Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Old Man]

I wonder what the "multiple news sources" are.  The charges have been covered wall to wall for days and threaten to derail the nomination.  Why not ask the FBI to clear his name?

[archer]

5 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I wonder what the "multiple news sources" are.  The charges have been covered wall to wall for days and threaten to derail the nomination.  Why not ask the FBI to clear his name?

 

And I notice you once again failed to provide any supporting evidence which would suggest that your statement is true in any manner.

 

Deflection isn't the same thing as evidence...or logic.

[Old Man]

Please list the "multiple sources" that refused to run the story for "lack of evidence".  Thanks!

[archer]

7 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Please list the "multiple sources" that refused to run the story for "lack of evidence".  Thanks!

 

Since you refuse to try to defend you statement for the third time, your statement appears to continue to be completely indefensible.

 

Thanks for conceding the field of battle.

[megaplayboy]

There's Ford, Ramirez, whoever it is that Avenatti is representing, and a 4th woman who has contacted Montgomery County PD regarding an allegation which would have occurred when Kavanaugh was a senior in high school.  At some point it's just easier to withdraw the nomination and put forward someone else.  Hardiman seems likely to go through smoothly.    

[archer]

2 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

  Hardiman seems likely to go through smoothly.    

 

LOL.

 

I can't imagine anyone who would go through "smoothly" regardless of which side controls the presidency or the Senate.

 

The Democrats are convinced that all Republicans are fascists (rather than just a growing number of them) and the Republicans are convinced that all Democrats are communists (rather than just a growing number of them).

 

It's growing more tough to treat the other side to be just the "opposition party" when most of your own party's membership considers that other party to be an expression of ultimate evil.

[megaplayboy]

2 minutes ago, archer said:

 

LOL.

 

I can't imagine anyone who would go through "smoothly" regardless of which side controls the presidency or the Senate.

 

The Democrats are convinced that all Republicans are fascists (rather than just a growing number of them) and the Republicans are convinced that all Democrats are communists (rather than just a growing number of them).

 

It's growing more tough to treat the other side to be just the "opposition party" when most of your own party's membership considers that other party to be an expression of ultimate evil.

Gorsuch got a few D Senators to vote for him.  No such allegations were made against him.  

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

Since you refuse to try to defend you statement for the third time, your statement appears to continue to be completely indefensible.

 

Thanks for conceding the field of battle.

 

I thought the questions would be easy for you to answer, but whatever. 

 

Meanwhile, it appears this morning's rumors of a Rosenstein firing were a baseless leak "smoke bomb" from the WH in an attempt to distract the country from Kavanaugh's rapeyness.  So that's good, though I'll be checking the news with interest on Thursday.

[TheDarkness]

Kindly, the people who keep claiming how easy it is to claim you were raped, think about what you're saying, because it's verifiably false. I can't think of another claim so heavily weighted against the claimant.

[megaplayboy]

13 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

I thought the questions would be easy for you to answer, but whatever. 

 

Meanwhile, it appears this morning's rumors of a Rosenstein firing were a baseless leak "smoke bomb" from the WH in an attempt to distract the country from Kavanaugh's rapeyness.  So that's good, though I'll be checking the news with interest on Thursday.

I don't expect RR to be fired until after the midterm elections, at which point it might be moot if the Dems take both chambers of Congress back.  If the latter occurs, 2019 will be sheer hell for 45.

[薔薇語]

8 hours ago, csyphrett said:

https://www.google.com/search?q=kavanaugh+news&oq=kavanaugh+&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j69i60j0j69i60l2j0.7483j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

That, I am afraid, isn't a helpful response. I am curious where you got the information you stated. I want to make sure that we are on the same page as it relates to the facts of the case. Would you kindly please source the information I quoted above? 

 

La Rose. 

 

[薔薇語]

OldMan: 'If he were innocent he'd demand an FBI investigation and since he is not, it must be the case he is guilty.'

 

I am not sure if the dichotomy you have established here is true. I would ask you to elaborate why you think it must logically follow. Can you help me with this?

 

As to some issues I can see, all responses by him would be viewed as bad. It is a catch 22 for him. If he says nothing, folks make the claim you did. If he request some agency to followup, it would be viewed as baggering or some equivalent. Or perhaps the beginning of some conspiracy to use the FBI to shut down the case with merely a pro-forma investigation. aso, if this went the other way, I could easily see folks opposed to the Judge making a similar claim of 'If he wanted a fair investigation, he'd shut up. He isn't so therefore he must be guilty.'

 

There is also the fact that the FBI doesn't really investigate these issues, they do filw and statement collection. All parties concerned have given their statements. I imagine the Judge is fully aware of this. I am also unclear if there is much room for local criminal investigation. Issues of the statutory limits; I have heard there may not be any for some potential charges, but I am unsure if those limits / lack-of-limits existed 36 years ago. 

 

The Senate nor the Whitehouse can order a local police station to investigate alleged activities. Moreover, there is no clear assertion of jurisdiction. Prof. Ford hasn't said where the activity took place, so we are not able to even ask the responsible authority to investigate. 

 

Amid all of these concerns purely on the side of the Judge requesting investigation, I am not sure one can make the strong claim you did above. Perhaps you could walk me through the thought process. 

 

Beyond that, of course, we get to the issues I raised above with Mega: what exactly would they investigate? We do not know the location that it took place, we do not know the time it took place, and we do not know who else is there. The only other people who are claimed to have been there have issued strict denials of the allegations.So, what exactly is there to investigate? Professor Ford could alleviate these concerns by answering those three points. Nothing has stopped her from being able to do that, and I am sure that every newspaper in this nation, the local authorities if legally permissible, and even the FBI would attempt to get to the bottom of this matter. I also think it's telling that the Washington Post, despite knowing about this long in advance, chose not to do an independent investigation. They too seem to understand that there was little investigativable facts.

 

La Rose. 

 

 

[megaplayboy]

One of the fundamental problems here is, in the quarter century since the Thomas hearings, the Senate Judiciary committee never bothered developing a protocol for handling allegations of this nature.  If they had such a process in place, there would be much less drama here.  I would hope that this would spur them to develop and put in place such a protocol, going forward.  

[薔薇語]

I think that is largely right Mega. And I think rule number one should be that no Senator nor staffer can simply wait on these kind of allegations until the 11th Hour. That kind of action deserves some level of cesure.

 

La Rose. 

[Old Man]

You mean like the protocol for nominating, hearing, and confirming a Supreme Court justice in 2016?  Protocols don't matter if one side is playing pigeon chess.

[Pattern Ghost]

2 hours ago, TheDarkness said:

Kindly, the people who keep claiming how easy it is to claim you were raped, think about what you're saying, because it's verifiably false. I can't think of another claim so heavily weighted against the claimant. 

 

Has anyone in this thread made that claim?

 

Also, the allegations against Kavanaugh, as I understand them are attempted rape (holding the victim down, trying to undress her) in the first case, and exposing himself in the second case.

[TheDarkness]

10 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Has anyone in this thread made that claim?

 

Also, the allegations against Kavanaugh, as I understand them are attempted rape (holding the victim down, trying to undress her) in the first case, and exposing himself in the second case.

One the last page, yes, there is exactly that claim.

 

I'm missing what bearing your second sentence has on things, I was suggesting that it's easy to confirm that claiming rape is not easy, I don't think attempted rape is any different, and statistics seem to back me on that. There's a non-insignificant number of people who are horrible to claims of rape and predatory actions towards women. The fact is, these women are successful and have little to gain from this. The idea that they are such pro democrat voters that they, women old enough to have seen what kind of garbage rape victims often have to put up with, decided to do this for the party, it is so patently ridiculous. These aren't twenty year olds out for attention who have no idea how bad this will get.

 

And, it doesn't do him much good that his main supporters were playing the same routine for Roy Moore not so long ago, not because anyone actually believed he wasn't a creeper, but for the votes. Or that his friend refuses to testify. Or that he just called himself a virgin back then, but everyone else, even the people on his side, are painting a different picture of him during those days than the one he is.

 

There's just a point where some of the 'he saids' don't make him look very good. Literally one page ago someone said, barring a lineup of claims, he'd be put through, and already there's a lineup. Not a week ago, people were saying it was only one claim, everyone else describes him as not being that way, and now we have stories that describe a potentially consistent behavior. Further, the descriptions we have of the women making the claims are not exactly giving much support for the idea that they are somehow doing this for other reasons.

 

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, TheDarkness said:

Further, the descriptions we have of the women making the claims are not exactly giving much support for the idea that they are somehow doing this for other reasons. 

 

I don't see any reason for them to be lying, either. But so far, there isn't a lot of evidence for the first two claims. Based on the article I linked earlier, the FBI isn't going to be gathering any evidence, so it'll be down to state / local authorities to investigate. Timing on that will likely be to slow to help.

 

1 hour ago, TheDarkness said:

One the last page, yes, there is exactly that claim.

 

I must have missed that. I've seen people point out the lack of evidence, but didn't see the post claiming the women were lying.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, TheDarkness said:

, I don't think attempted rape is any different

 

I agree with you, was just being a bit pedantic in the interest of keeping the facts straight about the claims. Sorry if I suggested otherwise.

[薔薇語]

1 hour ago, TheDarkness said:

The fact is, these women are successful and have little to gain from this.

 

 

I don't think one has to claim partisan malice on the part of Prof Ford or the other. People do get confused and work themselves up into injustified confidence. It is just this exact worry that causes us to very weary of how suspect lineups are conducted. Subdtle nudges by the officer, lawyer, friend, or the felt pressures on the victim can cause them to grab onto a particular feature and become unjustly confident in a claim. This is why so much eye witness testimony is suspect, too. Why officers have to make sure to isolate witnesses before they talk with eachother and thus unduely influence each other. 

 

Let's look at the second claim of indecent exposure. This person stated clearly she wasn't sure who the person was because she was quite inebriated at the time. It is possible that she is ultimately right, but it is currently also possible that because of the unending news cycle she has worked herself into this belief mistakenly. This is something we all unfortunately do from time to time. 

 

Prof. Ford could be very much in a similar situation. If she provided investigatable facts, though, independent third parties could actually ascertain the truth of the matter more clearly. So far she hasn't and that is troubling.

 

Ultimately it may end up being a case of 'he said, she said' with no clear resolution. Lacking strong evidence how should we proceed? Do we risk punishing an innocent man or risk promoting a guilty man. Our basic justice system is strongly predecated on the former, which is why the burdern of proof is largely in the lap of the prosecution to prove guilt and not the defense to prove innocence. 

 

La Rose.   

[Pattern Ghost]

1 minute ago, 薔薇語 said:

People do get confused and work themselves up into injustified confidence.

 

Wait. Are you suggesting Ford got confused about being held down by Kavanaugh and his friends while they attempted to remove her clothes? And him putting his hand over her mouth so she can't scream? I can remember specific things I did before I could walk. I'm pretty sure an average person could remember being molested pretty clearly as an adult.

 

I'm going to have to read her exact claim to see what's so vague about it to lead you to that conclusion. Because it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd forget easily.

 

 

 

 

 

[薔薇語]

14 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Wait. Are you suggesting Ford got confused about being held down by Kavanaugh and his friends while they attempted to remove her clothes? And him putting his hand over her mouth so she can't scream? I can remember specific things I did before I could walk. I'm pretty sure an average person could remember being molested pretty clearly as an adult.

 

I'm going to have to read her exact claim to see what's so vague about it to lead you to that conclusion. Because it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd forget easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not know if she is completely right or wrong. I worry there may be some confusion regarding the actions or people involved. 

 

Why do I say this? Because there are cases where this exact kind of thing has happened. I recall learning of a story of a man who was arrested for rape on the strength of the victims testimony IDing him as the attacker. It wasn't until many years later that the man was released from prison because the DNA evidence exonerated him and pointed to a different person. Even then the woman couldn't get over the belief that he was indeed the rapist. Did she do that maliciously? No, I sincerely doubt that. But these kinds of concerns are why we have to be careful with claims and look for as much supporting evidence as possible. Currently Prof Ford has not provided much in the way of investigatable facts so it is still 'he said, she said'.

 

La Rose. 

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

3 minutes ago, 薔薇語 said:

I recall learning of a story of a man who was arrested for rape on the strength of the victims testimony IDing him as the attacker.

 

Was he a stranger or an acquaintance? Because it's really easy to screw up picking someone you don't know out of a line up. If Ford knew Kavanaugh at the time, then it's a different story.

 

 

[薔薇語]

I am not sure if they were close friends or not at that time. I am also not sure merely being familiar with someone would prevent one from being confused. Decades have past and our brains are marvellous things that are quite capable of weaving together fragments into a narrative. 

 

Think about all the old stories you have heard someone tell time after time. Most likely no two times are exactly the same. The large bass your uncle caught becomes very large. Then he did it without bait. Then it was 18inches long and he struggled for a minute. Then for several minutes. Your Uncle probably never notices and never feels asthough he isn't telling the accurate truth. Memories are not unchanging photographs but stories weaved together through reality, or perception of it, and the constant retellings of it. This is why we had rash of Satanic Panic issues in the 80s as therapists tried to help folks recover 'suppressed' memories of horrific scenes; none of which were true.

 

 

Again, I am not saying Prof. Ford is mistaken. I do not know. I wish she would provide more investigatable details into this matter so it wouldn't merely be 'he said, she said'. But given what we know of this case and countless others, we should take care to not hang and innocent person. 

 

La Rose. 

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

I know how memory works, thanks. I also know about eyewitness reliability. However, I'm going to reiterate that there's a difference in identifying a person you know and a stranger who you only interacted with under the stress of an assault. There's a HUGE difference.

 

But all of this is just noise. Speculation. What needs to happen is the confirmation proceedings be put on hold until an investigation(s) takes place, regardless of which agency conducts the investigation(s). I'm not betting on that actually happening, though.