Kavanaugh and Perjury

[_EAllusion]

Its a weird, as in not seemingly common, fetish for a guy to just sexually assault female democrats.
Now when you say "large majority" i assume you mean way more than just a majority. Can you explain why that matters with regard to my charge of "weird"?

Educated women prefer Democrats by a 2/1 margin. That is a large majority in politics. If we got more demographically specific, such as "from the DC area" I'm sure we could run up those numbers a bit, but let's start there. If you assaulted two random educated women in the US, there's about a 40% chance both would be current Democrat voters if they vote. So, if a baseball player who was batting .400 gets a hit, would you think, "Weird. I didn't expect that. That's suspicious." Yes? No?

Just because a woman has trait X doesn't mean they were assaulted by someone who has a fetish for trait X. The implication here is the fact that they are registered Democrats shows partisan motivation in making allegations, i.e. lying for purposes of political attacks, but there's nothing out of the ordinary with women being Democrats. Do you think allegations about Republican figures are only credible if Republican women make them?

[_EAllusion]

Its a weird, as in not seemingly common, fetish for a guy to just sexually assault female democrats.

All the Republican women he sexually assaulted haven't come forward because they either 1) have no self respect or 2) put politics before everything... which is par for the course given recent commentary by Republican women defending him. It's all normal behavior they say.

What? Or he didn't assault any Republican women. Or, on the chance that he did, they are remaining silent for reasons women generally sometimes remain silent. The way Ford's life has been turned upside down, it definitely would take anyone who has a similar story a boatload of courage to speak up.

[_EAllusion]

1. Ford still can’t recall basic details of what she says was the most traumatic event in her life. Not where the “assault” took place — she’s not sure whose house it was, or even what street it was on. Nor when — she’s not even sure of the year, let alone the day and month.

Would you expect "the most traumatic event" in someone's life to produce a good memory of those details? Heck, you add that fact in as though it increases our expectations of memory. I'm curious if you could link me some research on memory and trauma that shows this to be correct. Thanks in advance.

[_Kevin Graham]

1. Ford still can’t recall basic details of what she says was the most traumatic event in her life. Not where the “assault” took place — she’s not sure whose house it was, or even what street it was on. Nor when — she’s not even sure of the year, let alone the day and month.

Which is expected to those who actually understand traumatic events and how they affect people.

2. Ford told no one what happened to her at the time, not even her best friend or mother - a.k.a. -no contemporaneous witness to corroborate her story.

Again, this is expected of genuine victims of trauma 35 years later.

3. Ford identifies 4 people she as attending the party, including Kavanaugh, all deny knowledge of the gathering in question, including Leland Ingham Keyser, who she calls a “lifelong friend.”

Expected again, and Keyser said she didn't even know Kavanaugh back then. So why would she be expected to remember someone she doesn't know, at a party 35 years ago? She also said she believes Ford's allegations about Kavanaugh. Ooops? Forgot to mention that part huh.

4. Ford's own immediate family doesn’t appear to be backing her up, either. Her mother, father and two siblings are all conspicuously absent from a letter of support released by a dozen relatives, mostly on her husband’s side of the family.

More despicable Republican smearing based on speculation and innuendo. Silence doesn't translate to disagreement. But you're wrong because Ford’s father, Ralph Blasey Jr., a Republican, offered a brief endorsement of his daughter. “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs and so on." But please keep repeating half-truths provided by your idiot talk radio shows.

5. Ford contends that notes her therapist took in 2012 corroborate her account. But they don’t mention Kavanaugh.

Of course not, they don't mention any names. Why would they? The therapist wasn't filling out a police report. God you're damned dumb.

6. Ford told The Washington Post she was upset when Trump won in 2016, because Kavanaugh was mentioned as a Supreme Court pick. But Kavanaugh wasn’t added to Trump’s list of possibles until November 2017, a full year later.

No, this is what the Post reported:

"She contacted The Post through a tip line in early July (2018), when it had become clear that Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of possible nominees to replace retiring justice Anthony M. Kennedy but before Trump announced his name publicly."

Kavanaugh didn't appear on the initial list back in November 2016, but he was certainly talked about as a potential candidate in the media, including the NYT back in November 2016 and CNN just two months later. The same month Trump got elected the National Review did a piece arguing for Kavanaugh.

But yeah, tell me more.

You're a despicable piece of crap.

[_EAllusion]

I think earlier in the month some of the Republicans thought they'd get a few Democrats to support the nomination, but now I'd be absolutely astonished if any Democrats vote in favor of Kavanaugh. Looking at Wikipedia the quickest confirmation for the current Supreme Court (I don't know if I'm using the right term) was for Ginsberg at 50 days. I think we're down to 41 days before the November election, so it'd be really, really tight if they were to ditch Kavanaugh, today, and then nominate someone tomorrow. That's not happening. In a worst-case scenario, Kavanaugh gets owned on Thursday, Friday he's ditched, and the GOP gets around to nominating someone on Monday.

That's 36 days.

I've thought about this several times as well. They can also confirm in the lame duck session. That might be the politically safest thing to do, actually. Persuade Kavanaugh to withdraw and try to drum up evangelical enthusiasm for the mid-terms by having a Barrett or Hardiman type be up for the nomination. Hell, they can campaign like they might not get confirmed unless they are elected to their base, then confirm them anyway in case they don't.

The thing is, I have little doubt that Republicans will confirm a Supreme Court nominee with a single day to push them through if they will lose the Senate the next day. People will lose their minds about how this gives zero chance for the Senate to properly vet them, and it won't matter. That's just how the Republican party rolls and they aren't going to give up a chance to have a Supreme Court that is both highly socially conservative and a sort of Lochner era part II on business regulation for the sake of norms.

That might seem like political suicide, but political memory is really short, and they'll be at the furthest point possible from their next election. I doubt it would have much impact on future election chances. What it might do is poke the beast a little further and make calls for Democrats to play Constitutional hardball back even louder.

[_EAllusion]

Case in point: In Florida, Rick Scott has a plan if Republican's lose the Governor's seat to pack their Supreme Court that is shady as hell:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/po ... story.html

He's going to make three appointments inbetween the time that the 3 justices have to retire for a new session and when the new governor is sworn in on the same day. The strategy tries to exploit a quirk in the fact that there is a few hour gap between when the justices are officially retired and what time of day the swearing in ceremony is done for convenience. It's legally dubious as all get out. It's clearly not the intent of how the law is written, but none of that matters.

This isn't an isolated example. This is as bread and butter national Republican politics as it gets these days.

[_EAllusion]

As you'd expect, there's now a ton of witnesses from Kavanaugh's college days coming out contradicting Kavanaugh's fervent denials about his hard-partying ways. Why Kavanaugh would lie about that when he is currently in a credibility battle is beyond me. He just might have too much Trump in him.

This really has been baffling me. Kavanaugh has been a shameless liar about so many things that I've tried to just square this away as, "He's a pathological liar, like Trump. He can't help himself," or "Maybe he doesn't want to be thought of as a a run of the mill sociopathic bro in his youth." But what gnaws at me there is pathological liars who aren't idiots tend to at least be calculated about it. Lying here, and the man is just lying his ass off, actually hurts him. It damages his credibility when that's a precious thing to have at the moment. It's not like him being a hard partier means that he definitely assaulted someone and the people confirming him won't care if he was a hard partier.

Then I saw a comment from Lindsay Beyerstein that might explain it:

If what people say about Kavanaugh is true, he likely has gotten black-out drunk a bunch. It becomes realistic to believe that he might not even remember if he tried to rape Ford while drunk. It doesn't help that he's also repeatedly described by others as a belligerent drunk. Denying his now extremely well-attested history of drinking protects against that possibility. That might be why he's lying about it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

A quick Google search doesn't really bring up anything that discusses Kavanaugh and his alcohol use within, say, the last ten years. Do you see anything that might suggest he's extending his binge drinking into his judicial era? That'd be a huge problem, and time is certainly running out for the Democrats to dig something up.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

A third accuser comes forth. The plot thickens, and Avenatti dares anyone to try to discredit her.

[_EAllusion]

A quick Google search doesn't really bring up anything that discusses Kavanaugh and his alcohol use within, say, the last ten years. Do you see anything that might suggest he's extending his binge drinking into his judicial era? That'd be a huge problem, and time is certainly running out for the Democrats to dig something up.

- Doc

What's a problem to me is he is blatantly lying about his past history of drinking and I don't like the idea of people trying to lie their way onto the bench. This is particularly strange because his past history of drinking in of itself wouldn't deter his ability to get confirmed and he's lying anyway.

I do think integrity does play a role in quality of justices, yes. For example, it suggests he may be particularly prone to crafting sham justifications for preferred policy outcomes in his decisions. I said I wouldn't support Bill Clinton for a Supreme Court seat and one major reason why is his penchant for dishonesty.