2seaoat wrote:Why, I don't know, but it's very weird.
I have fought my entire career for equal protection under the law. I just watched an hour of the hearing. I believe that somebody did something to her. However, I also believe this whole political chit show is willing to sacrifice a man's reputation simply because an asz wipe nominated him, and ignore the relevance and reliability of faded memories some forty years ago. My argument has never been boys will be boys, rather that the Chairman has been correct in how he has proceeded limiting hearsay on hearsay..
I disagree that it's just a political shitshow. If it was just some "tactic" they'd have tried to use it to take down the past several nominees the GOP put out. They didn't do it to Gorsuch, because apparently he's not a rapist.
I don't know that Kavanaugh deserves a good reputation. And neither do you. You just picked a side... and, to me, it seems an odd choice of sides.
Nobody remembers
everything that happened forty years ago... but they remember traumatic experiences. I'm not surprised if she doesn't remember who gave her a ride home, because... why would she? But would she remember somebody holding her down and trying to tear her clothes off when she was 15? Yeah, I'd think so. Hell, when I was ten or so a friend's drunk dad tried to grab my dick (and his own son's) while playing "are you a boy or a girl?" I punched the guy in the arm and worried I'd get thrown out of the truck. I don't remember a thing about the guy who was driving the truck, not even if he was tall, short, fat, thin, whatever, but I remember a lot of it... and it wasn't nearly as traumatic as what happened to Dr. Ford.
I am so happy somebody put a muzzle on butchmeup......what a fricking dick....he talked over counsel and the chairman just to draw attention to himself.....is it any wonder that senators want face time during hearings as they see an opportunity to enhance their political careers. I think this witness has some serious emotional problems where I am certain something happened to her at some party in high school while she was 15. How this is relevant to the judge when she did not name him until almost 25 years later, in my mind gives great credence to the two men who have admitted doing this to her.
She had no reason to come out and go after Kavanaugh until she saw he was going to get promoted to a position he didn't deserve. A lot of people would rather just try to forget things until they have a reason not to.
As to whether it's relevant... well, it does speak to his character. Would he rape a woman now? Maybe not... few people are still who they were at 17. But if his judgement led him to do that, apparently to multiple women, then I'd doubt he needs a job as one of America's Nine Best Judges. There are plenty of other candidates who
wouldn't have his character issues. Since it's a lifetime job, I think it's well worth investigating.
Besides, even beyond his alleged rape attempts, the Trump administration is withholding 100,000 pages of Kavanaugh records. Why'n hell should anyone confirm a guy who apparently has things they want to hide? They pitched an eight-titty bitch over Hillary's "missing e-mails" and then they do this. The hypocrisy's off the charts.
I want Trump gone.
As a patriotic American, I fully agree with that.
I just want it done under the law and constitution, and I am appalled by how easily folks toss the protections of due process for political expediency.........
Same here, but you're assuming that this
isn't part of a legal process. People see a guy who abused them elevated to one of the most powerful positions in the country, and they have a right to say, "Hey, waitaminute, there are things you should know about this guy." There's nothing shady about that, provided what they're saying is truthful. And, Dr. Ford passed a lie detector test. She requested an FBI investigation, which the GOP denied.
Somebody's hiding something, and I gotta say it doesn't look like the person who requested the FBI look into it.
I will say she seemed less than truthful when discussing her fear of flying and extensive vacations in the Pacific which required air travel.
She's obviously someone who doesn't let her fears control her actions. She agreed to show up for the hearing. The fact that she'd rather have come by car, when that was a possibility, isn't really that unusual. If she's flown to visit an island, that's because driving wouldn't be an option there, and going by boat would be more time-consuming and maybe more expensive, so, she sucked it up and soldiered onto the plane. And she'd already be nervous about testifying, and was trying to avoid compounding it with her fear of air-travel. I don't know... there are a lot of reasons people who try to avoid planes still take them sometimes. It's by no means a credibility-killer.
I also am bothered that a PHD could not timely contact the senate in regard to these allegations because she did not know how to, Also, a PHD who does not understand the word exculpatory was a real shock to me. She was very smooth and confident when she was talking about psycho babble, but the gap in her understanding of the word exculpatory was a WTF moment.
If there's anything in this world that's overrated, it's a PhD. I've had to proofread papers for PhDs and some of 'em are barely literate. Anybody can jump through academic hoops if they put in the work... it's just a union card. I've got grad degrees myself and I'll vouch that they're bullshit and don't mean much. I don't think I'd know how to contact the senate, never having had to do anything like that. She figured it out eventually, though. Everyone has their area of expertise. "Exculpatory" may not have come up in her line of work. But she knew "hippocampus." No one knows everything. I've got degrees in English. I can explicate T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," but ask me to work out a legal brief and I'll have to shrug. It's not something I'm trained for, and contacting the Senate and such is probably not something she's familiar with, either.
I hope I can listen a little longer before I leave for a couple day, but this is being handled much better than I thought, but I guess the senators who were going to grandstand have all calmed down and are acting senatorial after learning the committee staff has sworn statements from the men who actually interacted with Dr. Ford, and I still believe her but think her memory which was repeatedly cleverly shown by the staff counsel to not be that good in the short term when trying to recount events in the last month.
Well, from the sound of things, Republicans are treating the whole hearing as a formality and are intent on just ramming the nomination through because they're scared of facing Trump's tantrums. But, they may have to draw back a bit when they see the public's reaction. They don't like to admit it, but the public's still their boss.
Hatred of Trump should not allow reason and rationality to completely leave the house.......nor should it ever be an excuse to ignore due process.
I agree with that, but I don't agree that ignoring due process is being done here.
I'm no hysterical Trump-hater. I won't bite at absolutely anything just because it hurts him. I only want the real stuff, because when I don't just want to make noise, I want to annihilate. And the best way to do that is to do it cold and factual. There's
plenty to hang Trump on without playing like Pkrhead and all his conspiracy theories that make him look like a simp. I'm not a Michael Moore fan, I'm more of a Bob Woodward, John Dean fan... and, at the core, a Sun Tzu/Musashi fan at the way I try to approach it. Really, the whole G.O.P. is a scam, and it can be brought down with cold hard
facts. That's why I'm always pointing out their track record in the South, etc. rather than relying just on things like "they're bigots" (which they are, but it's easier for people to try to argue their way out with "I don't think that's bigoted" or whatever. It's a lot harder for them to get around hard data showing that red states take in federal money while blue states produce it, etc. When I put out facts and get replied to with Bible quotes, I win.
So, yeah, I agree with sticking to reason and rationality. But I don't think Dr. Ford's testimony -- as well as the testimony of other people who've accused Kavanaugh -- can be dismissed as not being part of reason and rationality. If they're telling the truth or not has to be determined, and given the circumstances it's hard to
prove anything... especially in an era and to a crowd where Obama's birth certificate wasn't accepted as "proof." Yeah, it'll be hearsay... but, if it's compelling, credible hearsay, it must be considered.
So far the accusers are looking more credible than Kavanaugh, who's defense has included such laughable horseshit as "don't look at me, I'm a virgin!" I mean, c'mon, does anybody really buy his I-got-into-a-party-college's-fraternity-because-I-was-looking-for-people-to-trade-baseball-cards-with type of stories? I'm not blindly buying anything, but when he goes for
that as a defense, I've got to suspect him more than I do his accusers.[/quote]
Home
