroying its reputation?
If I were passed up on a promotion based upon false allegations of sexual impropriety in the workplace, for example, that would be an HR issue that I would vigorously address. In Georgia, the law presumes damage when slander relates to one's profession.
I would also expect that if I were in a politically charged workplace where one faction wanted to promote me and another didn't, and I wanted the position, and my supporters wanted me in that position, I would fight for it if I thought I could prevail. Quoting Benkei
He was chosen by Trump because of his conservative ideology and he has been submitted to a political body for consideration per the Constitution. If this were simply Kavanaugh and his naked ambition, the President or the Senate could end this whole thing. They've not. Those in charge of his promotion want him to continue fighting for it, so he is.
No, they wanted to know if he tried to rape Ford back in high school. The goal post shift is now, "even if" his behavior was far less than attempted rape, and even if the behavior of a minor should not be imputable to a now 52 year old man, he's not qualified to be a Justice because he didn't admit to and apologize for his ancient misbehavior.
And there's even more that that, as what's now being submitted now that Ford's credibility is in question, is that "even if" he did nothing at all, he should withdraw because at this point it all seems unseemly.
How about we set forth a rule as it exists in every court of law across the country that says that juvenile acts cannot be used to attack the credibility of a witness? It seems we've focused heavily upon what most likely consider entirely irrelevant, but now we're interested in whether he's been dishonest about something that is irrelevant.
The real purpose of the FBI investigation is to appease Senator Flake because he's from a left leaning state, and his insistence upon it gives him cover to vote for Kavanaugh because he can now show he's not a rubber stamp for the Republican party. There is no non-political purpose for this investigation, which should not be a surprise, considering the Senate is an openly political institution. The Republicans want the man confirmed, which means that we should expect the purpose of the investigation is to obtain confirmation.
It's strange to criticize the Supreme Court's behavior re: ruling on good and evil, because what's your standard? Not the Constitution. It's a philosophical basis. Democracy vs tyranny of the Court.
Face the facts, often the cover up is worse than, and evidence of, the crime itself. This is especially relevant in politics.
Quoting Hanover
I don't agree. Judging one's character on one's parents' character would be wrong, but one's childhood is definitely relevant in all forms of psychology, so it ought not be dismissed in judging one's character.
He's not seeking re-election to the senate.
I don't see an answer. Missing a promotion or not getting a job you want, isn't punishment, regardless of the underlying reasons and causes.
EDIT: Death threats the type of which both Kavanaugh and Ford have received is and totally unwarranted.
2 months ago:
48 democratic senators were a no vote for confirmation
48 republican senators were a yes vote for confirmation
1 democratic senator was looking for a way to vote no - and not lose
his next election in a very republican district.
2 republican senators were looking for a way to vote no - and and minimize any damage that would cause to their republican base.
1 republican senator was looking for a way to use this stage as a way to position himself for 2020.
So is Ford's, and all she did was speak what she believes to be true. Worst case for her, she is misremembering who did it. Worst case for Kavanaugh is that he did it and lied about it.
Kavanaugh may very well be innocent of the assaullt, but he is guilty of defending this innocence with a partisan rant.
IMO, the best outcome will be to vote him down, but with each "no" vote accompanied wirh a justification that acknowledges that we should not assume his guilt, and every "yes" vote noting we should not assume she's lying.
And therein lies the problem. When the Court started finding new rights, it became a super-legislature.
I guess we ought reverse all laws excluding the consideration of juvenile history in adult court.
And who finds his comments inappropriate other than those who were already his opponents? He has the right to defend himself. You don't get to lob whatever you want at someone no matter how abusive and think you have the right to avoid a similar response. Maybe you have a different standard than me, but I fully expect to be attacked if I attack, regardless of how lofty one's station is in life I attack.
And who finds his comments inappropriate other than those who were already his opponents?[/quote]
That partisan lens works both ways: who's defending the partisan rant?
I can understand his reaction to a false accusation (if it IS false) most of us would react similarly. However most of us aren't candidates for the Supreme Court. It was a missed opportunity for him to demonstrate how a judge should evaluate evidence and respect the alleged victim.
Kavanaugh did not dispute Ford's claim of an assault. He only disputed that it was him. He should have built on this and the impossibility of proving a negative. The politics on both sides of this are completely irrelevant to the charge- in a courtroom, a judge wouldn't allow it to be presented because it appeals to prejudice.
Not sure what is left to do other than that.
Bigger question is what did this circus do to the court and it's decisions going forward.
If that's their thinking, I wonder from what party they have copied this strategy.
My opinion is that this scenario has essentially zero chance of happening. If you want to believe that Kavanaugh is some noble patriot thinking of the interest of the court and country before himself and his masters, well let's see Monday if he "declines".
As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the purpose of the FBI investigation was simply to buy time to see how the polling goes for senators like Flake who still don't get the scandal / logic immunity that the Trump administration has vis-a-vis the Republican base.
The administration has been immune from any scandal affecting the Republican base support for Trump (he might be the most popular Republican president, among self identified republican voters, ever), so why would it stop now? And indeed it hasn't.
Therefore, claim the investigation is thorough, which the Republican base can then repeat to each other, and that Kavanaugh's performance in difficult questioning was stellar, and then nominate him to the bench.
Why Democrats Senators would pickup the meme of a "FBI Investigation" in the first place, when the FBI is controlled by Trump and he's certainly changed it to his liking by now ... is a good example of Democrats being paid to ignore how the system works (that's basically the roll of most Democrat politicians).
I also disagree that this this is about abortion. Kavanaugh's nomination is about protecting Trump. I very much doubt abortion laws will change, that's just something Republicans let the evangelicals believe they'll care about someday. The situation of abortion as it is, is convenient for republicans and the'll likely keep it that way.
What matters, is that while Mueller's investigation grind on and scandals peter out and new scandals emerge, and the leaves turn color and the larks go extinct, Trump has been finding by trial-and-error who's loyal and who's not. He got hoodwinked by Sessions and his backers so that an investigation could start that would have leverage on Trump (something the Republicans establishment ousted by Trump wanted to control him and something Democrats wanted to blame the election loss on, so a win-win for the previous power brokers), but Trump has found other backers and has started to understand, with his family members, how the state apparatus works and the amazing powers of the President (from controlling things like the FBI, intelligence agencies, nominating SCOTUS, tariffs and trade deals, threatening nuclear war and the like) as well as cut deals with the real Republican power holders like the Israelis, Saudi's and the Kochs, not the puppets seen on TV who he can now just ignore. He'll soon be able to pardon who he wants from federal and state crimes, get rid of Rosenstein and Mueller, as well as take full charge of the whole wealth of propaganda outlets and dirty bag of tricks the Republican establishment has painstakingly crafted over the years.
In my view Trump has now secured the essential state power mechanisms (why he's now so happy on TV) thanks to unquestioning loyalty of the Republican base that have kept all the Republican senators and congress members in line, and avoided a revolution of the moderate Republicans teaming with the Democrats to impeach him.
So great for Trump. And a great day for Trump supporters for sure.
However, supporting an incompetent statesman who falls in love with dictators is not necessarily a good future for any American, including Republicans. When a real crisis comes, history has shown that governments filled with loyal sycophants simply lose their grip on the situation.
edit: corrections
completely agree
Quoting boethius
completely agree
Quoting boethius
it is about the votes about abortion - not the issue, the votes. It is, and has been, about how 3 Republicans can vote against a pro life court member and get re-elected, or run for president, and how 1 democrat can vote no and not get beat in a Republican state by a republican.
Quoting boethius
disagree - the beauty of the lifetime appointment to the bench is once on - Trump hold absolutely no power over him, none. It maybe about a constitutional issue of what can or can't be done to a president - but it won't be about Trump.
Quoting boethius
I can help him there - none of them are, and that is exactly the loyalty he deserves.
as for all the other Trump stuff - let me restate what I said before - he is the worst human being to ever hold the office - and the sooner he an this mess leave Washington the better.
but I don't get the point of not believed without corroborating evidence - what are the correct actions that should be taken when with non-corroborated allegations ???
Yes, if you're talking about the Republican base perception that Kavanaugh will change abortion precedent, not whether that precedent will actually change, then we are talking about the same thing. Of course, other judges would have fit that description too, why Trump chose Kavanaugh in particular is because he sees Kavanaugh best for him and knows, due to the abortion thing and his base supporting him, the senators can't do shit to change it even if they wanted too.
Quoting Rank Amateur
By about "protecting Trump", I mean that's why Trump nominated him, as he saw he's the guy most likely to protect him, whether due to leverage or just ideological compatibility or both.
I do not believe life long appointments really do free people from all leverage points and allows them to vote their conscience. Leverage in elite circles can be from all sorts of angles.
Yes, Kavanaugh will still be there after Trump, but this may play out poorly for Republicans.
Republican (establishment) ideology has become a cult of personal enrichment at the cost of everyone else including the state. Money equaling speech is a good example of how far the Supreme court is into this ideology even without Kavanaugh. The supreme court is vital to the state functioning, once the ideology of (what the rest of thew world calls) corruption is fully in control it could rapidly erode democratic processes to the point sufficiently many people simply no longer find those processes credible. What happens after is difficult to predict, but it's not good for anyone.
Quoting Rank Amateur
Some are loyal, like his family members, but I agree the term loyalty as we usually understand it isn't a good word for most. It's more brand loyalty, people who believe the Trump brand is the future of the Republican party and are staying on the ride, as well as people Trump has leverage on.
Quoting Rank Amateur
I think the impeachment boat has sailed. The entire media, including Fox news, has tried multiple times to try to switch the narrative to "is Trump done, I think Trump is done, yep he's done ... oh look the polls haven't changed". Fox News has painstakingly taken the credibility of establishment media and given it, not to themselves as they imagined, but an organic mania machine on the internet.
Trump has created a new normal for the Republican base and party apparatus. The previous republican main players will find it ironic that all their effort into voter disenfranchisement, electronic voting machines without paper trails and supreme court precedent of recounts not being a thing (further strengthened by a 5 conservative justices) will be reaped by Trump, but they'll get their piece of the cake too and be happy about it.
yes
Quoting boethius
In general, and historically I have been impressed with how the court has decided many - most issues. Even rulings that I disagreed with. It is a human institutions, and there are exceptions to that, but in general they have been a reasoned body. I think the lifetime appointment is a critical part of that.
Quoting boethius
Hasn't even left the dry dock yet. We have not had a direct serious charge yet against him - if such a charge comes to life - the Republicans in Wash will rush to the floor to start proceedings and do all they can to end this nightmare.
Kavanaugh's name has been dragged through the mud a bit, but he's compensated if he gets the job he wanted. Ford's name has also been dragged through the mud by Trump, Trump Jr, and many of their supporters. She must not be treated as a liar, because what she said is possibly true - and the possibility she is stating facts must not be dismissed. She should be shown respect for having the courage to come forward. Senators voting for Kavanaugh should express sentiments to this effect. Kudos to those who condemned Trump's comments.
That truly would be an awesome scenario. Unfortunately, the nobility of soul needed for such a gesture is completely lacking on both sides of the political aisle at the moment.
As far as I was concerned, Trump's nomination of Kavanaugh was the kiss of death. Kavanaugh could have walked on water, and it wouldn't have changed my mind. (Walking on water should be a bar to Senate approval, in any case.)
"Denying it improperly" is a curious way to elide the fact that he was openly partisan, excessively indigent (which he just admitted in an op-ed in the WSJ) and outright lied about his drinking habits, and several other details, as corroborated by nearly a dozen peers. So yes, even if Ford's accusations are proven to be totally false, there are still the above issues which should disqualify him from one of the most important, high profile, positions in the world.
Double standards...
The GOP is looking to overturn Roe vs. Wade...
The House of Representatives, not the Senate, votes for impeachment. It only takes a simple majority - so yes, this could occur. But impeachment is analogous to indictment, it does not remove someone from office. It moves to the Senate for the decision to remove. That takes a 2/3 majority vote, so it would require 67 Senators to vote to remove him from office. So it's probably not going to happen.
This Wikipedia article on the impeachment of Bill Clinton makes the process clear.
Quoting Rank Amateur
There is only one advantages of life-long appointments in my opinion, especially if the bar is high to get on the bench (not 51 senators as it is now). The main advantage I see is that the judge appointments are spread out over decades so this guarantees a minimum diversity, and political rot must set in over decades to make big changes. However, I don't feel "unaccountably" in the form of life long appointments somehow magically increases honesty, it's a similar argument to the "rich don't need more money so are less corrupted" which people made vis-a-vis Trump. If a judge isn't affected by lollipops of the prospects of their kids and nephews getting the jobs they want of VC financing for their startup or whatever, not to speak of direct bribes or direct threats or blackmail (even he it means resigning or possibly being assassinated), I would strongly guess it doesn't matter the format of the judgeship for this kind of person; a person who is affected by leverage of whatever kind out of weakness or even welcomes bribes and lollipops as "just looking our for number 1", I don't think lifelong appointment would cause some sudden change of heart.
In previous comments I've outlined the advantages I see in direct election of judges (with much higher bar that 51% first-past-the-post systems being available, as well as longer terms than a typical politician, for instance 10-20 years). However, the dutch system of judges selecting their replacements as well as the US system can work. It's a matter of potentially working better as well as being a better learning experience for society (to consider what the law is, what good judgement is, judging a judges record and voting, I feel is a positive experience for society as well as lending more credibility to the system; in particular in a direct-voting system, if corruption is perceived as a problem, the judge that really wants to fight corruption fiercely and face death-threats can present him or herself; also, in the Europe continental judicial tradition, such as in France, judges generally have power to investigate themselves police or political corruption or things they feel of extraordinary import, it doesn't happen often but they have the power, though this power can be done in the US or any system as well, it's another good thing in my view).
Quoting Rank Amateur
I'm starting to really doubt this scenario. Trump has already essentially admitted to obstruction of justice on national TV, has scandals of affairs and payments to porn stars, separated children from families, which are just three incredible things more than enough to impeach on. A large portion of sitting US politicians hate Trump, for taking away their power as well as genuine disgust with how he acts and what he says. They've tried (with Fox news supporting) numerous times to trigger an conservative rejection of Trump wave, each time failing. High profile republicans have on numerous occasions made the case against Trump during the campaign. There's definitely enough republicans in the house that genuinely think Trump is bad for the country and the long term prospects of the Republican Party to impeach him ... but no demand from the Republican base, so it would be a short-term meltdown of the GOP and total loss of power of any Republican who participated. It would be similar to the assassination of Ceasar to save Rome from tyranny where every participant was hanged anyways regardless of if it was the right thing to do; there's not enough Republicans politicians that would but country before themselves (many genuinely believe that maximizing personal gain is maximizing society's gain and so if they would lose any power by opposing Trump it's by definition good for the country to keep supporting Trump).
I don't see Mueller being able to up the bar in terms of the scandal-meter, and even if he could the Republican base may not have any threshold where they would be calling for Trump's impeachment. Since impeachment is a political process, without public sentiment of the Republican base changing I don't think it will happen. Even if democrats get the numbers to impeach in both houses, which seems essentially impossible in the Senate at the moment in the midterms anyway nor in the event Trump is re-elected, they might still not impeach him without Republican support, as it would fire up the Republican base (if they still support Trump) and they may prefer Trump over Pence to erode the Republican base as a whole (which is definitely happening under Trump) so they may just dillydaddle and investigate and bring as much scandalous information to light as possible without ever actually impeaching Trump even if they could (i.e. same scenario as the Republicans who think Trump is terrible now: it might be the right thing to do but it's politically expedient not to do it).
edit: corrected implied super majority needed in congress to impeach, which is not correct.
I'm really not sure they will actually do this. It's very convenient for Republican politicians that the Justices took care of this issue rather than legislation. Their base gets to feel victimized and there's none of the nuances, compromise and progressive implementation, planned or through reforms at various time, that the legislation process creates. It was illegal and a big problem issue for Republicans in less social conservative areas, and then went to just being completely legal and something Republicans politicians don't have to worry about.
So the situation is sort of best of both worlds for conservative politicians (assuming they don't care at all about the underlying issue, just pandering to their base, which is my general assumption). They get the outrage support from the pro-life movement (some who might otherwise be social-democrat, supporting health-care etc.) without losing swing-voters that are pro-choice but otherwise more conservative. My guess is the farthest a conservative SCOTUS will go is just not interfering in state level anti-abortion initiatives, which is essentially status quo at the moment anyway.
Sometimes it's better just to have a result even if it's not the one you want just so you can have some cloture.
The Raging Reds (and the extreme left) is where American mobs are coming from: the campus left turns out small mobs that are obsessed about very narrow issues, and the angry conservatives can field large mobs obsessed with their much broader issues. A plague on both their houses! But the angry white right wing mobs stand to be a lot more dangerous. The right has fielded a number of bad mobs: the post WWI mobs that attacked organized labor (Red Scare); the Jim Crow white mobs; the anti-communist mobs of the 1940s and 1950s reacting to the New Deal; the mobs of better off working class or sort of middle class voters who have been working for decades to defeat Roe vs. Wade, and so on.
They are reactionary. They are more volatile than liberals in the offense they take at changes in society.
Liberally idealistic people must become better organized, more strategic, more pro-active, more volatilely action-oriented, more effective.
All the more reason to appoint someone like him...
Quoting boethius
Legitimized oligarchy. It's already been accepted throughout American culture.
The bit about perjury being OK, but only for judges, won't go down too well anywhere in the developed world outside the US for sure.
That goes for Presidents too. If Clinton was found to have perjured himself, he should have been removed from office (as Republicans insisted). If Kavanaugh perjured, he should not be allowed to be a judge at any level. If you can't establish some reasonable standard of ethical requirements for political or judicial appointees that applies to [I]both[/i] sides then you don't have the basics of a properly functioning democracy in place.
The same goes for credible allegations of misconduct. There needs to be an objective and fair process that protects both the accuser and the accused, and a comprehensive and independent investigation should be a part of that along with a suspension of judgement (especially among politicians) until that's completed.
So, Republicans "win" this partisan fight. Democrats may "win" the next one. But as a country, America and its institutions continue to lose. That's not something anybody should be celebrating.
But justice - the legal system, who cares about that, who cares if that gets raped?
When did you folks degrade to a mob mentality? Or maybe you were always there. I just expected more.
But more to the point, I wouldn't want my daughter tried by him or have his decision rule her, any more than I would want her in his classroom. What is your non-mob mentality?
If that's more to the point, then your point is not about a precautionary suspension.
It's that you believe that having demonstrated a lack of respect for females, he should have no jurisdiction over them. Is that correct?
I'd have no problem trusting my kids when young with him. Regardless, the guilty "if I would harbor concerns with them tending my daughter" standard is an irrational standard. It justifies finding guilt based upon hunches and feelings of creepiness.
You can't fire a school teacher for 17 year old misdeeds by the way. They have actual legal rights to their job. The majority of the testimony wouldn't be allowed at the teacher's hearing, if it even got to the there being a hearing.
Do you propose delving into the ancient past of every school teacher to arm up every parent who might one say have a run in with the teacher?
But others here opposed to him have said they'd have allowed him to be a Justice even if he did it, but were only opposed because he lied.
The proposition that childhood behaviour is relevant to the judgement of an adult's character in no way implies that juvenile behaviour ought to be considered as relevant to an adult on trial for one's actions. The adult goes to court on trial for one's adult actions not for one's character.
No it doesn't. I justifies erring on the side of caution and protection when there is a credible accusation. I'm not basing this on his ugly face and sneering mouth, but on credible sworn accusation, and other credible similar accusations supported by his own writing at and around the time.
Quoting Hanover
Yes. Every person in a position of trust with a vulnerable person should have a background check, and every such person credibly accused of a sexual crime at any time should be suspended until thoroughly investigated.
You have implied multiple times that even if he did it, his juvenule status on the occasion makes it ok.
So do you think he did it?
And why this double standard? We should assume that the purpose of a criminal investigation, trial, and sentence is the betterment of society. If we've concluded that one's character from juvenile bad acts is grounds for the disenfranchisement from certain highly trusted privileges of society (and the ones currently enumerated are Supreme Court Justice and schoolteachers), why block our courts from considering that in criminal matters. I just want a safe, clean society for myself and children, and I'm having difficulty understanding why our laws only allow us to ferret out certain types of dangerous scoundrels. If what I did in high school makes me a now 52 year old unfit to serve as baseball coach, soccer coach, cub scout leader (all of which I did in years past), then I should be excluded. Let's have some process to ferret out evil and mark the demons among us so that we're not subjected to these people. I was hoping our criminal justice system would do that, but it's apparently ineffective for that purpose.
Would you just stop?
What questions do you propose be on the local Sunday school teacher's application? Should it ask detailed questions about juvenile acts 35 years prior, even if there were never an accusation of it?
I was asking what you believe.
Anyway, you're out of step with seasoned Republican senators on the issue of ignoring guilt because his record might have been expunged if he'd been found guilty at the time. That's a big "might have" btw.
Everyone here is acting like rights afforded criminals in criminal court are just some strange oddity inserted in antiquity for some purpose now lost in time. Those rules are there to assure fairness and a trusted result, and it makes as much sense to use them in criminal court as it does in any other proceeding where the object is the discovery of truth.
When I was a night porter for a hotel for the disabled, I had a police background check, because I would be alone with vulnerable adults. I imagine it was a fairly cursory record search. I also imagine that if there were three separate complaints of sexual offences on record, I would not have got the job. I think the checks for a supreme court justice should probably be at least as extensive as that.
As it happens, one of the waiters was accused of sexual assault (not at the hotel) . He was immediately suspended from his job, arrested and interviewed under caution. And all this before he was convicted of anything.
I oppose him because his lies are obvious and go to his character as he is now. If he has done it I think the intervening period would be long enough to demonstrate he isn't that person anymore. It would be reason to investigate that nothing similar happened when he was older.
I don't see any double standard. I see two distinct types of judgement with two distinct sets of criteria. A criminal trial is set to determine whether an individual committed a criminal act, and if so, the criminal extent of that act. A judgement of an individual's character is carried out for completely different purposes, and therefore proceeds form different premises of what constitutes evidence.
Quoting Hanover
Actually, if such evidence were permissible in criminal matters the supply of evidence would be nearly never ending, the trial would be nearly never ending, and the courts would actually be blocked. So you have the idea of "block our courts" inverted.
Quoting Hanover
Sorry to shatter your illusion, but the criminal justice system is really set up to bring justice to bear on those who have committed crimes. The burden of preventing individuals from proceeding into criminal activity is placed on other social structures. So if you want a safe society for your family you should consider the adequacy of these other social structures rather than the adequacy of the criminal justice system.
Judge Ford independently of Kavanaugh. We shouldn't treat accusers as liars until proven to be telling the truth. Credible accusations should be given the benefit of the doubt. If we don't, we're giving carte blanche to future abusers to do what they will, with the expectation they will get away with it if it's just the victims word against his.
The claim is not that you rushed to judgement on Weinstein but that you made a sensible and uncontroversial judgement (along with just about everyone else) for which conviction in a court of law was not a prerequisite. As Un pointed out, suspicion is enough to justify caution, and the greater the suspicion, the more justified the caution, with cautionary measures justifiably including removal from a position of power or prevention of the attainment of one. Conservative bloviating re Kavanaugh notwithstanding, that's a simple common-sense approach that should be applied to political appointments in a bipartisan manner.
This seems an odd sentiment to me. Suspicious characters get arrested, locked up, remanded in custody, sometimes for months, and then eventually maybe prosecuted and maybe not. It happens all the time, and if it didn't we wouldn't have much of a justice system. These things 'ruin lives', they cause break-ups, affect children, destroy reputations, and generally fuck people about big time. Some of them are innocent. Having the police search your property is a scary humiliating public event. The neighbours always blame you, your friends look at you sideways. And the papers aways publish that photo of you hungover and half dressed. The process of corroborating allegations ruins lives.
I get the feeling though, that it is only certain lives, well dressed, educated, affluent, important lives that should not be ruined. And the price of not ruining these lives with intrusive investigations is (amongst other things) that sexual predators in positions of influence get away with it over and over again, and other lives, less influential lives but many more lives get ruined instead. And everyone knows that, so I wonder why I bother to mention it. And I thought the Catholic Church was corrupt. I believe in justice, and there is no justice.
There's certainly an odd false association of money and status with good character as if those things have any necessary connection at all.
And this is what's really important to me (speaking of minorities). Whoever you are, you'll likely find that applying the principle of presumed innocence is easy in some cases and hard in others.
Note when it's hard. That's when its most important to apply it. Why the Europeans on this board don't understand that, I dont know. I could speculate.
Why Hanover doesn't get it: that's something else. He's Jewish. If anybody should understand it, he should. Yet he's already assumed Kavanaugh's guilt and moved on to defending him on the basis that he was under age.
If the money keeps disappearing from a till only you have access to on your shift, there's unlikely to be a presumption of innocence until you're convicted in a court of law, but much more likely to be a firing that no-one except you will object to. The presumption of innocence applies to criminal penalties not to how we deal with people in terms of hirings, promotions and firings where we apply common-sense probabilities. Again, this is not to argue that Kavanaugh was guilty, but that the (mostly) conservative presumption of innocence spiel re him is just a convenient distraction that is not applied by them in analogous non-partisan contexts.
Are you capable of addressing any of my arguments and explaining why you think I'm wrong?
If I'm innocent, this scenario describes injustice. I'm not asking you to agree or understand. I'm informing you that in my society, though it may happen, it's considered to be wrong.
Quoting Baden
I struggle to understand how you could imagine justice has no meaning outside a courtroom. Again, I'm informing you that in my society, which has a history of prejudiced hiring, promoting, and firing in accordance with what was deemed common-sense probability, an unwarranted assumption of guilt is contrary to basic principles.
Quoting Baden
If someone applies or doesn't apply the principle in keeping with strategy, that person is basically unprincipled. You won't learn much about a society's values by focusing on people like that.
Obviously. And if you're found guilty in a court of something you didn't do, that's an injustice too.
Quoting frank
And I'm informing you that that's an absurd claim. Again, Harvey Weinstein. Who thought it was wrong when he was fired and not presumed innocent? Almost no-one, and rightly so. Of course, if he's innocent, that's unjust, but the huge weight of likelihood of his guilt makes doing nothing the unjust course of action.
Quoting frank
Strawman. I obviously don't think that. In fact, I think justice has little meaning in a courtroom in a country where the judges are often political partisans as many are in the US.
Among those who spoke out about the rash of career destructions of which Weinstein was the model was Margaret Atwood. She spoke on behalf of the principle of assumed innocence.
The people we're talking about were not fired based on the principle that doing nothing is unjust. They were each fired to protect brands. Charlie Rose was fired to protect CBS's brand. Kevin Spacey was fired to protect Netflix and so on. In other words, they were fired because of the power of the mob. Somehow you drew out of this the principle that it's ok to destroy people and ask questions later (if at all).
Again, a strawman. I don't believe careers should always be ended because of accusations and certainly not without questions being asked. I've stressed that already several times in this thread. Now try dealing with what I actually said instead of pinning your projections on me.
Where did I say anything about a "mob"? Quote me.
Continue with your mangled comprehension of the world. It's not my problem.
Most Americans approve of Weinstein's firing because of the very high probability he is a sexual abuser/rapist. That's just a fact. And if you can't quote me to support your argument, then yes, you are done.
I think in this case it simply refers to two or more people who disagree with frank.
Rules of evidence are, of course, irrelevant for employees facing firing under employment at will. If the boss says you offended a customer, or annoyed a client, or combed your hair the wrong way, or whatever, doesn't matter. You're fired, end of story.
Employees almost never have recourse, no matter how damaging the firing is.
You either quote where I said that or stop saying I said things I didn't say.
Is there some reason you can't read your own posts?
In the case where there is a huge weight of likelihood of guilt, especially in a case of sexual assault, the accused should be removed from a position where he or she can repeat the abuse.
But I did not say without qualification or context:
Quoting frank
And in fact I made that clear when I said:
Quoting Baden
Do you understand yet frank?
Precautionary suspension. We're back to Kavanaugh trying to rape the lawyers who come before the Supreme Court. Good grief.
Quoting Baden
I'm getting there. What I've found out about you is pure third world.
As has just been explained to you frank, this is standard practice in developed countries, not only the US but across the globe. In developing countries, it's much more likely nothing will be done wrt those in positions of power.
I'm not lying to you Baden. Presumption of innocence pervades here. To Kill a Mockingbird, Twelve Angry Men, etc. They drill this stuff into school kids. Did you not get that sort of thing as a child?
I'm all for that frank. But you're conflating criminal and social penalties. In the case of social penalties, it doesn't pervade or Weinstein would still have his job. That's just reality.
It's my time you'd be wasting. Again.