Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

I don't believe President Trump really cares. Do we really think he vetted Brett Kavanaugh instead of simply announcing the name that his advisers settled on? He'll happily read whatever Federalist-Society-approved name is put in front of him.

 

LOL, do you think that ANY president personally vets SCOTUS nominees? They have others do it and then give them a list.....and false allegations can pop up no matter what is done.

 

This is a fair position and the one that I tend to believe. I do believe that something happened and she believes it was assault. What actually happened? I don't know if anyone knows for sure. That is where the testimony becomes important so that they can assess the credibility of everyone involved.

I will say that the credibility of the other alleged victims will play a large part as well. If they are believable, then i think that lends credit to the initial claims. Likewise, if the other claims are discredited, it will detract from Ford's story.

I don't agree with the premise that no matter what there would be allegations, but I am open minded and can be swayed otherwise.

However, if your presumption is right, why didn't Gorsuch face multiple allegations of attempted rape and sexual assault?

 

What's the link between her and Kevin Bacon?

 

Well, there's a couple factors,

1. They are trying to run the clock out on this nominee, they don't need to prove anything, just throw enough BS against the wall to delay things long enough to see if Democrats can take back the senate and block the confirmation. A steady supply of false allegations could be successful in doing so....plus it provides propaganda for the midterms.

2. With the Gorsuch confirmation, it was merely maintaining the status quo in the SCOTUS, this nomination would move the court to the right and the propaganda surrounding that was that it would lead to women, LGBTQFMLAICO people, and "people of color" losing all of their rights and people dead in the streets....that kind of nonsensical rhetoric is just the kind of thing to get politically active leftists to invent stories for the cause.

As to there being allegations no matter what, this is clearly a tactic, I don't think they'd have picked a different tactic with any male nominee that has at any point been loosely connected to crazy ass left wing females willing to lie for the cause. I think the tactic would have been different if the nominee was a female, but I think it would still be the same false allegation type, they'd just accuse her of something else.

If there was any credibility to the allegations, I wouldn't feel that way, but it's just so transparent that 2 politically active left wing females who are loosely connected to Kavanaugh happen to come up with allegations of sexual assault that there is literally no evidence of and that can't be corroborated by anyone. We've got 1 story where a politically active left wing woman tells her shrink about a vague attempted rape in high school to justify her cheating on her husband that was changed to be about Kavanaugh and another story where it seems a politically active left wing woman was pressured to modify a story from college to include Kavanaugh.

I just don't see any other way of looking at this.

 

What exactly does the FBI do when they do background checks on these nominees? Talk to all his friends to hear what a great guy he is? One allegation from high school that they missed, fine, they're not perfect. Now a second in college, and who knows how many to come? Were these allegations buried, or are they just really bad at their jobs?

 

They hunt down as many people who knew the person as possible and ask them about what kind of person they are and not just their friends. There's nothing you can do to protect against false allegations from popping up no matter how in depth you check their background. When people are willing to lie for political reasons, you can get a never ending stream of bogus reports.

 

How is the FBI supposed to go 35 years back and know all the people he interacted with. There seems to be a pattern with Kavanaugh. He seems to get drunk and do stupid things.

 

SUPREME COURT NOMINEE KAVANAUGH FACES MORE ALLEGATIONS

Investigators in Montgomery County confirmed Monday they’re aware of a potential second sexual assault complaint in the county against former Georgetown Prep student and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

While investigators weren’t specific and spoke on background, they said they are looking at allegations against Kavanaugh during his senior year in high school after an anonymous witness came forward this weekend.

This would potentially bring the number to four women accusing Kavanaugh of wrongdoing and comes after Deborah Ramirez, a former Yale college student, stepped forward this weekend to accuse Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her in college, and after attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted out a message saying he represents a woman with “credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.”

In an email to Mike Davis, the chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Avenatti said he had evidence that at house parties in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and his friend Judge and others plied women with alcohol and drugs, “In order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

Investigators say it is unclear if Avenatti’s tweet and email is in regards to the same woman they’ve interviewed.

Judge is a writer who wrote a fictional account of his time at Georgetown Prep and was allegedly involved in the sexual assault of Professor Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s first accuser who is set to testify this Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kavanaugh has denied any wrongdoing. On Sunday the White House released a statement in which Kavanaugh said of the new allegations by Ramirez, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.”

President Trump refused to direct the FBI to investigate the allegations, but Montgomery County’s Prosecuting Attorney John McCarthy confirmed this weekend he would direct the Montgomery County Police Department to investigate any complaint brought against Kavanaugh, “But no complaint has been filed or forwarded to this office,” he explained.

Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger said, “We are prepared to investigate if the victim wants to report to us, and we can determine it occurred in the county.”

One issue police will have to determine is whether the alleged assault described by Ford occurred in Chevy Chase, Maryland or in Washington D.C. “If it is in D.C. we would not have jurisdiction,” Manger said.

Police investigators, speaking on background, said Ford’s accusations – occurring approximately 36 years ago presented other difficulties to investigators. “There is no forensic evidence, there is a question of where it occurred and when and who was around. But we will do what we can if we are called upon to do it.”

Manger agreed and said that any investigation would have to respect the victim. “Some sexual assault victims do not want police involvement. We respect that. Typically, if we are aware of a case and the victim does not want to involve us, the hospital will collect the physical evidence and turn it over to us for safekeeping in case the victim ever changes their mind about prosecution.”

Investigators we spoke with over the weekend said they were particularly interested in the semi-autobiographical books written by Judge about his time at Georgetown Prep and Kavanaugh’s involvement in some of the events described in the book.

Those events, originally thought to be exaggerated by Judge for his novels were looked at in a new light, according to investigators after comments by Dr. Ford and others.

Judge has denied being involved in the events alleged by Dr. Ford.

However, Kavanaugh’s own admissions in his senior yearbook at Prep and references to “Beach Week Ralph Club” and being the treasurer of the “Keg City Club” apparently lined up with allegations leveled by at least one other woman who knew him at that time.

Meghan McCaleb, a high school friend of Kavanaugh’s who assisted in assembling a letter of support for Kavanaugh told CNN’s Jim Sciutto “this was not an accurate portrayal” of the Supreme Court nominee in the 1980s.

“I’ve been friends with him for years and I was one of the people who gathered women together . . . 65 women . . . all said that he always was a gentleman, always respected women and nothing like that has ever happened,” she said.

 

If you really want to know the answer, I'll tell you. When you are about to get a check done like this they ask you hundreds of questions and require you to come up with dozens of references from different times in your life. From there they ask those people about other people who would have known you and it spider webs out from there. It's the reason why a standard top secret clearance can take over a year to complete and the older you are, the more places you've lived, the longer it takes. When I first got clearance, they hunted down people I had completely forgotten that I knew once upon a time and asked them about me. The DOD and FBI are pretty in depth when they do these checks.

As to the last part of what you said, there's literally nothing to base any of that on. What you mean to say is "if the completely baseless allegations are true, Kavanaugh seems to get drunk and do stupid things". The only real pattern from this is that it's always politically active leftist females coming out with these completely baseless allegations....either he's got a type AND is amazing at covering it up when he sexually assaults politically active leftist females or they are simply full of **** and lying for the cause. I know which one seems most likely.

 

The only people defending are his right wing buddies. So I don't know who is telling the truth.

 

The only people defending him is literally everyone who has ever known him other than the few activist leftists who made baseless allegations, so yeah, it's hard to tell which one to trust.....

 

Pulling out the college year book and identifying people to interview doesn't sound that hard.

If asking about candidates' conduct with women isn't in the regular screening, in today's climate they should probably add it. Sexual assaults have been endemic in our society for a long time and for a long time we've been able to put on the moral blinders and shrug it off if a guy got too grabby at a house party or thinks its funny to wag his dick at people. But more and more, you're going to have victims they never paid a second thought to coming out of the woodwork and derailing nominations. They've put themselves in a position of defending a nomination that has lost a lot of public credibility. Clarence Thomas still carries the stigma of the Anita Hill accusation, and Kavanaugh will have it twice as bad. It doesn't help that they'd serve concurrently. Couldn't they have saved the Republican Party a lot of trouble if the FBI had told them he has a significant vulnerability?

Related, my advice to all federal judges and anyone else whose career aspirations will put them before a Senate confirmation process: think back to all the girls you've been less than chivalrous with. Make a list and look those women up. Tell them that now you are older and wiser and thinking back on your life you see where you've made some mistakes and you want to apologize about them. Make sure you sound sincere and that they really believe you. Then, maybe when your day comes, they won't feel like they have to speak out about your integrity.

 

There's literally no one that isn't "vulnerable" to false allegations. Clarence Thomas wasn't, Brett Kavanaugh isn't....no one is. If people are willing to lie for political gain, you can't stop that. That's why there needs to be a harsh backlash against those who push baseless allegations like these.

 

That works if you're on the same political team. If you're on the same political team, it probably wouldn't matter anyways.

Regardless if either of these incidents happened, this is purely politically driven. Politics is a game and we have clearly seen as time goes on that anything is fair game, ethics be damned. I personally find it offensive that these two women are using their sexual allegations as a political point. There are far too many women out there who are truly abused with no recourse.

In Fords case, there is the whole age factor. As a society, we have made adults magically responsible at 18. They are not old enough to vote, to drink, smoke, engage in sexual intercourse with adults or even hold contracts in their name. Young people absolutely do stupid things. Some of these stupid things include drinking and doing things you will later regret. Poor judgement also puts you in bad predicaments, like getting drunk and being around a bunch of drunk guys. These are not excuses but the facts of life. This is why we separate out adults and minors. Sure, there are circumstances that we can't let minors slide by w/out punishment. In a case, 35 years later, with no details and denial of collaboration, we should move on from this. Its setting up a bad precedent. The reality is most guys who spend too much of their time drinking as teenagers probably did something to some female that would be a violation of the #metoo movement. Ive seen it way too much growing up. Many of those who I used to hang out with at that age are guilty of this in some form or fashion.

I think there is something to be said about someone who grows up and becomes responsible. This is not to absolve someone of their sins, but the question does arise where we forgive and move on. Most of us have all done something that we regretted.

 

If Democrats manage to delay the Kavanaugh nomination and it gets put off till beyond the election, and the Republicans keep the Senate, I think they need to withdraw the nomination and find the youngest, most extreme right female justice they can possibly come up with and shove that down the Democrats' throats for pulling this BS. Make a relative moderate like Kavanaugh seem like a kindness and threaten to do the same thing if Ginsburg dies.

 

Kavanaugh is a moderate?

 

I see you assume it didn't happen. On the politics though, yes for Trump and the Senators this is an amoral struggle for power. For Ford, it's personal if she's telling the truth, criminal if she's lying. Is it political for her too? Maybe. There may be a third woman out there that was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh, but she's a conservative and she can find it in her heart to forgive because Kavanaugh will make it right by saving all the little babies from the abortion doctor. For me (and you too, considering the offense you take) it is a question of ethics. Is he a scumbag or not.

I agree with you kids do stupid stuff and we should not hold it against people forever. I assume he's grown up and doesn't behave this way anymore. I don't think an attempted rape when he was 17 is disqualifying. I find his behavior today to be potentially disqualifying. If she is telling the truth, the ethical thing for him to do is to acknowledge it and apologize, and let the chips fall where they may. That's why determining the veracity of the accusation is important -- not because of what he did back then but because of what he's doing now. Absent any investigation, I tend to believe her as do millions of people, so the veracity of the claim is also important thinking about her. Fabricated slander should not be left to stand. As for the precedent, I think it is an excellent one. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is endemic in our culture. We didn't worry about it much in the 80s but it was still wrong even back then. We don't need to hang it around everyone's neck forever. But I don't think it is too much to ask when we are testing someone specifically on their moral character that they don't lie to our faces. And for the USSC, if we don't know if they're lying or not, it's on us to do whatever diligence is necessary to try to figure it out. If he swears under oath that he didn't do what she says he did and it's a lie, that means you have a Supreme Court Justice who himself broke the law by perjuring himself to win that confirmation. We're supposed to let that go without an investigation? It'd be a terrible precedent to have rubber stamp political confirmations that do not explore the obvious issues of controversy.

 

What I was saying is that he could be made to seem that way by comparison. If the Democrats keep up this BS of bringing forth false allegations to advance a political agenda, I'd punish them by finding the most crazy right wing female justices possible and forcing through the nominations to put them on the bench. I would not let the Democrats profit from these despicable tactics that are an attack on every legitimate victim out there.