Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years ago

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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Aquila89 » Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:05 pm

Trump gave his opinion about the second accuser:

The second accuser has nothing. She thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses. This is a person, and this is a series of statements, that’s going to take one of the most talented and one of the greatest intellects from a judicial standpoint in our country, going to keep him off the United States Supreme Court?


Let's be honest here, he has a point. Aside from calling Kavanaugh a great intellect, he's basically saying what people here haven been saying. Only he says it stupidly. But we can't expect him to communicate on our level; after all, we're commenters on an Internet forum while he's just the president.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Absentia » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:14 am

Full text of Ford's opening statement today.

Spoiler: show
When I got to the small gathering, people were drinking beer in a small living room on the first floor of the house. I drank one beer that evening. Brett and Mark were visibly drunk. Early in the evening, I went up a narrow set of stairs leading from the living room to a second floor to use the bathroom. When I got to the top of the stairs, I was pushed from behind into a bedroom.
I couldn’t see who pushed me.
Brett and Mark came into the bedroom and locked the door behind

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them. There was music already playing in the bedroom. It was turned up louder by either Brett or Mark once we were in the room. I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me. Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack. They both seemed to be having a good time. Mark was urging Brett on, although at times he told Brett to stop. A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not. During this assault, Mark came over and jumped on the bed twice while Brett was on top of me. The last time he did this, we toppled over and Brett was no longer on top of me. I was able to get up and run out of the room. Directly across from the bedroom was a small bathroom. I ran inside the bathroom and locked the door. I heard Brett and Mark leave the bedroom laughing and loudly walk down the narrow stairs, pin-balling off the walls on the way down. I waited and when I did not hear them come back up the stairs, I left the bathroom, ran down the stairs, through the living room, and left the house. I remember being on the street and feeling an enormous sense of relief that I had escaped from the house and that Brett and Mark were not coming after me.


My initial reaction is that there's enough detail in her story that I find it credible. Skeptics will say she was coached. It's certainly not indisputable evidence.

Kavanaugh also made a statement, but he didn't say much more than he already has.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Sep 27, 2018 3:52 pm

Rapists should be legally considered subhuman.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Aquila89 » Thu Sep 27, 2018 6:00 pm

No. Nobody should be.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby cmsellers » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:11 pm

Aquila89 wrote:No. Nobody should be.

Why do you hate Odysseus so much, Aquila?
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Absentia » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:20 pm

I was a bit mixed up. The hearing is today, and what I posted last night was the advance copy. I'm not watching because I'm at work, but Ford just wrapped up her testimony and the general opinion is that she was about as articulate and sympathetic as Dems could have hoped for. As a psychology professor she was even able to provide some expert testimony about her own state of mind and why she is so confident in what she remembers.

The Republican committee members all ceded their time to a female lawyer that they hired to ask questions on their behalf, so as to avoid the optics of having a bunch of old white dudes trying to poke holes in a victim's story. Even Ted Cruz played ball and kept his mouth shut, which I would have thought he was incapable of doing. The lawyer (a sex crimes prosecutor) did a lot of probing but never landed a serious blow. Trump was watching on TV while on Air Force One and was reportedly furious that nobody told him how credible Ford was going to look. Reports are circulating of GOP strategists fearing the battle is lost. Betting markets have swung heavily against Kavanaugh.

His core supporters on the Judiciary Committee (Grassley, Graham, and Cornyn) don't sound like they're ready to abandon him, but the swing vote on the committee is anti-Trump Republican Jeff Flake, who claimed he wasn't going to make up his mind until after the hearing. And at least one Republican senator not on the committee (Capito) said she found Ford's testimony compelling, which sounds like Kavanaugh could be in trouble even if it comes to a floor vote. All in all, not a good day for the Honorable Judge Kavanaugh, and his testimony hasn't even started yet.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Aquila89 » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:38 pm

cmsellers wrote:Why do you hate Odysseus so much, Aquila?


Nobody knows what he did.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Sep 28, 2018 1:37 am

Kavanaugh apparently opted to go after the Democrats, hard.

A furious Brett Kavanaugh denied Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against him and attacked Democrats during his opening statement at Thursday’s Senate hearing, vacillating between shouting and tears as he fought, he said, to save his reputation.

In a defiant statement not seen since Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee savaged the Senate, and particularly Democrats.

“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace,” Kavanaugh said, his voice rising. “The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process. But you have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with ‘search and destroy.’”

Kavanaugh first complained about the process prior to Ford’s accusation becoming public. He specifically cited Senator Cory Booker, who said that those who support Kavanaugh are “complicit in evil.” Kavanaugh said Thursday, “A Democratic senator on this committee publicly referred to me as evil. Evil. Think about that word.

“You sowed the wind for decades to come,” Kavanaugh said, describing the initial phases of the process. “The behavior of this committee was an embarrassment. At least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at borking.”

But, he said, when that was not enough to stop his nomination, Democrats manufactured “a long series of false, last-minute smears.” Kavanaugh continued:

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus.


The right is boiling over after Kavanaugh's testimony, to a degree I've never seen before. Twitter is obviously a no-go zone right now if you don't want your day ruined, but it's not just Twitter. Here's a sampler from Lindsey Graham:

In an impassioned statement delivered during Brett Kavanaugh’s Thursday hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina lambasted his Democratic colleagues for concealing the allegations of sexual assault levied by Christine Ford.

“If you wanted an FBI investigation you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020. You’ve said that, not me,” Graham shouted. “This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics and if you really wanted to know the truth, you certainly wouldn’t have done what you did to this guy.”

“Boy y’all want power, God I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham, that you knew about it and you held it, you had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford, none!” he added. “I hate to say it because these have been my friends, but if you were looking for a fair process, you came to the wrong town at the wrong time.”


This is Graham giving the statement:

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For anyone interested, here's the full transcript of the hearing, including Ford and Kavanaugh's testimonies:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/ ... ranscript/
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Absentia » Fri Sep 28, 2018 2:24 am

Lindsey Graham whining about Dems trying to hold the seat open until the next presidential election is delightfully ironic, isn't it? Apparently that played really well with the GOP base, though. Apparently they just have a thing for really angry dudes.

Honestly I don't think I've ever seen anything like Kavanaugh's portion of the hearing today, not in the Senate anyway. Kavanaugh was HOT. He and the Republicans were just seething with white male indignation about the whole situation, and the Democrats seemed more interested in hammering Kavanaugh for soundbites than asking anything incisive. I certainly don't feel like we got any closer to the truth about Dr. Ford's allegations, so in that sense I found his testimony very disappointing.

Betting markets swung back to where they were this morning, and after a strategy meeting with the full Senate GOP caucus tonight they're ready to move ahead with the committee vote tomorrow and a floor vote as early as this weekend. It's certainly going to be interesting.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:27 am

I promised I would remain away from here, but Kavanaugh's opening statements were such a seminal event and I didn't really have anywhere else to talk about it.

Look at that last bit in Kavanaugh's statement up there, the bit that sounds like something Tucker Carlson would say about this being revenge for Trump's victory. That right there probably signals the beginning of the end of SCOTUS if he gets through. He has a right to defend himself, of course, but rather than just being angry about the accusations, as Clarence Thomas did in the 90s, he explicitly brought partisanship into the fray (though he probably crossed that bridge when he decided to do a bit on Fox News last week).

SCOTUS decisions are only respected because Americans put (probably incorrect) faith that SCOTUS decisions are impartial, not beheld to a political party, and are founded upon the Constitution alone. By bringing up the left, and especially in bringing up Fox News-esque talking points about Clinton and Trump, Kavanaugh has invariably tainted every single decision he and the court as a whole will make for his entire tenure. The legitimacy of the court was delicate enough with Gorsuch, but at least Gorsuch had the good sense to just smarm his way through the combative hearings inoffensively. This is nuclear and stupidly myopic for a man who wants to be a SC justice. Was this a smear on his name? Perhaps, I don't have conclusive evidence either way, but you don't attack 'the left (which, by the way, implies the citizenry itself, too)' because, frankly, there's a higher ideal to defend than your honor.

Can you imagine what happens if there's a repeat of Bush v. Gore in 2020 and a SCOTUS featuring Gorsuch and Kavanaugh come out to say that they've decide there will not be a second vote and that Trump is president? Kavanaugh won't be able to convince anyone but Fox News viewers that their decisions were based upon neutral jurisprudence and careful examination of the Constitution, instead everyone will assume (And probably correctly) that it's instead based on partisan loyalties, and that would be a genuine Constitutional crisis. That's what we're talking about here, when I talk about how this could be the end of this variation of SCOTUS. Chief Justice Roberts is apparently deeply concerned after the court's image of legitimacy following Gorsuch, and I can't imagine he's thinking that testimony did SCOTUS any favors.

As for the accusations themselves, I stand where I always do on these. If I believe the stories are at least reasonably consistent, I decline to thumbs the man up for the job. It's not like if he loses out on this position they take him out back and shoot him. He returns to his lucrative position on the DC Court and passes the remainder of his days in ignominy, like the rest of us.

Kavanaugh probably did a good job of saving his job by convincing Fox News viewers (and probably nobody else) that this was all horseshit, and sadly, that's all the GOP cares about. He only had to destroy SCOTUS to do it.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Sep 28, 2018 4:13 am

Yeah, it's not lost on me that Graham's paean to civility and higher principle comes from the guy who flip-flopped from calling Trump a unique threat to the country when it looked like he was a passing fad to singing his praises and adopting all his talking points, then enthusiastically settled into a role as Trump's primary attack dog.

The whole thing is a clusterfuck of hypocrisy and comic irony. Remember when Republicans/conservatives sneered at left-aligned activists that if you want to be taken seriously you have to control your emotions and not get so angry and hysterical, and Democrats/liberals argued that it's not reasonable to expect someone who's been grievously wronged to voice their complaints perfectly calmly and with an agreeable tone? Political Twitter hopes you don't.

Remember when delaying a SCOTUS nomination for a year was a brilliant idea and didn't violate any norms? Well, the people who said that now argue that trying to delay one for a couple months with the plausible veneer of wanting an FBI investigation is the worst thing that's ever been done in Washington.

Remember back when Gabbie Giffords was shot, when public criticism of public officials, even vitriolic personal attacks, had nothing to do with the decisions of crazy trolls and violent nutters to target them? Now Democratic Senators are responsible for the people who threatened Kavanaugh and his family and for the news outlets that printed a procession of increasingly shady follow-up allegations, according to Kavanaugh's testimony, and the same people who were outraged at the implication that they had anything to do with the Giffords shooting are cheering him for it.

I've only scratched the surface; that hearing was a true gold mine of probably hilarious irony. But looking at the faces of the principals as they shriek and spit venom at each other openly on the Senate floor, I don't feel like laughing at all. All I feel is the cold wind blowing from Washington.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Absentia » Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:23 pm

Jeff Flake apparently thinks he can have his cake and eat it too, calling for a delay in the proceedings to allow for an FBI investigation right before casting the deciding vote to bring Kavanaugh's nomination to the floor anyway. This strikes me as particularly gutless even by a congressman's standards; either he has serious reservations about Kavanaugh's fitness and he's too cowed by Graham and McConnell to put his vote where his mouth is, or he's too scared of the blowback to say what he really thinks.

By all accounts, the votes are lined up 49-48 in favor of Kavanaugh with 3 undecided: Republicans Collins and Murkowski and Democrat Joe Manchin. If any one of those three votes yes, Kavanaugh is in. My bet is Manchin and Murkowski are no, Collins is yes, and that smug fuck Mike Pence gets to cast the tiebreaker.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby cmsellers » Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:42 pm

I think that Flake is expecting the FBI report to come back inconclusive, same as it did with Anita Hill. Then he can pull a Corker, and say "well, if we don't know for sure, there's no reason not to vote for him."

And yeah, Collins is looking like she wants to confirm him. The good news is that Collins, once one of the most popular Senators in the nation, had an underwater approval rating as of August. I had assumed that she was unbeatable in 2020, but if she keeps being the decisive vote for whatever Trump wants whenever Yertle asks her to, then she may in fact be vulnerable.

The bad news is that Collins' recent turn to the right means that, at least on the Federal level, the moderate New England Republican is now extinct. As someone whose views were probably closer to the old-school New England Republicans than to the Democrats (national or locally) or the national GOP, this is a tremendous disappointment for me.
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Sep 28, 2018 10:31 pm

Well, what could they find after 36 years? Is that not why statute of limitations exist - because it's impossible to prove such things after a certain amount of time?
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Re: Professor says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 35 years

Postby JamishT » Sat Sep 29, 2018 3:55 am

I've been seeing people point out that nothing like this happened when Gorsuch was nominated, so I started thinking about it. But I started thinking about it from a cynical, political operative point of view.

Gorsuch was replacing Scalia, a conservative stalwart with a conservative stalwart, and to a Democrat, that's acceptable. Of course, it would be better for them if a liberally-minded justice was nominated, but as long as the Supreme Court doesn't have a conservative majority, a Republican president can nominate nearly whoever they want. They'll put up a lil' fight, but it's fine, do whatever you want, Daddy.

But this time, it's going to flip the Supreme Court, and we can't have that. WE *clap emoji* CAN'T *clap emoji* HAVE *clap emoji* THAT *clap emoji*

Now I know, it seems like I've taken an (alt)right turn onto Trump Drive, but I'm just considering possibilities. Of course the most simple possibility is that the Democrats are honestly trying to keep a sexual predator off the Supreme Court, because it's just the right thing to do.

The timing is just so perfect. And the indefensible nature of them is suspect to me (it's nearly impossible to establish an airtight alibi for a rich teenager in the 80's). It just seems so convenient.

I don't think it has anything to do with Trump. I think it's a long term concern that a very powerful branch of the government will be solidly Republican for decades to come, so ya better fire all the weapons you have. Being that Democratic voters believe that the GOP hates women, and the nominee was a rich, private-schooled, kid, the most effective weapon is a sex crime. It would not surprise me if the crime happened. It also would not surprise me if it was calculated and fabricated.

I don't know what happened. I don't claim to know what happened, unlike SO MANY have (on both sides, on Twitter).
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