Kavanaugh

Halifax2TheMax · September 2018

oftenreading said:

Conway claimed that women don't come forward to report actual sexual assault because other women make false allegations. According to her, "it cuts both ways".

What does that bafflegab even mean?

Did she cock her head, smile and bat her eyes after she said it?

mickeyrat · September 2018

Kat said:

Oh please let it rain today. This city's so filthy. Like my mind in ways.

yes indeed.

couldnt let it pass unnoticed.

PJ_Soul · September 2018

mace1229 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

mace1229 said:

PJ_Soul said:

mace1229 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

mickeyrat said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

How is it too much to ask that a SCOTUS judge not have sexual assault accusations against them that very well could be true?? Especially when the resistance to actually figuring out if they are true is so strong?
My God, the standards that some people apply to people for such positions are at an all time low.
And it shocks me that people would allow Kavanagh "losing his dream job" to be a legitimate concern. This position Trump is trying to put him in is so far beyond that. At the end of the day, a SCOTUS judge nominee needs to be beyond reproach, and we all know that Kavanaugh is not, even if this allegation is false... which I doubt. People seem to overestimating the chances of a woman putting herself in the position this woman is currently in. Please, someone give me any motive on her part that justifies it.

because in the current climate, many people think that every accusation is credible, no matter what. the overwhelming majority are credible, but that's not 100%, especially where politics are concerned.

the resistance is so strong because of the timing of the vote. there's a lot on the line for both parties. potentially decades worth of law making that could tip to one side or the other, and if it makes all the difference in the world if the vote happens before or after the mid-terms. so you can see why people are skeptical about the motivations on BOTH sides.

as far as we know right now, no, there is no motive on her part to go through what she's going through. but what if we found one out later, like piles of cash in an offshore account, but it was too late and this man's life is ruined?

now, after what we are hearing from other women and Avenatti, it's unlikely that this is untrue. But I'd like to know what, in your opinion, makes one sexual assault allegation credible and one not credible? is it motive for coming forward alone?

explain to me, if you will, how exactly his life would be ruined by not getting THIS lifetime appointment when he already has one? If its reputation , thats something that can be repaired wth contrition or if tge accusations are false, once the truth is revealed.

what he potentially goes through will fall far far far short of what these women will be forced to endure for speaking up.

I don't know, I just tend to think that sexual crimes reported on at the national/international level would suck pretty bad. And how is the truth revealed in a case of wrongful accusations of this nature? it's like proving there is no god. unless the accuser admits to lying, there is no "truth will come out".

I hate having to say this so often, but it seems to be necessary: I'm not defending this guy. I'm guessing he did what she is accusing him of.

But it just seems to me that no one gives a fuck if she's lying. it's "oh well, he's still a judge, men have been assholes for centuries, so if this one is collateral damage, so be it". I just think that's a dangerous road to go down.

Exactly how I feel.
If proven to be untrue, it will be talked about for 15 minutes then forgotten. And he will always be known as the judge who didn't get nominated for this. If true I don't feel bad for him at all, but if not, this would be horrible to go through. Yes, abused women had to endure much worse, but that doesn't have anything to do with railroading someone.
I don't get the attitude of "o well, he's already a judge so whats the harm." I agree it is a dangerous road.

I have no clue why you think proven false accusations would be talked about for 15 minutes and then forgotten.
But in any case, yup, someone getting hurt by false allegations is horrible. I ABSOLUTELY care about such instances... But I'm not sure what in the world people want here. At this moment there is no reason at all to assume they are false accusations, but the possibility of them being false is the MAIN topic of conversation. If these are not false accusations, which is much more likely than the reverse, that's way, way, WAY more disgusting than Kavanaugh not getting this SCOTUS seat.
So what exactly are you looking for here?? Is there some third option that I'm not aware of, in a dimension where life is always fair?

I do see a third option.
Camp A: It seems many have the side of he's been accused, that is enough to disqualify him.
Camp B: Another camp is this was long, he was young, its been almost 40 years, let him be a judge.

I actually think Camp B is uncommon. Although that has been cited constantly by those who want him disqualifies, very few are actually saying that. Far more are what I consider Camp C: delay a vote until a hearing takes places and testimony if weighed and the facts are researched. Then decide if he is qualified. I don't think you need the same level of evidence that a criminal case needs to disqualify him, far less. But many seem to want to skip that phase and go straight to disqualifying.

And yes, I do think if they are proven untrue it will make far less news than what it already has. Not even close.

this is what we are saying. not sure how that wasn't clear from the beginning.

You've been clear on that. But there are others who seem to want him gone based on the accusations without any further questioning. The fact he's been accused alone is enough for some.

No, the fact that there's a pretty good possibility that he's sexually assaulted his accusers is enough for some. This is very reasonable.

rgambs · September 2018

I think we can all agree that Conway is a POS.

Gern Blansten · September 2018

HughFreakingDillon said:

mrussel1 said:

^to disqualify him?

with one accuser? at least some type of investigation. or at least fucking speaking to the person.

with 4, if that's what we're up to now? pretty much nothing. when you get into multiples, I don't see the chances of him being innocent as being anywhere near possible.

He's a frat boy piece of shit. We've all come across them in our lives.

Maybe he realizes what he did was wrong...but the fucker won't admit that he did it. He thinks enough time went by that he can deny it and enough people will believe him and put him on the court.

dignin · September 2018

mrussel1 said:

cincybearcat said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

mrussel1 said:

^to disqualify him?

with one accuser? at least some type of investigation. or at least fucking speaking to the person.

with 4, if that's what we're up to now? pretty much nothing. when you get into multiples, I don't see the chances of him being innocent as being anywhere near possible.

I agree with this. If he still maintains his innocence I think he should sit there and listen to his accusers. But the burden of proof goes way down once several people report the same behavior. And if I were a senator, I wouldn’t be able to vote for him.

Right, but say it's just one person. What is the burden of proof? Is it "believable", "preponderance of the evidence", "beyond a reasonable doubt"? If you were on taht committee, voting for someone to be a SCOTUS for life (not go to jail, not lose your job), what is the burden? For me, it's believable. I think it's a fairly low bar for the accuser to cross. The position is too important. It is essentially the most important long term job in the country.

This is where I'm at.

I find both women who have forward so far credible and believable.

pjhawks · September 2018

HughFreakingDillon said:

mrussel1 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

mrussel1 said:

^to disqualify him?

with one accuser? at least some type of investigation. or at least fucking speaking to the person.

with 4, if that's what we're up to now? pretty much nothing. when you get into multiples, I don't see the chances of him being innocent as being anywhere near possible.

I believe the first accuser requested an FBI investigation, prior to testifying. The committee rejected that demand so she relented to testifying Thursday. Because there will be no formal investigation, what is the burden now?

if it remained at one accuser? that's a good question. I honestly don't know.

if the nominee didn't have evidence of shady behavior than one accuser maybe be ok to allow to pass through. with what has been reported about Kavanaugh and his high school and college history one accuser may have been enough.

of course assholes who do this kind of behavior never do it just once so not even remotely surprising there are now more accusers.

i want to hear him explain his past behavior to his daughters. that would be interesting to hear

Jason P · September 2018

The irony of a supreme court nominee finding his fate judged by the public mob is an interesting turn of events.

mickeyrat · September 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/24/another-female-accuser-just-stepped-forward-so-why-wont-republicans-call-in-the-fbi/?utm_term=.106106440ad0

By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
September 24 at 8:59 AM

Now that another woman has told the New Yorker about another episode alleging sexually belligerent behavior in the 1980s by Brett Kavanaugh, the White House has put out a statement that inadvertently makes a strong argument for, not against, further examination of Kavanaugh’s background by the FBI.

Responding to the new allegation, a White House spokesman dismissed it as a “smear,” and added:

“This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say.”

You know who might do a good job verifying that “all who were said to be present” deny the new allegation, and that it is “wholly inconsistent” with what “many” who knew Kavanaugh at the time say? The FBI would, that’s who. And if the FBI did reopen its background check and confirm these things, it would go great lengths toward exonerating him. So why don’t Republicans want this to happen?

It should be stated up front that the new allegations have not been publicly corroborated by anyone. Kavanaugh’s defenders may argue that if the FBI were called in (which President Trump would have to do), this means anyone can far too easily make that happen by concocting a charge against a nominee on his or her own, thus baselessly casting further suspicion over that nominee. This is not an unreasonable objection. I’ll try to address it below.

The woman, Deborah Ramirez, admitted to the New Yorker that she was “inebriated” at the time and that there are “significant gaps” in her memory. Ramirez claims that when she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, at a dorm party a young man pointed a gag plastic penis at her, and she recalls that man and another man standing near her as she lay on the floor. New Yorker reporters Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer claim Ramirez identified these two men, but the piece doesn’t name them.

Ramirez then recounts that a third male exposed himself, putting a penis “in front of my face.” Then comes this:

She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ ”

It seems Ramirez is not entirely sure the man who allegedly exposed himself was Kavanaugh, but she claims to remember conduct right afterward by him that strongly suggests this to be the case.

What we still don’t know

The New Yorker piece adds that reporters have “not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party,” despite contacting “several dozen classmates.” What’s unclear is whether this includes the two men whom Ramirez herself identified, and the male who supposedly shouted Kavanaugh’s name. If those two were unwilling to confirm the plastic penis gag or that she lay on the floor after it happened, and if the third male has no recollection of shouting Kavanaugh’s name, it would amount to more than a mere failure to confirm Kavanaugh’s presence. These points will hopefully be clarified in coming days.

More broadly, the story claims that just after Kavanaugh got the nomination, his “college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students.” One man says Kavanaugh was “frequently, incoherently drunk.” One woman says that Mark Judge — whom Christine Blasey Ford claims was present during Kavanaugh’s alleged assault — is lying when he denies extensive horseplay toward women in the world of Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh’s alma mater.

An FBI examination could help illuminate such things. It might not pass judgment on Ramirez’s claims, but it would conduct numerous interviews and report their content to lawmakers, giving them more information to work with to better assess the claims themselves. Such interviews could confirm to lawmakers what numerous classmates say about the episode itself — or about it not happening — as well as about Ford’s allegation and about Kavanaugh’s general conduct and the atmospherics at Georgetown Prep and Yale.

Kavanaugh’s burden of proof

Kavanaugh, as an individual, is of course entitled to a presumption of innocence. But this doesn’t settle the tougher question, which is what should be his burden when it comes to addressing charges such as these in the quest to be deemed worthy of being elevated to the Supreme Court for life.

Writing at the Atlantic, Benjamin Wittes suggests the burden is on Kavanaugh to dispel any “asterisk” over his name that such allegations have created, to preserve the court’s legitimacy, and because of the far-reaching influence over public affairs such an appointment brings. But who gets to decide whether that “asterisk” has been sufficiently dispelled, or if it has not, how that should weigh on his confirmation?

The answer is that individual senators get to decide this. They decide whether that asterisk has been dealt with, or whether dispelling it in the eyes of the country should even be a precondition for serving on the court at all. Kavanaugh’s testimony this week might be just persuasive enough to make Susan Collins of Maine or Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — or both — feel politically comfortable enough to back him, getting him to 50 or 51 Senate votes. But even if so, that asterisk could remain for much of the country.

Or here’s another approach: Collins and Murkowski could decide to place a high standard on whether this asterisk has been dispelled. The reality is that the standard Kavanaugh must meet is up to them. (It’s amazing that we take it as unremarkable that 49 Republicans will back Kavanaugh no matter what even under these conditions, but put that aside for now.) Thus, Collins and Murkowski could insist that only an FBI reexamination will meet that asterisk-dispelling standard, and refuse to support him until it is conducted. If they do not, it is they who have chosen to set this standard so low, and they should be asked to defend this.

Is it fair that a single person’s uncorroborated allegation can force an FBI investigation? In certain respects, perhaps not, but in this case two women have now alleged this behavior, and again, Kavanaugh is asking to be granted great influence over society and the rest of us.

And here’s the thing: The #MeToo movement is leaving it inescapable that we will need some kind of improved process for dealing with such charges in the context of Supreme Court confirmation fights. Perhaps we should come to see it as ordinary and necessary to re-involve the FBI when allegations like these reach a certain point. As Quinta Jurecic notes, what that point is must inevitably be contested, because it’s a complicated moral question. And a standard might develop in a case-by-case way over time.

But right now, it seems to have plainly been reached. Besides, even if bringing in the FBI risks being unfair to a candidate ultimately found guilty of no wrongdoing, can anyone reasonably say that doing nothing — and leaving the he-said/she-said question mark hovering over a lifetime appointment — is a better course? If so, that view, too, must be defended.

Right now it is on individual senators to decide the answer to that question — that is, to decide how high the standard in addressing that question mark will be. It is on two of them.

CM189191 · September 2018

mrussel1 · September 2018

CM189191 said:

What does that mean, sided with him? Wasn't he on the court of appeals 6 years ago? Was there an actual case before the court?

cincybearcat · September 2018

CM189191 said:

Yup everyone knew 6 years ago that Trump would eventually be president. This stuff is soooo stupid

oftenreading · September 2018

cincybearcat said:

CM189191 said:

Yup everyone knew 6 years ago that Trump would eventually be president. This stuff is soooo stupid

Why would you take that tack? No one is claiming that they knew Trump would be president. That does not mean that Kavanaugh may not have been given the nod for this nomination as a reward. Surely you’re not naive enough to think this couldn’t occur.

oftenreading · September 2018

mrussel1 said:

CM189191 said:

What does that mean, sided with him? Wasn't he on the court of appeals 6 years ago? Was there an actual case before the court?

Yes.

Here is more information.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-07-30/kavanaugh-sided-with-trump-casino-in-2012-to-thwart-union-drive

RoleModelsinBlood31 · September 2018

Where was that article/meme found, Facebook? Jesus.

as far as Kavanaugh goes, it seems shady on both sides, so im interested in seeing what comes from the hearing on Thursday. I want to believe Ford because I don’t trust the powerful or the elite, but when the NYTimes writes an article about a new accuser yesterday that basically discredits the accuser because they can’t find a single corroborating piece of evidence out of the hundreds of sources and leads they check...and then the accuser herself isn’t sure if it was even Kavanaugh or if he was even there .... but they STILL write the fucking article so they can add an “accuser” to the list??? Jesus Christ, NYT you guys look so so dumb and you’ve pushed
me back into the “I don’t know” camp. I can TOTALLY see this being a pile of shit and he didn’t do anything at all. More filthy politics? More filthy men? I look forward to finding out.

oftenreading · September 2018

RoleModelsinBlood31 said:

Where was that article/meme found, Facebook? Jesus.

as far as Kavanaugh goes, it seems shady on both sides, so im interested in seeing what comes from the hearing on Thursday. I want to believe Ford because I don’t trust the powerful or the elite, but when the NYTimes writes an article about a new accuser yesterday that basically discredits the accuser because they can’t find a single corroborating piece of evidence out of the hundreds of sources and leads they check...and then the accuser herself isn’t sure if it was even Kavanaugh or if he was even there .... but they STILL write the fucking article so they can add an “accuser” to the list??? Jesus Christ, NYT you guys look so so dumb and you’ve pushed
me back into the “I don’t know” camp. I can TOTALLY see this being a pile of shit and he didn’t do anything at all. More filthy politics? More filthy men? I look forward to finding out.

That’s quite a mischaracterizarion of the article. Did you read it, or did you read someone else's version of it? Which by the way was in the New Yorker, not the NYT.

mrussel1 · September 2018

oftenreading said:

RoleModelsinBlood31 said:

Where was that article/meme found, Facebook? Jesus.

as far as Kavanaugh goes, it seems shady on both sides, so im interested in seeing what comes from the hearing on Thursday. I want to believe Ford because I don’t trust the powerful or the elite, but when the NYTimes writes an article about a new accuser yesterday that basically discredits the accuser because they can’t find a single corroborating piece of evidence out of the hundreds of sources and leads they check...and then the accuser herself isn’t sure if it was even Kavanaugh or if he was even there .... but they STILL write the fucking article so they can add an “accuser” to the list??? Jesus Christ, NYT you guys look so so dumb and you’ve pushed
me back into the “I don’t know” camp. I can TOTALLY see this being a pile of shit and he didn’t do anything at all. More filthy politics? More filthy men? I look forward to finding out.

That’s quite a mischaracterizarion of the article. Did you read it, or did you read someone else's version of it? Which by the way was in the New Yorker, not the NYT.

Yeah, in fact the Right was using the NYT article, which specifically did not corroborate the story, as evidence. Oh the irony of that.

mrussel1 · September 2018

oftenreading said:

mrussel1 said:

CM189191 said:

What does that mean, sided with him? Wasn't he on the court of appeals 6 years ago? Was there an actual case before the court?

Yes.

Here is more information.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-07-30/kavanaugh-sided-with-trump-casino-in-2012-to-thwart-union-drive

Thanks, it was a good read. I'm not sure I'd call that corruption.

njnancy · September 2018

mrussel1 said:

oftenreading said:

RoleModelsinBlood31 said:

Where was that article/meme found, Facebook? Jesus.

as far as Kavanaugh goes, it seems shady on both sides, so im interested in seeing what comes from the hearing on Thursday. I want to believe Ford because I don’t trust the powerful or the elite, but when the NYTimes writes an article about a new accuser yesterday that basically discredits the accuser because they can’t find a single corroborating piece of evidence out of the hundreds of sources and leads they check...and then the accuser herself isn’t sure if it was even Kavanaugh or if he was even there .... but they STILL write the fucking article so they can add an “accuser” to the list??? Jesus Christ, NYT you guys look so so dumb and you’ve pushed
me back into the “I don’t know” camp. I can TOTALLY see this being a pile of shit and he didn’t do anything at all. More filthy politics? More filthy men? I look forward to finding out.

That’s quite a mischaracterizarion of the article. Did you read it, or did you read someone else's version of it? Which by the way was in the New Yorker, not the NYT.

Yeah, in fact the Right was using the NYT article, which specifically did not corroborate the story, as evidence. Oh the irony of that.

The only publication with whom the accuser spoke was The New Yorker. The New York Times had no first hand access to her. It is rather rich that the White House and their followers are now citing 'the failing New York Times' & 'fake news' as gospel.

mickeyrat · September 2018

his sit down with fox should be disqualifying

Kavanaugh

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