For a week, a scandal has grown over an anonymous accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. I previously wrote about the unfairness of this last minute accusation from an unnamed law professor who declined to be named. Moreover, the underlying letter has been in the possession of Democrats since July. Now, the mystery is over: Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to say that she is indeed the accuser of Kavanaugh. It appears that the earlier leaks and media reports that this was a Stanford law professor were untrue. She is shown here from her high school yearbook picture. Notably, her lawyer has said that she passed a polygraph examination that found her account was truthful.
The alleged attack occurred when Ford went upstairs to use the bathroom at a party with four or so people that was held in Maryland. That is when she said that Kavanaugh grabbed her and forced her into a bedroom. Ford is quoted in The Washington Post that she had feared Kavanaugh “might inadvertently kill” her while he was holding her down on the bed and groping her in 1982. She says that another boy watched as Kavanaugh tried to rape her.
She said that she tried to cry out but Kavanaugh had turned the music up at the party and closed the door. She said that her opportunity arose when a friend of Kavanaugh came into the room and jumped on both of them. That friend is Mark Judge, a writer who categorically denies that the incident occurred as does Kavanaugh himself. Judge referred to the account as s “absolutely nuts.”
Ford says that she did discuss the alleged attempted rape in couples therapy with her husband about five years ago. Russell Ford has supported that account.
Ford says that she was traumatized for years by the experience. However, there is no indication that she ever made a formal compliant to the police or previously raised the issue during Kavanaugh’s prior confirmation hearings. There remains the question of why Ford did not go public earlier when Kavanaugh was nominated for the D.C. Circuit or why she wanted Congress to know about the allegation but said that she did not want to go come forward herself. Ford is an established academic who would clearly be supported in coming forward to report an attempted rape.
Now that the identity of the accuser is known, it will be possible to look at supporting or conflicting accounts. Did she share the allegation of an attempted rape with friends at the time? Is there any record of seeking medical assistance or injuries? She says that she called a government official about reporting the incident at the time but there does not appear to be a record. She also said that she received medical attention, but again produced no record.
The polygraph is the most interesting dynamic element. While not admissible in court, the accuracy of polygraphs are often put between 70 and 90 percent when conducted properly. I have been counsel in polygraph cases and there can be serious problems raised in the performance of the tests.
Ford also teaches at Stanford University in the Department of Psychiatry and previously taught as a research psychologist for Stanford University’s Department of Psychiatry and a professor at the Stanford School Of Medicine Collaborative Clinical Psychology Program.
Ford has an impressive array of academic degrees. She was an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a Master’s Degree in psychology at Pepperdine University (where she also briefly taught). She also has a a PhD in Educational Psychology: Research Design from the University of Southern California as well as Master’s in Education from Stanford University.
The Committee vote on Kavanaugh is scheduled for Thursday.
Here is the letter:
Speak in the early 1980’s or forever hold your peace.
Don’t you love it when Democrats heroically scramble to support and coddle girls…………..except the ones in the womb, of course.
Cindy, let’s go with that. Let’s schedule a national referendum on abortion and let only women vote. Do you have faith that women would vote away their rights?
Pee…Let’s go with this: Chrissy’s polygraph test was administered by a “former” FBI agent. Peter Strzok is my guess.
Cindy, why would a prominent academic want to have her name maligned by Trumpers like you? Is that a role a married academic would seek to assume? I can’t imagine it.
Why make yourself a target to right wing media? And have people linking you to deep state conspiracies? It doesn’t sound that logical. More likely Brett Kavanaugh was a wild kid.
And it makes me wonder even more about those baseball tickets.
Pee……..I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but it’s only fair to tell you that I never have any idea what you’re talking about.
My guess is that you’re quite young.
My guess is you’re a cowgirl in the heart of Texas. Who presumes she has more sense than liberals in California. I know the type, Cindy. With Texans we expect that cowgirl attitude.
Peter Hill – the lowest cockroach in Arizona has more sense than any liberal in California.
I never thought Cindy was a cowgirl. I thought she was sister-wife no. 43 living in a compound in rural Utah. She clearly doesn’t like or respect other women. I suppose being sister-wife no. 43 would give her cause for resentment. Sad.
Cindy I don’t he is young. I think Peter Shill is in his second childhood. Some have a more developed acumen at that time of their life while others never developed it in the first place.
why would a prominent academic
She isn’t prominent. And the answer is that she’s a loosely-wired ideologue who thought she could get away with an anonymous accusation.
Just Making Stuff Up again.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after sixteen weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – David, you are the King of Making Stuff Up. Do you have any information that supports that she is a prominent academic? Or that she is not loosely-wired? No. If you did you would link it.
From the WaPo article:
“Christine Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University who teaches in a consortium with Stanford University, training graduate students in clinical psychology. Her work has been widely published in academic journals”.
That sounds to me like she qualifies as ‘prominent’.
she is loaded. this neighborhood is what texans call “high dollar”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenmeadow_(Palo_Alto,_California)
” More likely Brett Kavanaugh was a wild kid.”
Peter, you can make up whatever stories you wish but so far the evidence points to the opposite.
valid, really, those are good questions
…..but the answer would be, she is in a social bubble in Palo Alto that will only applaud her and she could care less about the rest of us in flyover land
Silicon valley hates trump.
if you know Palo Alto you know what i mean. i know it just a little but enough I think to say this with confidence
Kurtz, one could argue that every Trumper on this thread is in a right-wing media bubble. Allan certainly is.
Peter, I’m not sure what you mean by a right-wing media bubble. Can you explain? Is that someone that believes in the Constitution and equal justice under the law? Is that someone that believes the economy is doing much better? Is that because I posted the address for a video that shows how poorly Obama was doing and how great Trump is doing today?
Let me post the video again. Everyone who hasn’t watched it should because in a matter of minutes one sees a comparison of the metrics between Obama and Trump.
Women have rights, that is not the question. The question is more difficult and there is no easy answer that will satisfy all.The one thing known is women do not have a right to kill.
Shame on this gal, the more I read the worst she looks.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/09/16/transparent-political-hit-job-kavanaugh-accuser-christine-ford-blasey-activated-to-advance-35-year-old-accusations/
https://thelibertydaily.com/o
https://heavy.com/news/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-husband-russell-family/
the husband has a fine employment, he is a Stanford graduate and engineer, very impressive wealthy couple.
her donations to the Dems are frequent, but paltry.
She shot for the moon on this last thing.
she apparently has done professional psychology work on PTSD.
nobody better to “beat the box” on an examination concerning an accusation of trauma
im not saying she’s lying, I’m just saying, she would be super comfortable and knowledgeable with what upsets folks and how to credibly relate such an allegation for her own part.
she may believe her own side of the story.
for my part I don’t think stale accusations like this should be trotted out in this context even if they are credible.
RESPONSE FROM CONSERVATIVES:
“KAVANAUGH WAS JUST A TEENAGER”
I too was drunken teenager. So I ‘know’ how wild boys can get.
Therefore I appreciate this argument that Kavanaugh was just a teenager at the time of this drunken, alleged assault. One wild incident, at age 17, shouldn’t negate Kavanaugh’s distinguished career.
But one should note that a lot of adolescent girls get pregnant from sex they had while drunk, or with drunken boys. Or with older guys they shouldn’t have been seeing.
It appears that Judge Kavanaugh is not willing to forgive the immaturity of young women with regards to abortion. Kavanaugh would force young women to seek illegal abortions or carry babies they don’t want.
Therefore conservative subscribe to a double-standard: ‘It’s okay for boys to be hellions in their youth as long as they become respectable adults’. But there is no forgiveness for the young woman with an unplanned pregnancy. Judge Kavanaugh would make those young women drop out of college and, or, forfeit their ambitions.
PH:
Bad old Mother Nature … boo, hiss … making females the exclusive bearer of children. She’s obviously a mysoginist and we should correct that by ignoring moral precepts thousands of years old and aborting inconvenient life caused by the parents own licentiousness so Sally can go on to write the great American Novel. What’s the life of a kid or two compared to that? Oh, but she’s MOTHER Nature so I guess she can’t be a mysognist. Will homophobe work?
Perpetuating the American population is not important, it is simply imported.
“…TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY,…”
OR OUR IMPORTS.
Wild teenagers are a reality to families in every income group. And Brett Kavanough was one of those kids. That doesn’t make him evil but why strip women’s rights? If Kavanaugh was wild he should understand.
Wild teenagers are a reality to families in every income group. And Brett Kavanough was one of those kids.
He was admitted to the bar at the age of 25 after completing degrees at a highly selective university. There are no indications he was a scapegrace on the level of George P. Bush (much less Beto O’Rourke). The only biographical anomaly about him is that he married quite late (to a woman a decade his junior who was herself older than most brides).
I’ve known some very bright kids who drank like maniacs and managed to succeed despite their drinking.
Peter Hill:
Pro Life people consider a baby inside the womb to be equal in value and rights to a baby outside the womb. They consider abortion to be like infanticide. Would the immaturity of the mother excuse her from drowning her newborn in the bathtub?
Pro Choice and Pro Life typically share a lot of common ground. The overwhelming majority of people do not agree with late term abortion, such as dismembering a full term healthy infant in the birth canal, the moment before he draws breath. Even Joy Behar called that “murder.” Most people actually do believe that at some point, a fetus has rights to live regardless of what the mother wants. The questions is where to draw that legal line. Most of society does not want to allow full term babies to have their spinal chords cut in the birth canal, or their arms and legs blindly ripped off by forceps. That would be abhorrent.
As long as the country cannot have a rational, calm conversation about where to draw this line, we’ll be relegated to the “war on women” rhetoric and kick the can down the road.
I don’t think that anyone said that rape is OK if the perpetrator is young. Some people have said in the media that if Kavanaugh was involved, it might have been some sort of drunken prank.
Rapists tend to rape. It seems unlikely that there would be one instance of attempted rape, and then decades of living an upstanding life. Anything is possible, however.
Actions have consequences. Not telling the police at the time the alleged incident occurred, not speaking about it for 30 years, Diane Feinstein holding this back for 3 months, and Ms Ford not coming out until the 11th hour all have consequences. If she really was a victim, then that is tragic. But a series of decisions were made that have consequences.
I have no idea how to prove this, other than to interview the other two people there and see if she said anything at the time. Was she drunk too? How did he get her on the bed and get on top of her before she started to scream? How did the other two people not hear her, regardless of how loud the music was? Why has the story changed in the media? Have the other two people been questioned?
The decision to say absolutely nothing during the confirmation hearings have a consequence.
Those iconic, groundbreaking photographs of fetal development up to 28 weeks, by Lennart Nilsson were made with aborted fetuses. That includes the one of the baby sucking his thumb.
If women think that they are aborting a “ball of cells”, they are sadly mistaken. The blastula stage is just a few days. Are they being taken advantage of by Planned Parenthood, if the organization insists it’s just a ball of cells? Should facts and information be withheld from women, to spare them the pain of making a decision to abort a fetus that looks recognizably human? That’s treating them like children in an important decision. She should at least be offered the facts on fetal development and ultrasounds.
I do not believe that an ultrasound should be forced on a mother against her will, but I do believe one should be offered in the interest of informed consent.
“Judge Kavanaugh would make those young women drop out of college and, or, forfeit their ambitions.” Actually, Judge Kavanaugh will not legislate from the bench. Whatever the law is, he will follow. If you don’t like the law as it stands, the Constitution created this dedicated branch of government called the Legislative Branch to solve any problem that arises.
If the country stops this trend of activist judges in the court system, then you won’t have to worry about personal beliefs, as long as there is no history of bias or prejudice.
Karen S – in my career I have taught many pregnant teens who did not “have” to drop out of school, it did put a minor crimp in their education, but not a major one. I have even taught class with babies in the back of the classroom so my students would come to school. One year I had my girls bring their babies in for the class picture and they were in the front row of the picture. There were 6 girls and 6 babies.
Paul C. What a sweet gesture! I know that meant so much to those girls!
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pictures+of+fetal+development&t=osx&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fpolination.files.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F02%2Fabortion-new-research-into-fetal-development.jpg
Karen, if you’re pro-life across the board on every major issue, that’s fine with me. It sounds like a genuine Christian.
But ‘Pro-Life’ politicians aren’t ‘pro-life on guns. And they typically want to cut social safety nets. While weakening environmental regulations. Nor are they concerned with sex education. To the contrary they endorse Abstinence Only ‘education’.
So it’s hard for liberals to seriously regard “Pro-Life” as really that. It’s really a political slogan developed by Frank Luntz from a focus group.
Peter if you read your history you will learn that the left emulated many of the things Stalin did. Later they subtracted Stalin’s name and a bit of the violence but continued on their way to influence people like you. Aside from WW2 what is Slalin known for? Mass human slaughter and encarceration in an attempt to promote a communist world not much different from the world you seem to dream about. He didn’t believe in our Second Amendment but he did believe that the State should control the weapons used against the people. He didn’t believe in loyalty to family rather loyalty to the state so I think early on he promoted libertine ideas and then reversed them in an attempt to loosen the bonds of family. Same with religion. He believed in redistribution and the use of innuendo that is so common among and your friends, He didn’t believe in private property though he did learn after millions of deaths that private property fed the stomachs.
You regard choice as a poliical move, in terms other than humanity. You have no concern over right and wrong, life and death as you are a cold ideologue ready to destroy or kill at a moments notice.
Allan, your comment here is a good example of why I generally avoid debating you. It’s just over-the-top, 1950’s communist-obsessed nonsense that no one under 80 would take all that seriously.
It’s just over-the-top, 1950’s communist-obsessed nonsense that no one under 80 would take all that seriously.
You don’t debate because your bad opinions lack supporting evidence. Here is an opportunity for you to demonstrate you have the chops for debating.
For example, let’s see if you can identify specifically what Allan posted was nonsense and why. For extra credit, explain why anyone under 80 should not take seriously what impact communism had on the world.
OLLY – I am under 80 and I know the Rosenbergs were guilty. So there.
Thank you Olly. Time and time Peter has made comments that have been proven not true. In argument he asks for proof and when provided he runs away. He is a coward who runs away from evidence and gleefully destroys reputations. Unfortuantely I have had to deal with a lot of cowards and liars in my life so it doesn’t phase me in having to deal with this one.
Stalin fairly gets a lot of the blame but Lenin and Trotsky perfected the widespread use of state directed political terror to a degree that put the supposed oppression of the Czar to shame.
Lenin died, and Trotsky was displaced as leading Comrade by Stalin.
The story of the millions of dear Ukrainians is one that is little known but was important in those years to those who died
Stalin was responsible for the Ukraine famine but the hand that guided the worst of the reprisals against the kulaks was implemented by Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s evil henchman
https://newrepublic.com/article/145953/stalin-starved-ukraine
its an ugly story and one that should be studied and remembered. thank you for mentioning it Allan but I’m not sure Peter is in favor of that per se,
Kurtz, one should note that Trump has labeled mainstream media an “Enemy Of The People”.
Where did that phrase come from..??
i dont know but the word “lugenpresse” or lying press is associated with the NS regime.
“freedom of the press” is a chimera. the notion that the government sponsored media like RT or BBC or NPR are necessarily more biased and wrong than the privately owned media is not one that I believe.
I think many times the NPR or RT or BBC is echoing a sort of government propaganda but privately owned newspapers and tv also have their own editorial agendas.
moreover, as “fascist” Corneliu Codreaneau observed, the mass media are businesses that require a lot of capital to operate and maintain. and, given that their editoral and advertising are often decisive in democratic campaigns, he claimed that is how fiance and banks controlled democracies.
an insight worth considering
on the net, bankers backed Hillary
http://time.com/money/4554617/hillary-clinton-wall-street-backers-election/
Kurtz, interesting post!!!
Look what I found in that article:
“Many financiers fear Clinton’s unorthodox Republican rival could disrupt global trade, damage geopolitical relationships and rattle markets, industry analysts and participants say”.
Stalin Volumes 1-3 Steven Kotkin
Excellent post.
Assuming her account is true, her choice to remain silent means she did not want justice for herself. Moreover, her silence allowed a viscous sexual predator to remain free to potentially victimize women for almost 40 years.
She cared not for justice. She cared not about preventing other victims.
Seems obviously true to me that she’s motivated 100% by politics.
So the question is, does one unelected Democrat get veto power over the president’s nominee?
Of all the assho** takes on this site tonight, yours is by far the most atrocious.
whichwitchhunt – if not the most atrocious, certainly in the top 3. Bill Clinton is a sexual predator. There is no indication that Brett Kavanaugh is.
Or, of course, the other alternative, that she’s just a ideologue liar.
“Or, of course, the other alternative, that she’s just a ideologue liar.”
According to TIN that possibility is near non-existent. That is what happens to a closed mind.
Nobody, including the alleged victim, has said that K. is a “viscious sexual predator.” We don’t need to take this further than the allegations. There are two issues here: 1) Did K. do what he is accused of doing? And 2) If he did, should it matter, given his age at the time and his otherwise unblemished life?
1. No credible evidence that this happned.
2. No.
End of discussion.
She said she thought Kavanaugh may kill her during a forced attempted sexual encounter. Sounds vicious, sexual and predatory to me.
Yet no police report was filed? She did not seek medical treatment? She did not notify Kavanaugh’s school that one of its students forced himself on her and she feared for her life? She did not tell a priest, counselor, teacher, parent, sibling, friend about this traumatic experience?
Come on.
If something did happen, her conduct suggests she did not take it nearly as seriously as she is portraying it now.
She’s motivated entirely by politics.
So again I ask, is her uncorroborated account of an encounter nearly 40 years ago, a lie detector test and notes from a counseling session in which Kavanaugh’s name is not mentioned enough to veto the president’s nominee? If the answer is yes, and assuming the standard is applied equally to nominees from both parties, nobody is confirmable.
There’s no way to defend against 40 year old uncorroborated accounts. Unethical ideological zealots will come out of the woodwork making with outlandish stories about future nominees.
If the answer is yes, and assuming the standard is applied equally to nominees from both parties, nobody is confirmable.
That is a very good point Scott. If we were uncertain where the bottom was for the Left, this may be it. It’s not too difficult to see where this would lead if this becomes the standard in the confirmation process.
Anyone nominated for a position requiring confirmation would not only have his/her resume reviewed, they would also be subject to having any allegations of misconduct reviewed. This latter process would make the former process nearly obsolete. It will become the weapon to derail any nomination. Right now, everyone on Trump’s short list for nominations will need to be primed for such an attack. If this effort succeeds, everyone on that short list should know the allegations are being prepared and will be used when necessary.
Gosh, no one came forward with accusations of sexual assault against Gorsuch and he’s as conservative as Kavanaugh.
I wonder why.
Maybe it’s because he didn’t f****** sexually assault anyone.
Of maybe it’s because Gorsuch didn’t change the existing makeup of the court.
Neither does Kavanaugh. Kennedy is a conservative.
No, Kennedy is not. He’s just not a reliable vote to promote the lawyer left’s agenda. More precisely, he fancies himself a tribune of the homosexual population.
Or maybe because Soros didn’t fund the check in time. Working girls don’t work for free, you know.
oh mespo so cynical.
regular folks dont know about this sort of thing. you’re just a conspiracy theorist
https://www.lawsuitfinancial.com/lawsuit-financing-how-does-it-work.html
Who cares what anyone did in high school? Let’s assume it’s true. So what? What’s the relevance?
Peter:
Oh it’s relevant but the weight of the evidence is negligible.
mespo – I will freely admit that as a 17-year-old I have lain on top of females, grinding my body on them and trying to get their one-piece bathing suit off. However, it was never rape. I was hoping for their willing co-operation. 😉
Did they tell you to get off? If so, and you didn’t, it was sexual assault. No matter what you “hoped for.”
Jay S – in those days there was no crime of sexual assault. 😉 It was called dating. 😉
Got no problem with it so long as they were roughly in the same age range.
mespo – they were. 😉 It was the late 50s.
It’s not relevant.
What if you KILL someone while you’re in high school. Is that still a “so what” ?
1. Such a charge would not be time-barred.
2. That was not her accusation.
3. If it were, there would be a referent in the form of an unsolved homicide or disappearance in Montgomery County, Md ca. 1982.
4. Vehicular manslaughter doesn’t faze partisan Democrats if one of their own would be going down for it.
Jay S – what if a frog had wings?
What’s she doing without escort at a “wild party” while in high school? She obviously “believed” or, “convinced herself” a slobbering fiend was lurking at the top of the stairs to violate her so, why didn’t she have someone accompany her if a fiend was lurking about? Oh and, why did she wait ALL THIS TIME to blubber….”I’ve been violated!” Polygraph or not..Master’s Degree in psychology or not!? HHhmmm., it sounds kinda’ “fishy” to me….
Polygraphs are not considered accurate enough to be accepted in court. Polygraphs are dependent on the examiner and we don’t know what the examiners credentials were. Did she pass or not isn’t meaningful without knowing what she passed. Those questions and answers haven’t been provided so for all we know they didn’t ask her anything relavant to the claim.
The Washington Post identies him as a former FBI polygrapher. Qualified enough for you? No, I didn’t think so.
TIN – yah, given the reputation of people at the FBI right now, I wouldn’t put that on my CV. Besides, we all know they are effective at best 70% of the time. And we don’t know what questions were asked.
Again, as I have said, if this is a created memory, it will pass a polygraph. My story about the tank will pass a polygraph. I will have the FBI hunting for where I parked that fictional tank.
So in your waking dream, where do you drive the tank? Do you go get ice cream just to see the reaction, or take a long leisurely drive? Sounds cool.
PCS: I passed a poly once and I was lying. It was for a job at a pizza place for about a month before starting college. The examiner asked if I had ever made pizza before; if I was hoping to make Round Table Pizza my career, etc., etc. I passed the poly, even though I was lying through my teeth, because I didn’t really care if I got the job or not. I was offered the position a few days later but turned it down to work as a gopher at a car dealership.
TIN – and then there was me who was telling the truth who failed a poly for Radio Shack. The examiner thought I was “fu**ing” with him because of how erratic the results were. What he should have asked was “Are you ADD?”
Karen S – it is very intricate and geographically impossible. 😉 The key was that parts were based on enough truth to give it some veracity. There was an actual National Guard tank and I had been inside it many times pretending to drive it. 😉 I did pull a handle on the outside of the tank to see what it did. It released fire retardant on the inside of the tank. After that the National Guard welded a guard over the fire retardant handle and welded a lock to the top of the tank. 🙂 Absolutely no sense of humor. That ended my pretend tank driving. So it was back to hitching rides on slow moving freight trains. 😉
“The Washington Post identies him as a former FBI polygrapher. Qualified enough for you? No, I didn’t think so.”
You would be right. I guess you would trust Peter Strzok, Page, Ohr etc? Do the three letters FBI make all these people honest? That is what is seems you believe. Does every FBI agent know how to do a polygraph well. I guess your answer is yes even if the former agent was trained or not and even if trained not qualified.The individual passed the polygraph, but did anyone mention what the exact questions were?
It seems you are not troubled by details.
Qualified enough for you?
No. Polygraphy is rubbish.
nope they stink at it too
Robert Philip Hanssen
https://antipolygraph.org/documents/richardson-memo-02-2001.shtml
KAVANAUGH KNOWN AS HIGH SCHOOL DRINKER
FRIEND MARK JUDGE LATER CAME OUT AS ALCOHOLIC
This excerpt, from The Wa Po story, referenced by Professor Turley, describes Kavanaugh and friend Mike Judge as teenage hellions with a thirst for drinking.
“In his senior-class yearbook entry at Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh made several references to drinking, claiming membership to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” and “Keg City Club.” He and Judge are pictured together at the beach in a photo in the yearbook.
Judge is a filmmaker and author who has written for the Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post. He chronicled his recovery from alcoholism in “Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk,” which described his own blackout drinking and a culture of partying among students at his high school, renamed in the book “Loyola Prep.” Kavanaugh is not mentioned in the book, but a passage about partying at the beach one summer makes glancing reference to a “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who “puked in someone’s car the other night” and “passed out on his way back from a party.”
Through the White House, Kavanaugh did not respond to a question about whether the name was a pseudonym for him.
Ford said that on the night of the party, she left the family room to use the bathroom, which was at the top of a narrow stairway. She doesn’t remember whether Kavanaugh and Judge were behind her or already upstairs, but she remembers being pushed into a bedroom and then onto a bed. Rock-and-roll music was playing with the volume turned up high, she said”.
Edited from: “California Professor, Writer Of Confidential Brett Kavanaugh Letter, Speaks Out About The Allegation Of Sexual Assault”
This evening’s WASHINGTON POST
When Mark Judge says he “Doesn’t recall” the incident, he might be half-sincere. He actually wrote a book about his teenage drinking.
Peter Hill – I have not read his book, however others have and he seems to have drunk to the point of alcoholic blackout while still in his teens. His memory holes are actual if this is true. And the girl, now woman, is not a very reliable witness. It seems she does not remember how she got home. And, as I have said, over the years she has embroidered this story so it has gotten a little better with time.
Paul, if Professor Blasey Ford is lying, what does she stand to gain? All she’s doing is subjecting herself to malicious attacks from every Trumper in the country. That doesn’t sound like a choice a prominent academic would make if they didn’t feel the need.
If, on the other hand, Ms Blasey Ford was some loser in a dead-end job with no future prospects, then she might enjoy this attention. But that is ‘not’ her situation.
Peter Hill – there is “victimhood” to be gained.
PH:
What does she stand to gain? Do you not know about the victim tour ahead of her with books and paid interviews and speaking stipends. Not to mention the celebrity from that fawning liberal press and countless appearances on The View and Anderson Cooper. This didn’t take guts, it took a politically astute accountant. She might have Avenatti on speed dial.
OMG the View!!! You are so right . Love the “victim tour”. There are so many nowadays, Sure hope there’s an available bus.
And Dr. Phil better watch his back.
What does she stand to gain? Stopping the end of civilization as we know it, preventing the deaths of millions of women, and fighting back against the war on women. Don’t you watch the mainstream media or listen with baited breath to the latest Hollywood celebrity? All Republican are evil and the election or appointment of a single one to high office spells doom. DOOM!
It seems that Kavanaugh was known for heavy drinking in prep school. Prep school buddy Mark Judge alluded to Kavanugh in a book Judge wrote about his young drinking. Kavanaugh wrote comments in high school yearbooks hinting at drunken escapades.
Whether he assaulted a girl or not, it appears that Kavanaugh ‘was’ a wild teenager. One has to wonder then about those baseball tickets. And the tens of thousands Kavanaugh put on his credit cards. Perhaps Kavanaugh still has a wild side we don’t know about.
“Paul, if Professor Blasey Ford is lying, what does she stand to gain?”
Peter, you lie all the time what do you stand to gain.
I get it Peter, you are implying that Kavanaugh is a proto-typical Irish Catholic drunk a la the “Fighting Irish” mascot. Sad ethnic stereotype!
No hypocrisy! I’ve watched this crap all my life. There is a big difference between a 17 year old and a middle aged man. I’m not going to try to act like I’m some kind of a wordsmith. I just get to the point. It appears that it is a very easy thing to do to just pull out the sex card or the race card to up end someone’s candidacy or appointment. You can look at this from any angle you want, I just look at the issue head on.
Indy Bob: The 17 y/o vs. middle aged man is a good point. I believe that K did what he is accused of, but the next question is how much it should matter, given his age at the time. On one hand, it’s a serious charge, but he was also drunk and 17 and has led an otherwise blemish-free life. In the case of Clarence Thomas, his alleged offense wasn’t as severe. It wasn’t an alleged sexual assault, but nonetheless was crude and offensive and totally at odds with his position as a lawyer and the head of the EEOC. And more importantly, he was middle-aged, not a teen. Just some things to ponder…..
” I believe that K did what he is accused of”
WOW!!!
What a leap in faith based on a political event. You believe something without any evidence despite the fact that the man has an impeccable reputation, the accusation was held during hearings, the accuser originally refused to provide her name and didn’t make a complaint for decades. Let’s not forget she is a part of the woman’s movement where some have said they want to blow the White House up. If there was any contact between the two (even that is questionable) you totally forget she might have been drunk, she might have a poor recollection, she might have other feeling towards the individual and a whole host of other possibilities that occur with frequency alongside similar complaints.
TIN has just concluded that any similar accusation against any man on this list is true once made.
That is an incredible statement and to me is incredibly ignorant.
Given everything known to this point, the only reason anyone would conclude Judge Kavanaugh to be guilty as charged is to want him guilty as charged.
What I find incredible is all the people who have utterly closed their minds to a victim’s experience that still haunts her after 35 years, which she recounted to a therapist well before the K nomination was ever on the horizon, and who has passed an FBI lie detector test. These are the same people, BTW, who protest that K “passed multiple FBI background checks.” So when the FBI believes him, it counts, but when the FBI believes her, it doesn’t. Gotcha.
This so called victim wanted to make sure transparency didn’t exist. My understanding is she wiped out most or all of her social media accounts before her name was released. Why would she do that? Doesn’t that make you wonder? Do you have no concern for one’s reputation or are you only interested in having leaders that are disreputible and don’t care about their reputations?
Women who have been subjected to rape are raped again when a woman falsely accuses a man of rape. There is little decency in people when they are so eager to destroy a man’s reputation that has been impecable based on a decades old uncorroberated statements that are totally generic so the facts can’t even be adequately traced.
The woman was in a therapists office. Lots of people need therapy and some of them believe that prominent people are out to destroy them. Their imaginations go haywire in this type of environment.
Let’s get the complete records from the therapist or dispence with the use of selective releases.
It is incredible that someone can rely on a polygraph when even the courts don’t rely on it. This was a selected person that had some type of affilliation with the FBI. The polygraph was not done by the FBI and it is incredible that someone would think they are the same. If she wants the polygraph on record then release the entire polygrph and the credentials of the polygrapher. Have another test done by an independent person that is totally complete.
We have learned that some at the FBI are not to be trusted and have become political weapons. It is incredible that one thinks the anti Trump pro Democratic lawyer wouldn’t pick a polygrapher more amenable to the desired results.
It is incredible that some are treating this as a rape when no rape occurred and likely Kavanaugh wasn’t even present. IMO the highest probability is political and not real.
I wonder what Kavanaugh’s going to say when he’s Invited to take a polygraph test.
He ought to say no way, Jose. Make Chrissy here take a neutral one. It’s her fantasy.
To the uninitiated here’s the tell when someone is lying in a political setting. Old salacious charge, varying accounts and hiring an activist lawyer from the opposing party. Not to mention the mysterious outward locking bedroom door cited by others here. Judge Moore is accepting apologies from the naive, nouveau Puritans who previously castigated him.
2 thumbs up, mespo!
But Mespo, right now Republicans are polling badly with suburban, educated women. If Republicans go ahead and ram Kavanaugh’s nomination through, they risk even greater loses in November. That could have serious ramifications. Not that I would mind!
PH:
Yeah, the polls said Trump would lose them by 15 points in September 2016. The polls are weaponized. Read like like you do the horoscopes.
women often say what people want to hear
in the privacy of the voter’s booth, they know there is a culture-war underway and it could get more nasty…. and they think for themselves as to how their bread is really buttered and where it will all lead if they get lead by the nose the wrong direction.
if the scare stories about global warming are right, we could be in for nasty surprises
https://www.utne.com/environment/nine-meals-away-from-anarchy-zm0z13jfzros
you have heard the saying: we are only 9 meals away from anarchy
in a state of anarchy, men’s strengths seem a lot different then they do in the reeducation camps of academia
i have a feeling women do not always think the same way they talk in public, any more than men
It seems there are better grounds to challenge Kavanaugh’s merit on than something he may have done as a juvenile (lying to a senate judiciary committee repeatedly en route to his current position: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-lies-senate-testimony-supreme-court.html , advising against calling Roe v Wade settled law, believing Nixon should not have had to turn over the watergate docs, believing the CFPB to be unconstitutional: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/25/amy-klobuchar/trump-brett-kavanaugh-scotus-cfpb-unconstitutional/ ). The biggest issue would be his views on Nixon at a time when the executive branch will undoubtedly face its biggest investigation since Watergate.
This may not be a non-issue but given it happened the same time Clarence Thomas’ Sexual Harassment of Anita Hill occurred if not before then, and that he was a juvenile and does not seem to be that person over 35 years later if he ever was, I don’t see it preventing his appointment and if the issue is the midterms it’s probably a loser in the court of public opinion unlike reminding the public that appointing Kavanaugh may be Trump’s 1 card to shield himself.
Kavanagh has been Mooreized. Anybody see a pattern here? What a joke the Dems have become.
What I see is a lot of people on this blog have become completely un-moored, hahaha. They thought they had their Barbie doll candidate, and it turns out their golden boy had some sh!t on his heel, and now they’ve become completely unmoored with all kinds of wack job conspiracies. 😂
Where is the proof and where is corroboration?
None.
Just destroy reputations at will without evidence.
Allan,…
The plan is that the accusation is sufficient.
That accusation, surfacing after the completion of the confirmation hearings, has already disrupted/ postponed the confirmation vote scheduled for Sept. 20.
The accusation itself may be enough to sway a couple of votes to torpedo the nomination.
Corrobation of an allegation of an event 35+ years ago, which by some reports was the result of “recovered memory”, may not be necessary to achieve the desired goal.
Of all the committees to properly address this accusation, I would expect the Judiciary to have recognized this tactic for what it is. Accepting an accusation without any evidence to delay a confirmation hearing is a disaster of a precedent. They have now set the bar so low that any future accusation will only have to meet the Ford test.
This is like setting fire to a building to kill one cockroach. The end product is disaster. As much as I disliked Obama I supported him as our President only arguing with his policy and the nature of the people advising him. When he did good things I applauded him. When Clinton was being impeached I called that garbage because the relationship was consensual and no one had a right to ask Clinton if he had sex with a third party. That is not something one should be forced to answer unless a crime was committed and I never saw the crime in a consensual relationship. Monica’s mother I am told was a bit wild and she seemed to follow her mothers behavior rather than her father’s behavior which was the opposite. He might have a complaint, but the people didn’t.
Clinton committed several federal crimes in an effort to thwart a civil suit. Addressing that should have been the work of a separate special prosecutor. Instead, it was added to Kenneth Starr’s portfolio. After 1996, Starr’s investigation decayed into a white whale hunt (as was manifest when Julie Hiatt Steele was put on trial).
DSS, I think Clinton committed a bunch of crimes but my only concern was the crime of lying about having sex with that woman. That was nobody’s business.
Obama was the lawful president. I have seen the forensic document expert that says his birth certificate was bogus, but I think the preponderance of the evidence points to him being born in America. as the first black president, it’s to his credit that he was very mild in his antagonisms of white America. A white Democrat president might have been tempted to pander more than he did.
He made some bad moves but Obama made some good ones too. Same thing was true of Bill Clinton. NAFTA was a bad one, but then again, that was big with republicans who really pushed it at the time
Hillary was a bad Secretary of State presiding over many disasters for American national interests.
I could have cared less about Monica. But, if Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broderick and directed Arkansas state troopers to pull security while he was busy, that was a really bad thing that should have been addressed.
And yet maybe it was; we don’t know. Witnesses are important. if all the troopers that were with Bill Clinton said nothing bad happened, then it was not a good case, a jury would probably acquit. yet sometimes an accusation can be credible, even if not corroborated. in the case of Kavanaugh, this is hugely stale and not-credible accusation.
but I think the preponderance of the evidence points to him being born in America. as the first black president…
First no natural rights (all rights come from government), and now a statement that a man born of a white mother and black father is evidence of the first black president. Oops. The evidence would suggest he is 50% black and 50% white. Thanks for the tells.
For a progressive, you are one of the better I’ve seen at keeping it hidden. You established yourself on this blog with some solid legal theory and then *poof* off comes the mask.
Well done!
Kurtz, all presidents make good and bad moves and sometimes the effect of those moves aren’t known for a long time. Certain aspects Obama theorized about were good, but when managing the situations in real life the results were terrible. There is nothing inherently wrong with government helping its citizens. It is how the help is rendered that determines the quality of a president and Obama failed there as well. There is little question in my mind that he was legally an American.There is also little question in my mind that he very significantly damaged race relations in this country. Hillary Clinton was a total disaster.
Bill Clinton was an intelligent man who like Teddy Kennedy couldn’t keep his zipper up and felt his desires supreme over what a woman wanted.
but I think the preponderance of the evidence points to him being born in America. as the first black president,
He was born in Honolulu. His connection to the domestic black population has been that he married into it. The blacks in his actual circle of friends have been out of a very thin stratum (Valerie Jarrett, Eric Whittaker et al) or have been quite eccentric characters (Frank Marshall Davis). He joins a congregation in Chicago, and which does he choose but Jeremiah Wright’s outfit, which was long on Africanisant political babble and short on actual religion. Not as if there’s a shortage of Convention Baptist or African Methodist congregations in Chicago. If you had a mind, you could likely find an Episcopal congregation chock-a-block with West Indians.
Actually, Tin, we had an accusation after the confirmation hearings ended that somebody saw sh** on Kavanaugh’s shoe over 35 years ago.
You seem to be very fond of the the timing of the allegation itself, and the timing of the disclosure of the allegation.
While it’s true, as you pointed out, that the “presumption of innocence” applies to criminal defendants, there is an issue of common sense and fairness that makes a last minute, last ditch attempt to smear a nominee ( or a camdidate) seem counter to common sense, and grossly unfair.
So you, Tinhorn anonymous lawyer, can continue to argue passionately against presumption of innocence, common sense, or fairness.
You’ve done a great job so far.
He closed the door to keep her in there yet didnt lock it. Shes a liar and thats just one example. Her story is a giant lie
Excellent point. It is always these kinds of detail that betray confabulations for what they are.
Nkadar: Actually it’s the opposite. I was taught at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center that the perfect, seamless stories, that cover every detail are the ones that are made up and rehearsed. Real victims don’t recall every detail. They typically have the most traumatic event planted forever in their memories, because that was when every fiber of their being was acutely focused on survival. But once the immediate danger recedes, they go into a relief mode and tend to not remember what happened afterwards. Which is why her clearly remembering the details of the assault, but not remembering how she got home, is a classic. During the assault her mind was intently focused on survival. After she was out of there, she went into a fog of ‘OMG, what just happened?’ And she was recounting the event in her mind while she walked or biked home or took a cab, and that wasn’t something her mind needed to remember because she was safe at that point.
You can’t lock it to those inside the room. See the Boca Code.
it could be true but the main question is how fair is it to hang this on a guy who has a steller history for 35 years hence
and there is important business at hand. this is not the business!
it’s high time to just come out and recognize that a cad can be a good public servant, too
You make a reasonable point. Everyone is so fixated on whether he did it or not, that they’ve failed to go to the next step of analysis. If he did do it, or probably did it, or likely did it (because we’ll never know with absolute certainty), then how much should it matter? I would say that by 17, his character was formed, but on the other hand, people do deviate from their normal standards of behavior when they’re drunk teens.
Before you get to any other level of analysis you have to ask did it happen? Is there any evidence it happened? She alleges something happened and it involved Kavanaugh. Her only evidence that it happened is telling it to a therapist or marriage counselor. But in that story she didn’t identify Kavanaugh. So now given the well documented history of Kavanaugh, the most reasonable conclusion is nothing actually happened, or if it did, she has wrongly identified Kavanaugh. Lie detector test? There is a good reason those are not admissible in court.
Ford has made a claim against Brett Kavanaugh. The likelihood of that claim being true is near zero.
If they were out at the same party which is highly doubtful but possible one has to consider what actually happened. The possibilities are endless starting with a spurned advance of Ford on Kavanaugh. There could have been a consensual act involving touching. There could have been a miscommunication between the two starting with the usual boy girl activities. Anyone of those events can lead to her claim with just a trifle of embellisment. Claims made in the fashion Ford is making this claim, which likely never happened, are very frequently embellished when hurt feelings occur at that age.
Nothing that occurred at that time should even be a consideration to reject Kavanaugh. Such types of claims against honorable people make it so that only the dishonorable seek office in our nation. TIN has become too polarized and incensed to make any realistic sense of this event.
Al Franken lost his job. I dislike him immensely but most of the claims against him were ludicrous and if I were in Congress would reject them and fight against them. I don’t know if Franken crossed the line by abusing any women. If he did my opinion would change based on the circumstances but today Bill Gates would have been publically charged with abuse for courting his secretary. We are closing doors of normal interractions between men and women (where errors in communication frequently occur) which is not good for society.
Allan – what is a 15-year-old girl doing at a “vacant” house with 4 male teens, alone? And check out how the APA feels about “repressed memories” especially where you mention four boys attacking you but not just one.
Paul, despite the one that considers itself an expert on making up stories the majority of psychiatric evidence points in a different direction. Interviewed by a competent forensic psychiatrist this story would fall apart. I think this story would fall apart based on the therapists records if the therapist accurately recorded everything. I think the polygraph would fall apart as well if analyzed by competent people.
I find it heinous to destroy reputations for political reasons but low life have to rely on that type of action rather than dealing in facts that require the brain to function. Our legislators should not be the one to interview this woman. It should be a public interview by a competent non political individual(s) that are proficient in prosecutions and understand psychiatry just like would be done in a court of law. I hate to subject a person to something like this but she chose to impune the integrity of a man who has demonstrated integrity all his life. His life and reputation has value as well that is being forgotten by too many people.
I’ll go so far as to believe something occurred with Ford decades ago based on her account with the therapist. In that account, she did not identify Kavanaugh. Now suddenly her memory is clear and she claims it was him. Not one shred of evidence, no reports, no corroborating witnesses, and what she claims happened would easily indict most teenage boys.
If this 35 year old claim was reported to the police, accusing anyone else, what would they be able to do with it? Nothing. The fact this claim is being made against someone whose entire life has been vetted without blemish, makes the claim ridiculous.
The Judiciary committee should treat this like any other claim and consider what evidence exists that would make it worthy of investigation; to make it worthy of derailing the confirmation process. We’ve got people that have served in high government positions that knowingly violated national security laws, vetted and were nearly elected President, and yet he we are going full-stop on confirming an unblemished boy scout with a stellar public record.
My main objection is the precedent that is being set. This will empower others as they see they don’t need to win through the ballot box. This will become a new industry with an endless supply of victims available for the right price for the right demand.
“I’ll go so far as to believe something occurred with Ford decades ago based on her account with the therapist. In that account, she did not identify Kavanaugh.”
She is angry about the event 35 years ago where she may have been the cause. She is angry that Trump was elected and doesn’t like the fact that Kavanaugh rules on the law instead of on emotion that she has. Put the two together and you have an explosion. What we are seeing is the result of that explosion in a woman that is likely unhinged.
Her complaint even if marginally true (near zero likelihood) shouldn’t prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment to the bench.
Supposing Kavanaugh did this. Look at Bill Clintons history as an adult, the liberal left just looks the other way. Ted Kennedy had a reputation as quit a womanizer. How many 6 year terms was he elected to. Sometimes when we are teenagers we do some really stupid things. Some things that as mature adults most of us wouldn’t do. To bad Kavanaugh wasn’t a democrat, then this would be accepted behavior.
So what you’re saying is that Clinton wasn’t impeached for poking an intern, an adult, nobody’s business. Clinton lied or obstructed justice. If Kavanaugh is caught lying, should he be confirmed? Both sides are equal in this game. Clarence Thomas makes it in because of a Republican majority. Kavanaugh will get in regardless of whether or not he did or did not let his hormones control him, because of a Republican majority. Let’s curtail the hypocrisy here Bob.
Democrats had a 57-43 Senate majority when Clarence Thomas was confirmed.11 Democrats voted to confirm.
Isaac – I disagreed with pursuing Clinton over a consensual affair. That is between him, Hillary, and Monica Lewinsky. There could have been a workplace misconduct investigation, but impeachment? No. Clinton got caught on perjury. Which was strange, because the other Clinton, Hillary, perjured herself on Travelgate, too. However, she didn’t come clean until after the statute of limitations, if I recall.
I do, however, think that he should have been investigated for rape, sexual harassment, and his association with a convicted pedophile, including all those many trips he took to Orgy Island, where there were trafficked minors. I don’t particularly care what he did with any consenting adult. None of my beeswax.
Karen S. I think back on when my dear mother was alive and how we disagreed over Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica, who was not a minor, knew he was married, and took advantage of the situation as much as he did. Yes, definitely 2 consenting adults which means it’s none of my business.
But. the story about the pedophilia and the flights down to that island, etc, make me physically sick.
If that were proved to be true, that would shut up the Democrats for a long time, hopefully.
And I believe that story can’t get legs because some in Congress and other areas of gov’t and famous entertainers are involved!
How do this pair keep getting away with everything? Sure, Clinton was impeached for perjury, but he stayed in office. Nothing happened to him regarding the serious charges. They were never even investigated.
Do they have some Faustian portrait hung somewhere, a geni lamp, or what?
I still have my “Did I bleach it with a cloth” Bleach Bit compute monitor cleaning cloth.
watch as I cause issacb to swoon and sends gobs of money to the DNC:
I knew a convict who took a polygraph and passed it for a job at Circle K. One of the questions was “Have you ever been in prison?” Some people, like myself, cannot pass polygraphs because of the way our minds work. I could never get a security clearance.
There is something odd about this whole thing. She has all this psychology behind her which would have required her to have counseling as part of her degree, yet she waits until 5 years ago to reveal it in couples therapy with her husband. This is way past the statute of limitations and if I am the Republicans I call for a vote. I don’t reopen a can of worms.
Who paid ms. Ford to do,this? Soros? Obama? How much? hope they paid her well . She’s now in the club with Daniels and mcDougall, a fine group of women
OK, Cynthia. When you pivot and use the words “Soros” and “Obama” to respond to a crisis involving a Republican or the current administration, you prove you are a true Faux News junkie.
she probably talked for free, or maybe just likes attention, as a lot women who cry wolf do.
…but, her lawyer may have “advanced her expenses”
I don’t care if it DID happen…I’m so sick of this kind of crap…allegations from urs and yrs ago….what woman doesn’t have a story about drunken parties and people behaving badly???? Who cares. It was high school. She was not raped. Confirm this man! Or, if they succeed in tak8ng him down, trump will just find another like him. So what’s the point? Dems can’t handle being powerless here. Sniveling whining babies who can’t get over losing the election. Sickening.
Cynthia- you seem to have an attachment to power? K was able to overpower her, so that’s ok. The GOP is in power now, so anything goes…? It’s best to remember that tables get turned. America is best off when it opts for fairness and decency.
laudyms – do you remember everyone you were in a room with 35 years ago? I don’t remember the names of people from last week. There is something hinky about this. At this point I think it may be a created memory. You know what that is, right? She believes it happened, but it didn’t. She took bits of something that happened and created it into something so much better.
I have a beautiful created memory about stealing a National Guard tank. It is so vivid I can describe it to people right down to the smell of the fuel used when we drove it away. However, it never happened. Still, when I have dementia, it will be one of the stories I will tell people and they will believe because I believe it.
Paul C…………In your dream, is Brett helping you steal it, or is it a solo mission? 😅
Cindy Bragg – it started out in college with people telling stories about stuff they had done, all trying to top the next one. You cannot top stealing a tank. 😉
LOL. That’s so funny….btw, McSally is on Fox town hall live right now. I’m watching…..they’re in Phoenix
Maybe something happened with a stranger she didn’t know, and she latched onto Kavanaugh as the perp. Maybe she was flying high on acid and was by herself the entire time.
How loud would that music have had to be for her to be screaming at the top of her lungs and no one heard her?
Karen S – not so loud that she could not hear the boys laughing going down the stairs.
“Flying high on acid?” Are you living in a time warp from 1968? We’re you a hippie in Haight Ashbury? That’s hilarious!! I think ol’ Karen is wearing a tie-dyed tee shirt and driving a VW bus with flower power decals. 🌈🤪
i can remember a lot of boys and men I know who have been falsely accused of sexual assault by women who had second thoughts and buyer’s remorse the next day, or who were drunk and used that as an excuse for their own poor judgment
What bothers me most is the hypocrisy. K quite recently denied the request of a 17 y/o girl being held in a migrant camp for an abortion. I don’t know if she had been raped on her journey to the U.S. border or what. Fortunately he was overturned by a higher court. What if he had succeeded in raping and impregnating the 15 y/o girl when he was 17 and a senior in high school? Would he have given up his preppy, privileged life and his acceptance to Harvard in order to work and support the baby he created? Not likely. If he goes to SCOTUS, I suppose he can pal around with Clarence Thomas, who benefitted from Affirmative Action while now trying to deny it to others, and who wore bib overalls and a floppy sharecroppers’ hat to class at Yale Law School, trying to look like he had just stepped out of the cotton fields, playing on white guilt to make his way through. If K just came out and said, yes, I was young and dumb and drunk and truly regret the pain I caused, I could accept that. But he never will. Too entitled, sexist and narcissistic to care about “some chick.”
TIN – what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? Or is Kavanaugh going to get the Duke Lacrosse team treatment? There is something about this woman’s story that just doesn’t sit right with me and we are not talking about coming out of the woodwork at the last minute (most of that is DiFi’s fault, plus she didn’t want to get involved). If, and it is heavy on the if, she is telling the truth, then she is clearly over-reacting. For someone who was in fear of her life to be able to easily escape (first challenge to her story) lock herself in the bathroom (everyone locks the bathroom you idiot girl) and then hears them laughing going down the stairs (two challenges here, one did she really hear them. Two if she did hear them it is also an indication they (whomever it was) did not take it seriously.)
PCS: Yes, he’s innocent (of a crime), until proven guilty in a court of law. But he hasn’t been charged with a crime. And this isn’t a court of law. He’s a public figure who is being considered for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. So people have every right to question his character. The Duke case was an anomaly. And it was initially believed because there have been so many other cases where rich, entitled athletes and frat boys have committed sexual assaults and other crimes, only to have it covered up and the victim attacked. Read “Our Boys” by (Bernard ?) Lefkowitz. A horrible true story of privileged high school football players raping a retarded 13 y/o, and the whole town turning against her. It’s really appalling. And then the Steubenville OH rape case, another “blame the victim” story. So all in all, I don’t know what happened but I tend to believe victims, because they know how they will be trashed if they speak out. Plus she passed a lie detector test administered by a former FBI polygrapher. Why doesn’t K take a poly? I would. That would clear up everything.
TIN – there is no reason for him to take one. And this is just a last minute desperate smear attempt. Even the girl cannot remember how she got home. So, the rest of her memory is a little suspect. And read the Dear Colleague letter from the Obama administration. White men are on trial. We know from both studies and trials that eye-witness testimony is suspect. And we are supposed to take the word of a woman who is recreating an incident from 30 years in her past (as first related in couples therapy with her husband)? I do not think so.
She’s a democratic activist who wears a puttytat hat. Her credibility is below whale poop on Issues relating to Trump.
How many hands did Cavanaugh have? He reportedly had one over her mouth, one was helping to hold her down and a THIRD was attempting to remove her clothing? Unusual person?
Ken – that reminds me of a set of directions for assembling a child’s toy for Xmas. With your right hand take part A, with your left hand take part B, with your other hand take part C. 😉
How did she hear them laughing going down the stairs if the music was so loud that no one could hear her scream? The music would have to be as loud as a Metallica concert in the mosh pit.
When has a bathroom door lock kept out anyone who wanted in? You could lean on them and they’ll pop open. A rapist who was bold and deviant enough to try to rape you at a party, with other people in the house, would not let a flimsy door stop him.
What does the laughter signify? Was she drunk at the time as well? Had she taken any drugs or otherwise impaired her memory?
This is really difficult to prove.
Karen: Hire a handyman to replace your bathroom door locks. Or do it yourself, it’s not difficult. If you lean on them and they pop open, as you describe, it’s long past time to repair or replace. Holy cow, with all the descriptions of sub-standard housing in this blog, I’ll have to start asking prospective jurors if their homes are up to code. It never occurred to me before, I just assumed most everyone had normally functioning living conditions. (Unless, of course, you’re living in a NY tenement like TSTD, lol.)
see, some degree, and only God knows, but to be sure some percentage, of the rape and sexual assault accusations of today — and in any other age— are false.
Sometimes they are little more than jilted women who are ashamed of the liberties they too the preceding night, manufacturing a lack of consent, to cover their own shared fault in a socially inappropriate and embarrassing sexual contact
Sometimes the accusers make it all up, or sometimes it is an interpretation that they form after an event, that may have ambiguities to it, like alcohol abuse, for example. The next day, it’s all the boy’s fault, is now the standard.
I feel it’s important now more than ever for Republicans to get behind legalizing sex work. That will take the steam out of this accusation engine, which is driven by an excess of casual sex and people trying to get it….. when people are more able to confine themselves to clearly consensual situations.
It’s more and more obvious to me why sex work was legal in the ancient world, in spite of their supposedly backwards mentalities. Today, we have devolved, not evolved, in many things.
There is also an extreme state of puritannical zeal inhabiting the feminist left of today. I was not the first to observe that
https://www.dw.com/en/catherine-deneuve-and-100-french-women-denounce-metoo-puritanism/a-42084154
An open letter has been published in the daily Le Monde on Tuesday, attacking feminist social media campaigns like #MeToo and its French equivalent #BalanceTonPorc (Call out your pig) for allegedly unleashing a “puritanical… wave of purification.”
Its around 100 signatories include French actress Catherine Deneuve, author Catherine Millet, publisher Joëlle Losfeld and German film actress and singer Ingrid Caven.
“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cack-handedly, is not — nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” the letter says. “Men have been punished summarily or forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss.”
A ‘witch-hunt’?
The signatories of the letter claim that “a legitimate protest against the sexual violence that women are subject to, particularly in their professional lives,” has turned into a “witch-hunt.”
“Instead of helping women, this frenzy (…) actually helps the enemies of sexual liberty — religious extremists and the worst sort of reactionaries. As women, we do not recognize ourselves in this feminism, which, beyond denouncing the abuse of power, takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality.”
Catherine Deneuve’s controversial views
Oscar-nominated French star Catherine Deneuve had previously expressed her annoyance at social media campaigns that shame men accused of harassing women.
Referring to the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc hashtag, she said that she found the method “excessive.” “After ‘Calling our your pig’ what are we going to have, ‘Call out your whore?'” she said last year.
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This is America. Nobody gives a damn what the French think. 🇺🇸
Exactly and he is also a proponent of separate rules for the installed and connected. That’s the issue.
laudyms:
How would you prove or disprove this happened, over 35 years ago?
Just because a woman makes an accusation doesn’t make it either true, or false.
I knew someone years ago whose ex-girlfriend was so furious at him for breaking up with her, that she was threatening to hurt herself and claim he did it. He could not be alone, and always had to be in someone’s presence, just in case he needed an alibi. I know of a second woman who threatened to throw herself through a window and claim her husband did it. I know of several women who told their boyfriends, who were on their way out, that they were still on the pill, when in fact they were not. They deliberately got pregnant to try to keep their men…which never works. A friend of a friend was dating a man who was a registered sex offender. He claims that the teenage girl was the sister of his friend, and she was infatuated with him. He wouldn’t go out with her, so she fabricated a rape accusation, without evidence, and he somehow got convicted. The current girlfriend claimed that she’d seen the many letters that the “victim” wrote to her boyfriend while he was incarcerated, begging him to forgive her, which proved that she was STILL pursuing him. They were trying to get the conviction overturned, but I don’t know if that ever worked out.
There’s more, but the point is that there is no inherent virtue in either gender. Human beings have an equal capacity to be good or evil.
Her accusation may be true or not, but it has to be proven.
In general, women make a decision, for better or worse, to ether report an assault right away to the police, or not to. If a woman decides not to report something, then she has to live with that decision. If she brings it up 3 decades later, she can hardly blame anyone for doubting her story. She made her decision at the time.
That said, if she has evidence that Kavanaugh tried to rape her, then why was this not investigated 3 months ago? If she has no evidence, then what’s the point? I could level an accusation against anyone I disliked politically. How could anyone prove me wrong after all that time had passed?
This 11th hour shenanigans is dirty politics. Is this the playbook now?
Karen S – why didn’t her irate husband march her down to the police station to file rape charges against Kavanaugh 5 years ago. The was a statute of limitations but at least he might have vented on both of their behalves. If it was my wife, I would go after the guy, even 30 years later. Nothing from hubby.
Strange. Kavanaugh’s a public figure, and…nothing…until he was nominated to the Supreme Court.
As someone else pointed out, if he was a would-be rapist, saving other women from him, or warning them about him, did not induce her to come forward. A SCOTUS nomination that would make the Court more conservative seems to have, though.
I wonder how this will play out.
Karen S:
Usually this way: Dems make big brouhaha and then she tearily testifies. CNN rejoices. Story falls apart (i.e. corroborating proof really isn’t — see “wrong” therapist notes and factually impossible – see outward locking bedroom door) and then we learn she’s an activist willing to do most anything to stop Kavanaugh. She plays victim, goes on The View. Cries some more. Kavanaugh goes on bench and the professor goes back to her classroom a decorated social justice warrior. American people short-changed again by the Dems. Trump wins again.
mespo – there is the three hands theory you have to deal with as well.
why didn’t her irate husband march her down to the police station to file rape charges against Kavanaugh 5 years ago.
Because she didn’t accuse him of rape and such a charge would have been time-barred anyway. In any case, there isn’t enough information in her account to demonstrate anything at all. The point was to get pests (Flake) and temporizers (Murkowski) to agree to delay.
DSS – that’s correct. She accused four unnamed people 5 years ago. Then she went to the press and DiFi at the same time. I smell set up.
well, maybe she was making up crud against her husband at the time too, so he wasn’t that irate, and didnt believe her. he wouldnt be the first husband to disbelieve his own wife’s phony stories.
Sorry, Kurtz, I believe all your ex-wives. They say you’re a bitter old curmudgeon.
yes, we’ve had 8 years of obama/clinton “progressives” tyranny. and we’ve had 40 years of globalist tyranny. wake up America. save our nation from the downhill slide into open borders, globalist control, and socialism. Mr. Trump, Mr. Grassley …do NOT give in to these tyrants.
Forty six years ago I had a bumper sticker on my car. The top line said: Nixon & Ford
The second lines said: Don’t Change Dicks In the Middle of a Screw. Vote for Nixon in ’72.
Nixon was probably better than Trump. But what the heck. Both are not all that bad.
We could have had McGovern and Eagleton. Tom had shock therapy. McGovern thought he was King George.
If Kavanaugh raped that woman then he should not be confirmed. She took a lie detector test. So should Kavanaugh.
Nixon was actually a very intelligent man. One of our most intelligent presidents. And his opening the door with China was historic, but easily forgotten. He let his paranoia get the better of him, and all people remember now are his failings. Very unfortunate.
I agree with TIN. I will say that Nixon was smarter than Trump or the average bear. He was devious in some ways. He got us out of Vietnam. That took awhile. The Dems like JFK and LBJ thought that they had to be tough on Communism or be accused of being soft on Communism. Nixon say through that and knew by the time he came in that Nam was a bad thing to be involved in. He started sliding out.
Nixon was actually a very intelligent man.
So what? He had zero experience in executive positions prior to 1969 and it showed. Personnel system and employee discipline all wrong. Also, he tended to regard issues as fungible. Read Richard Nathan’s description of Nixon’s ‘administrative presidency’ or John Dean’s account of how Supreme Court appointments were vetted. Or ask yourself how a no-account like John Dean landed in charge of the counsel’s office.
You may be right that he wasn’t an experienced executive. Certainly he didn’t have the executive experience of Eisenhower. But compared to our more recent Presidents, particularly Obama and Trump, he had a solid grounding in history, policy and America’s place in the world. I was 8 years old when he was elected so I don’t gave a great personal recollection of him, but he was respected by my parents and others in CA Republican circles. His bio recounts very humble beginnings; truly a self-made man. Again, a sharp contrast with Obama and Trump.
But compared to our more recent Presidents, particularly Obama and Trump, he had a solid grounding in history, policy and America’s place in the world.
He was a history buff. There’s no indication he had the chops to understand financial statements or regression analysis. The phrase “a solid grounding in America’s place in the world” is a nonsense statement.
His bio recounts very humble beginnings; truly a self-made man. Again, a sharp contrast with Obama and Trump.
His ‘beginnings’ were small-town petit bourgeois. It’s a reasonable wager that Ronald Reagan and Robert Dole, who came from a similar stratum, came from families more impecunious than Nixon’s. Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Richard Gephardt, Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, and Mike Huckabee came from wage-earner families; possibly more affluent than Nixon’s because a generation younger, or possibly not. Alan Keyes and Newt Gingrich were the sons of Army sergeants.
Nixon wasn’t a ‘self-made man’. He was a capable student with considerable drive. However, his foray into the food processing business in 1938 was a failure and the transactional law practice he engaged in prior to 1947 couldn’t have been more unremarkable. Electoral politics was his ticket, just as it was for Harry Truman and Robert Dole (though, to be sure,Truman earned a living for 21 years ‘ere ever running for office).
No clue how Barack Obama and Donald Trump get lumped in the same pigeonhole in your ‘mind’. Obama’s notable for having had a simulacrum of an adult life, not the real thing. Pro-rating periods of part-time and seasonal labor, he spent 3 or 4 years employed in law offices and perhaps 5 years on the faculty of the University of Chicago. He was never offered a partnership, remained outside the tenure track, and never published any scholarly literature. His most notable activity was running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge into the ground. He spend a dozen years in legislative bodies, but has been a maven in no area of policy. Trump, by contrast, is a handsomely accomplished businessman, entering fields, subfields, and markets into which his father never ventured. Other than Mitt Romney, you’d be hard put to find someone like Trump trying his hand at presidential politics. Steve Forbes, Jimmy Carter, and Stuart Symington performed satisfactorily at superintending established family businesses, quite good but a ratchet lower than Trump or Romney. George Bush the Elder established and sold (for a nice packet) his own business, qualitatively better than Trump, but operating on a much smaller scale.
See Garry Wills for a summary of Gen. Eisehnower’s view of Nixon’s talents: good at delineating options and boiling down other people’s opinions, but not offering anything of his own.
those are two top job requirements for an executive manager and a political one even more so. creativity at the top is not the prime necessity. musk is plenty creative but how is he as a manager? so that sounds like a compliment to me.
it seems like Nixon proved to be a modestly good administrator but he let the CREEPs get carried away
it seems like Nixon proved to be a modestly good administrator but he let the CREEPs get carried away
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Again, read Nathan, Dean, and Kissnger, among others.
1. The White House staff grew increasingly bloated trying to keep tabs on the departments and agencies, because Nixon didn’t set up a careful vetting system for discretionary appointees and (contrast with Reagan) really had no well-considered criteria for evaluating people as policy-makers.
2. To get a sense of Nixon on appointments, look how he handles Supreme Court nominations. He subcontracts the job to John Mitchell, who is a frigging bond lawyer. Mitchell comes up with Clement Haynesworth and Harold Carswell, the latter a federal judge so distinguished his name could have been picked out of a hat. These go down, so he appoints Warren Burger’s buddy from Minnesota, Harry Blackmun (who had specialized in estate law while in private practice). Worked out real well. Two other seats open up and he subcontracts the job to John Mitchell, who comes up with a congressman from Virginia, a trial lawyer from Arkansas and a federal judge from California. He sends John Dean to interview them. Two of this trio have never sat on the bench. One (the chap from Virginia) has some baggage on racial questions. One (the chap from Arkansas), in Dean’s words, “knows little constitutional law”. The federal judge from California, age 55, is described by Dean as ‘damned bright and knows her mind’. Nixon’s people, per a practice established by Eisenhower, submit her name to a committee of the ABA, they blackball her for nonsensical reasons (‘inexperience’), and Nixon caves. Then Dean is tasked with ginning up someone and he comes up with a lawyer from Richmond and a lawyer from Phoenix who had landed a position in the Justice Department – neither of whom had ever sat on the bench. And who was John Dean? He was a remora who’d attached himself to the nexus around Barry Goldwater – Richard Kleindienst, William Rehnquist, Barry Goldwater Jr. He’d landed a position on the staff of the House Judiciary committee in 1966 and ‘decided to become a crime expert’ (he wasn’t credibly expert, btw). He’d trolled for a position there because he’d been fired for cause in February 1966 from a position at a communications law firm in Washington (and told by the senior partner that he might be subject to an ethnics complaint). That was, btw, the only private sector law job Dean ever had after being admitted to the bar. He’d lasted about 18 months with that firm.
3. Nixon has bizarre emotional outbursts and his staff have to figure out whether to pay attention or not. (See, Kissinger: this was a consequential skill if you were one of his subordinates). He has terrible people skills, and generally deals through intermediaries like HR Haldeman. When he does meet with people, the meetings are often scripted because he cannot confer with people in unstructured settings. See in particular Kissinger’s comparative assessments of Nixon and Ford as negotiators: Ford knew how to bargain; whereas Nixon could only follow prepared scenarios.
4. Nixon couldn’t fire anyone. Melvin Laird was bloody guilty of scheming insubordination known to Nixon and nothing happened. Henry Kissinger threatened resignation dozens of times (games he didn’t dare play with Ford and games which got Alexander Haig a pink slip from Reagan when he tried it). The one person who got the sack was Walter Hickel, who’d slammed him publicly.
I would rather pluck out my eyeball than read anything by the snitch John Dean. I did read Liddy’s book a long time ago. If you have a good book to suggest by someone besides the rat snitch beyotch John Dean let me know
You can read Nathan instead, or WoodStein’s accounts, or Kissinger’s accounts. I’ve given you a precis of some of the problems. Herman Talmadge of the Senate Watergate Committee asked Dean why he hadn’t gone to see the president about blah blah blah and Dean had to try (not very successfully) to explain how the president’s schedule was managed. Between May of 1970 and September of 1972, Dean had had three (3) meetings with the President, all of them pro-forma. By contrast, Oliver North, who was a 2d echelon official in the Reagan Administration, saw the president face-to-face about once a month.
i agree. Moreover, the skillful, cunning, Democrat engineered scheme to weaponize the FBI against the opposing candidate makes Watergate look like, well, a third rate burglary, by comparison. There is no doubt Hillary had the more cunning pack of wolves, even though she didn’t win