The sad thing about today is that it was all for the show. It's really kind of vile.

For the record and for everyone saying it matters. Emotion is one of the least accurate indicators of accuracy during testimony, despite seeming to be the most persuasive.


Your memories are less accurate than you think




Shared emotions and empathy between a witness and jury go a lot further toward persuasive arguments and getting people on your side than facts do in many cases. That's not to say that here that one side is more accurate than another, but that all these things should be considered when making an actual decision.


Having lived with someone who had a long history of abuse by different people, from family members, to family friends, to the a cop in training who's dad was also a cop and who would remind her that nobody would believe her and knowing that the only person that she told outside of friends and therapists, I can completely empathize with the woman here for not coming forward. If one of those people, who had hurt my friend, were suddenly going to get one of the most powerful jobs in the world, I'm not even sure she'd speak up then. She suffered PTSD, and only over years of therapy and a whole lot of love has she overcome it. The last thing in the world that she would want would be to dredge up all those old feelings, but if she did, I imagine it would go down, exactly as today went down.

Let's say it was Hitler. How do you feel now?

Did I miss something here? The Ford allegation seems a lot more credible today than it did last week when she didn't look like she'd testify, the Swetnick one is the most explosive, and while I wouldn't convict him criminally yet I think Kavanaugh's responses are enough to be fully against his SC nomination... but that Ramirez allegation is by far the least credible and least damning one (unless we're counting the weird RI man one). "Shoving it in her face" does sound very bad, but she's also admitting they were both very inebriated and she doesn't really know what happened. I'm also not the type who whips it out, don't have friends who do, but I've seen people do it during HS/college (with the pretty much universal reaction being Dude, nobody wants to see that. Fwiw the majority of exhibitionism during games like that was coming from females, though now we're getting off topic.) But yeah, if that was the only allegation out there I'd be pretty willing to overlook it.

What if it was Nancy Reagan's ghost who was alleging that Hitler tried to take advantage of her at a high school rager at George Soros's house while Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Tucker Carlson were watching, while Hillary was outside slashing Hitler's tires because she was jealous?

Some possible scenarios:

Kavanaugh loses, R’s get a more conservative female justice through easily. Loss ignites Republican turnout, keep both chambers.

R’s Push through their guy, get 5-4 conservative court for a generation. Ignites D turnout, gain House. Trump exclusivity hate tweets Dems for next two years over lack of his legislation. Republicans rejoice, they no longer have to try understand Trumps changing agenda, and see his influence limited to the bully pulpit.

I found this one funny, from a guy I know on IRC.

1) Kavanaugh withdrawn, R's push through someone else.
2) Kavanaugh found to be innocent of accusations.
3) Someone finds Ginsberg's phylactery and burns it at the altar of Azathoth.
4) Kavanaugh nominated again and takes her slot.

Filibuster began the morning of Thursday, April 6 2017. By later that same day, McConnell had invoked the nuclear option to remove the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

But that was always going to happen, whether it happened with Gorsuch or with Kavanaugh. Once Reid triggered the nuclear option for non-SCOTUS judges, the writing was on the wall for SCOTUS.

Gorsuch got confirmed because McConnell was not going to allow the Democrats to delay his confirmation even a teensy bit after he held the seat open for over a year, and because Gorsuch didn't have any skeletons in his closet beyond being willing to verbally fellate Donald Trump.

Brett Kavanaugh has a whole shitpot of smoke.

He has demonstrated, at minimum, a willingness to mislead Congress; has he committed outright perjury? Who knows.

You've got a yearbook as documentary evidence that, no matter how much he tries to present himself as the virginal angel, he wasn't - he was willing to engage in public humiliation of an implied sexual nature against a female classmate in order to ingratiate himself to his "bros."

You have two different women alleging sexual assault where they appear to have been the object of his amusement, and a third woman alleging that he was present during "train rapes," although she's not alleging that he raped her, personally.

All three of those women have either testified before Congress, or submitted those allegations via affidavit, which opens them to the same perjury charges.

You have people, including Kavanaugh's college roommate, acting as negative character witnesses, saying that "yes, absolutely, that's the kind of guy he was; did he engage in that behavior? I can't say. Is it believable based on what I experienced of him? Absolutely."

And, crucially, these aren't airtight stories from the accusers. One of the things you find when questioning witnesses/accusers is that the more airtight the story given, the more likely it is to be fabricated, because details get invented. A story that isn't airtight is, paradoxically, more likely to be true, because that's human nature. We forget details. We forget specific days, specific weeks, the names of everybody who was there, especially 30-hmm years later.

I couldn't tell you who all was at my school-sponsored graduation party in 1999. I can tell you with 100% certainty that at that party, Kyle Boller grabbed my cup of punch out of my hand as I was passing and drank it.

TL;DR: this isn't what payback for Garland looks like, because while all of this stuff can taint Kavanaugh, a) it can't prevent his confirmation unless two or more GOP Senators vote 'nay,' b) won't result in an impeachment unless any "blue wave" that manifests this year ALSO swamps the heartland in 2020's Senate elections, and c) if Kavanaugh withdraws or is rejected, there is still more than enough time for Trump to nominate, and for the Senate to confirm, any conservative to the Court they want.

The only way for the Democrats to successfully "pay back" McConnell and the Republicans for Garland's treatment with this nomination is for:

• Democrats to win the Senate in November
• Republicans to hold fast to Kavanaugh as the nominee, with his confirmation vote ultimately taking place in a lame duck session
• AND Republican defections cause that lame-duck vote to fail

If Republicans get so married to Kavanaugh that they run out the clock, lose the Senate, and cost themselves the necessary time to confirm somebody else, that's on them. If Trump or Kavanaugh withdraw the nomination unilaterally, or McConnell tells Trump "this isn't happening, withdraw him and pick somebody else NOW so we can do this," there is more than enough time for Republicans to get somebody else seated, and that isn't "payback for Garland."

To the extent that you, or any other Republican, believe that it is, it's an admission that Republicans did Garland dirty, and it's a denial that sexual assault is a thing women deal with, as well as a denial that any assault which goes unreported in the moment can ever be considered a legitimate assault.

Go ahead and run with that. See how it works out for you, politically.

I said when this all started that there will be no winners here. This is going to soil everyone involved and be a pox on both their houses.

I'm sure teenagers around the world mark down their underage drinking parties on a calendar. Good lord.

It's a "he said, she said". There isn't really evidence to support either of them. So you just have to decide who you trust. Few things worth noting.

- Kavanaugh has repeatedly lied about his character (the whole choir boy image changed to a guy who liked to party in college). He has lied about meaningless shit like the drinking age. He even lied about what the yearbook mention was. If you're completely innocent, why lie so much?

- What could Ford possibly have to gain from this? Her life will be a living hell just like any person who has accused powerful men of sex crimes.

I guess it's weird when deciding who is lying to overlook the guy who has repeatedly lied.

I still don't get why they don't just nominate someone else. There's dozens of prep school, trust fund kiddies with similar resumes who will cater to their class. Just nominate one of those and move on from this fucking weirdo.

Whipping your dick out makes you a sex offender.

I have to wonder what weird shit people who defend that crap think or have done on their own.

Let's put things in context. So is flashing your breasts. Gee, how many unconvicted sexual perverts are there in the US. I would rate a one-time exposing yourself in a party when everyone else is drunk as a step above it but not even close to the other rape allegations.

I think BishopMVP said it well in #12798. Everyone was drunk, she admitted to not remembering everything etc. Now if she said after that he forced her to do things afterwards, that's a different story.

Yup, that's what I think too (but it should be a quick investigation vs drawn out for a year).

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/27/polit...ion/index.html
Unfortunately, probably won't happen.

The American Bar Association doesn't matter to the Republicans. They have confirmed a number of federal judges who the ABA explicitly said weren't qualified.

I don't make the law. Plenty of people in this country have been sent to prison and are on the sex offender registry for doing this. Although I do understand the enforcement is largely based on social class.

Also pulling your dick out and putting it in someone's face isn't normal drunken behavior. It's what weirdo perverts do.

Which is sort of the point. Why not just find someone else? There are tons of spoiled trust fund babies who grew up to be Judges and will bow down to whatever the Federalist Society tells them to do. I feel for the poor sap who had to pay down his debt, but you win some you lose some.

I think arguing that these women submitted an afadavit as a reason for believing them is a weak argument. That can be seen via Dr. Ford because the three other people she mentioned that we at the party all submitted a statement to the committee saying it didn’t happen. So all parties are under the chance of purjury who do you believe?

The R’s should move onto the next justice they want but this party has become so unhinged and clings to Trump that won’t happen. Kavanaugh did exactly what Trump wanted him to and it shows by Trumps tweet.

Day by day the Republican Party still proves that they are controlled by Trump and the Democrats also begin to cater to the fringes of their party. I wonder how many other people there are like me that feel there isn’t a suitable candidate to represent them as these two parties become more polarized each day.

This November will be interesting I honestly don’t know what to expect.

Kavanaugh has to get confirmed for MAXIMUM LIB OWNAGE.

I just don't understand how on earth somebody who said the things he said about who supposedly orchestrated this can even be under consideration any more. I guess I need to quit thinking about things working as they did 2 years ago. We've long since crossed into bizarro-world. Nothing should surprise me anymore.

You should see how many people I have seen that were so excited about Lindsey Graham's "takedown" of this "conspiracy" yesterday during the hearings. Finally, someone is speaking the truth!

Must be hell to live your life thinking there are constant and persistent conspiracies trying to keep you and the country down. The Democrats are so good at conspiracies that they let Gorsuch be confirmed with virtually no fight at all and will control exactly zero branches of the government by the end of this. That's good conspiracy-ing!

Good post.

* Democracy is under assault.
* The Flag is under assault.
* Conservatives are under assault.
* Christians are under assault.
* Men are under assault.
* Whites are under assault.
* Muslims are the threat.
* Socialists are the threat.
* Mexicans are the threat.
* The Good Guys are the underdogs.
* The Good Guys only know the truth.
* Everyone is against us, all the time, and only the truth can save you.

Actually, now that I write this. This is exactly what I grew up with in the Church. Satan is everywhere. Satan is tempting you and he will seek to defeat you any way he can. He will take you down. Only faith in the Lord can save you.

The mantra is the exact same. It's buying into those beliefs that you're always under fire and losing. The entire thing comes down when you lose that fear. That fear of the unknown, but the Church can't help you escape that. If they do that they lose that power, they lose that control. They lose the money and the influence.

Politics is power, so naturally, is goes hand in hand. Gotta keep that strangle hold on the fears of your constituents. The facts don't lie. trump was elected by stoking fear. Fear is the driving force of the Republican party right now.

It's the same mantra on both sides. The only difference is the nouns, and I'm not sure if there's a Church equivalent.

* Democracy is under assault.
* The Country is under assault.
* Liberals are under assault.
* Non-Christians are under assault.
* Non-Men are under assault.
* People of Color are under assault.
* White Men are the threat.
* Capitalists are the threat.
* Religious people are the threat.
* The Good Guys are the underdogs.
* The Good Guys only know the truth.
* Everyone is against us, all the time, and only the truth can save you.

So now you know what the problem is, is it possible to put all that to the side and look objectively at the issues and legitimate solutions or problems with current policies? Or is it all just a dog and pony show?

I don't know what you mean by "normal drunken behavior". I've observed 3 types of drunken behavior. They get (1) quiet (2) get boisterous and/or aggressive and/or (3) they do stupid shit.

I'm more of the first. In my college days, I've seen where you mix alcohol, hormones & girls/boys you often get the third.

I've personally never seen someone whipping out their dicks but I've seen breasts & ass flashing, plenty of grinding close to exhibitionism etc. If the Ramirez report is just about whipping out a dick in a college frat party, it's not that big of a leap to "normal drunken behavior".

Honest question - you've not seen similar-like type activities in a college frat/party with alcohol and girls? (and I'm not re: the alleged drugging and gang banging).

Unfortunately, its all relative based on your experiences, biases etc. so I vote dog and pony show.

I know there is the pre-conceived notion that Trump supporters are white, middle-aged males with less education. I personally know of numerous male and female professional colleagues that support Trump (albeit they are all white so I'll give you that). The women did surprise me.

For a very small minority, yes.

For pretty much the vast majority of the population, and damn near 100% of Washington? Hell no. Objectivity doesn't fit their narratives, and doesn't get you votes.

The era of rational thought has been dying a slow and painful death for a long, long time.

Times reporting they have the votes to pass him through.

All of this.

feeling similarly suckered here

I need Jeff Flake to bring that same energy from yesterday to these confrontations today.

He’s voting to confirm.

This will be my biggest PredictIt loss ever.

I guess a quick way to go broke in 2018 is betting on decency and common sense to prevail.

My prediction is confirmed with 53 votes, GOP plus Manchin and Donnelly.

Pre-conceived? How about based in factual analysis of of voters? The fact that you personally know various groups of trump supporters doesn't mean anything. Nothing. It's called Observational bias and it means that your own experiences aren't evidence of the overall big picture. Sure there are women and minorities who support trump, and you've probably met some of them, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong statement to say that trump supporters are white, non-college educated men.

There has been plenty of analysis on just who trump supporters are based on their demographic breakdown.

Among white men, especially non-college educated white men, the support for trump is very strong. Calling actual facts a pre-conceived notion does disservice to the actual facts. It deflects from what is actually true. Facts are still facts.

Is tarcone, Lindsey Graham?

I don't understand the constant hope Dems put in Flake. The guy is a staunch republican that doesn't care for Trump on a personal level. He's a variation of Rand Paul. He'll grandstand a bit, but always falls in line when told to do so.

Trumps largest voting group was non college educated white males (+26 over college educated white men). Trumps current job approval rating is highest among white non college educated men, second is white men in general.

As Pilotman stated, it isn't perception, it's the reality of his base.

Let me rephrase. Its a pre-concieved notion that majority of Trump supporters are white men without college degree.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...e-changed.html

If GOP has the votes then Manchin definitely votes to confirm. He has no choice if he wants to be reelected.

I said at the beginning of this that I don't think the Ford accusations will mean anything and in the end they didn't. Trump nominated a flawed candidate for the SCOTUS but it didn't matter with the window Republicans were working with. They would have confirmed anyone.

I do think this will drive midterms further to Dems advantage and maybe makes the paths to tipping Senate slightly more realistic.

True for Donnelly, as well. A Dem senator in Indiana is a tough go if your last name isn't Bayh.

It'd be refreshing if once in a while a member of congress would prioritize doing the right thing over getting re-elected.

To be fair, society seemed to believe that non-consensual sex and sexually aggressive behaviour was funny in the 80's (see Sixteen Candles, Revenge of the Nerds, Porky's, Meatballs, Breakfast Club, etc.).

If all the GOP votes yes, I won't mind those two voting yes. If for some reason Manchin were to become vote 50, though...

Gotta take back my comment. According to CNN, Donnelly is on the record today saying he'll vote on.

He's either banking on the Blue Wave next month or showing an actual conscience.

I think this is a very good representation of the problem. You seem to making your conclusion purely based on your personal experiences. You are your equating analogous, biased and incomplete experiences to all of society.

In other words, I feel your conclusions show a total lack of empathy. Your "Everyone was drunk" for example, seem to be code for "you asked for it, what happened is partially your fault for not remembering everything perfectly."

Using your personal experiences to judge another is myopic. I can't blame you, I think yesterday proved gathering facts was inferior to personal antidotes about basketball coaching and a 10 year olds prayer.

Yesterday was such a disappointment to me on so many different levels, but I think the most shocking to me was that we just politically weaponized sexual assault. I can’t fathom how we have gotten to be as low as we have gotten and I was hoping yesterday wouldn’t happen, but unfortunately it did.

Both parties are responsible for this mess and I will get into that below, but as someone who works with sexual assaults on a weekly basis there are so many messed up things that happened and the only explanation is political bullshit.

1. Speaking of the bullshit I can’t believe that the democrats let the name of a sexual assault victim, ONE THAT SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR CONFIDENTIALITY in her letter because she didn’t want to come forward publically, get out into the medias hands. It was the democrats that wrote the book on how to handle sexual assaults ( with OCR) and put each and every college and university in America on trial when we (higher education) screwed one of these investigations up, but yet RULE NUMBER 1 in a book they authored, doesn’t get followed? One has to ask why? Why put another victim through the trauma again, because that’s what just occurred on a scale so big trauma probably isn’t the correct word for it anymore. So why?

2. Victims don’t come forward for numerous reasons, as noted by folks already in this thread. What doesn’t get play is why the victim does come forward. So I keep asking myself why does she come forward and why now? Typically, in my setting (a University) the victim comes forward after having multiple discussions with a victim’s advocate, family members, friends and or other victims. Usually, the victim is female, and the reason is “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else so I am pushing forward so that he (again, the respondent or perpetrator is usually a male) doesn’t have the opportunity to victimize somebody else. However, in this scenario, the respondent or perpetrator is married with children and its 35 or so years later. The typical response or reason goes out the window. So one is left with the question of why now again.

3. To try to answer that question, my thought is they leaked it on purpose, then told her, well it’s out now, you should really do some good and testify and move forward, and ohhhhh by the way since you going to go through all of this traumatic bullshit we are going to give you…. Insert whatever you want to say there. I don’t know how someone isn’t supposed to come to this conclusion. My best guess is, especially since she is brilliant, is her research gets grant funded every time she applies for a grant from the government. She was manipulated, much like most other victims when they come forward. It’s not a natural instinct to come forward because if there is truly trauma there, the mind is repressing it to help the victim function everyday and they know themselves that they can’t sequentially put together a timeline that everybody expects them to do based on CSI. So nobody is going to believe them. Hence one of the many reasons they don’t come forward.

4. Now the opposite end, the republican bullshit. If they really wanted the truth, you don’t stick in a legal prosecutor to ask the victim questions. You just don’t do that on accident. They wanted to grill her, hope that she looked weak, and try to destroy her in front of America. Again, if they were concerned about sexual assault, this wouldn’t have happened, but they will say they got put between a rock and hard place when the name got leaked and blame the dems. What they did to her was just as bad as what the dems did to her. She is a freaking victim, and it was heartbreaking to have to listen to her tell her story, when she didn’t even want to be up there doing that in the first place.

5. What the republicans should have done (since it was her choice to testify), was to question her in a way that was respectful. They should have had a trauma trained investigator ask her questions. One who isn’t supposed to grill the victim and one the republicans could have easily gotten from OCR, and we would have all gotten way more answers then we currently have. The difference with a trauma trained investigator (and I am not going into all the details) is they are looking for specific instances of trauma and how the brain pieced together that day/ night/ whatever in question. You aren’t looking for the who, what, where, when and why in a sense that everybody would be looking for in court room. They would be looking for specific instances of trauma because the brain doesn’t work “normally” in a traumatic situation.

The brain is an amazing organ and can go to a different place to protect the victim so that the victim doesn’t remember the trauma itself, but can potentially remember other senses. For example, the exact number of titles on the ceiling if the individual loves math while getting raped because math is the victim’s thing and the brain used their thing to go into a math trance in order to get the rape over with. Another example can be the smell of a fragrance the respondent or perpetrator was wearing that night, and smelling it again leads to projectile vomiting on the spot etc.

There were so many avenues they could have gone down that could have helped Dr. Ford and protect Dr. Ford, but didn’t and chose again to go after her (which was why the prosecutor was such a train wreck). I can’t properly put into words how disgusted I am in the way the republicans went after her. However, we did get to see a little bit of a trauma response when a senator asked the bumbling question of “what do you remember the most” and Dr.Ford responded with the laughter of Kavanaugh and Judge (paraphrasing). That signaled there is and was trauma there, but rather than follow it and expand on it, since the senators have no training themselves didn’t know what the hell to look for or ask next.

6. In a title IX setting, and on University campuses across America, there is no threshold or statute of limitations for reporting (unless insert state law and whatever battle). However, it is in everybody’s policy (well should be by now anyways) that the longer you wait to come forward, the harder it is to both investigate and get a resolution you want/ might be looking for.

30 some odd years is a long time to come forward, but if someone on my campus came forward I would do my best to investigate. Her not knowing things though. Things that she wasn’t able to answer would be a giant problem. Might not make people happy, but if you wouldn’t want me to throw your son out, or your nephew or whatever, those questions she couldn’t answer are critical. There is just no way around them or say it in a way that makes people happy. It’s not that she is lying. I want to make that clear. It’s just that there is such a huge time differential, and memories get hazy, and people believe their own truth after a while. If you want to see something interesting that can be used about what people focus on which is problematic in investigations, let alone investiagtions that span 30+ years please watch this video selective attention test - YouTube

7. So the rub is that as an investigator, I totally believe that something happened to her. There is trauma there, and I would love to be able to explore that side more. However, as things stand at this very point, I wouldn’t be able to throw someone out of school on what I know now. I need MORE.

I'm not trusting anybody until the votes are cast.

But, if two GOP senators vote no that would take Donnelly off the hook.

"Trump’s margin among whites without a college degree is the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980. Two-thirds (67%) of non-college whites backed Trump, compared with just 28% who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group."


"We see what we want to believe"
-Flying Spaghetti Monster

My guess on how the Flake FBI investigation request plays out,

McConnell asks White House for investigation

White House says no

McConnell says he tried, but it can't happen

Kavanaugh confirmed with Flake's vote.

I will give Flake credit for at least trying to get an FBI investigation. I do agree that it will most likely go nowhere.

Women flashing their breasts isn't meant to sexually humiliate or intimidate another person. Pulling your dick out in a girl's face is.

Now I've seen similar activity in my life. Usually by the same privileged class of wankers who understand there are no consequences to their actions. I wouldn't want those people on the Supreme Court either.

Basically it boils down to this.


And for the record, I'd have much more respect for the man if he flat out said he got drunk and was highly inappropriate when he was younger. That he changed as he got older, married, and had daughters. That he regrets those decisions. I respect people who own up to their mistakes, not those who lie.