Time To Smear Kavanaugh's Good Name...

[rogue06]

Originalist. "Strict constructionist" is a term some politicians like to throw out but it's not something any judge I'm aware of claims to adhere to.

Some, like Scalia, rejected the term.

[Tassman]

Accusations are not evidence any more than an assertion is. They need to be corroborated by evidence.

He received a unanimous "well qualified" rating from the Bar Association (their highest rating), has authored more than 300 judicial opinions during his time on the bench several of which were directly quoted and became used in the majority opinion by the Supreme Court. His opinions have been as likely to be joined in full by Democrat-appointed colleagues (88.67%) as they are by his Republican-appointed colleagues (88.94%). These are among the reasons that the left-leaning USA Today declared when he was nominated that "Kavanaugh may be the most qualified Supreme Court nominee in generations." These are the reasons that the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee almost never asked him about his ruling but spent most of their time making campaign speeches for their own re-elections.

[Mountain Man]

The FBI's new investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh was too limited in scope from the beginning. There was never a directive to the FBI to investigate a third assault allegation against Kavanaugh, or to probe his drinking habits and whether he lied about them to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a source briefed on the investigation. At least 40 witnesses were not contacted by FBI under Trump restrictions - neither the victim nor Kavanaugh himself. The FBI has not contacted dozens of potential corroborators or character witnesses and yet the Kavanaigh supporters are claiming a lack of corroborating evidence. It's a sham.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...anaugh-n916146

In other words, liberals wanted an open-ended Mueller-like witch-hunt with the only directive being "Go dig up any dirt you can."

The point was to investigate Ford's sketchy allegations, and there was never a realistic expectation that they were going to find anything because her accusations are obviously a lie.

[Mountain Man]

"Over 500 liberals sign letter saying they don't like Brett Kavanaugh! In other news, the sun is hot and bright."

[rogue06]

Yup he had the temerity to vigorously defend himself against weeks of slanderous accusations bereft a shred of corroborating evidence and that now makes him unfit in the eyes of liberals. The fiend

[Mountain Man]

Now things are really starting to get interesting. It seems that Ford's friend, ex-FBI agent Monica McLean (yes, the same woman that Ford reportedly coached on how to fool a polygraph test and who may have helped Ford draft her letter to Feinstein), was pressuring Leland Keyser to change her story to be more favorable to Ford.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's a "deep dive" analysis of this latest twist:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...and-statement/

That's in addition to the story reported earlier about how Keyser and her family are furious at Ford for her cruel implication during the hearing that Keyser couldn't remember the party because of ongoing health issues.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ser-under-bus/

So not only was poor Leland Keyser thrown under the bus, but it seems as though Ford and her gang slammed it into reverse afterwards.

[rogue06]

The FBI's new investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh was too limited in scope from the beginning. There was never a directive to the FBI to investigate a third assault allegation against Kavanaugh, or to probe his drinking habits and whether he lied about them to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a source briefed on the investigation. At least 40 witnesses were not contacted by FBI under Trump restrictions - neither the victim nor Kavanaugh himself. The FBI has not contacted dozens of potential corroborators or character witnesses and yet the Kavanaigh supporters are claiming a lack of corroborating evidence. It's a sham.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...anaugh-n916146

They weren't "Trump restrictions" no matter how much your fevered imagination seeks to make them so. As for the third accuser, Julie Swetnick^[1], she's the one who claims that she kept going to High School parties well after she graduated where she knew that girls were being systematically drugged and gang raped until she was eventually raped at the 10th such party after accepting some drugged punch. Think about all that for a minute. Moreover, nobody knows anything about these series of gang rapes and nobody ever reported it or went to a doctor or anything. None of her friends will stand by her on this.

One of her friends from the 1990s, Dennis Ketterer, who once ran for Congress as a Democrat, has come forth and said she was fond of having "sex with more than one guy at a time" (odd for a victim of gang rape) and that her father "told me that she had psychological and other problems." Ya think?

And probably most importantly, she she quickly backed off her accusation that Kavanaugh was one of these supposed gang rapists during her NBC interview (aptly described as a "trainwreck"), and said that he merely was "present" at some of the parties -- which she found "suspicious."

The only reason the FBI might talk to her is to see if she ought to be prosecuted for lying under oath.






1 Gotta love how CNN characterized her as being "thrust into the national spotlight" when it was more the case that she did a running broad jump to get herself into it.

[rogue06]

I think that's all the more reason to do it. They sowed the wind, now let's unleash the biggest firenado imaginable. There must be severe enough consequences that even the loony lefties can understand them and fear them.

As noted earlier, suing for defamation by a public figure is all but impossible in the U.S.

Instead what they might get is a Supreme Court justice with an axe to grind. Instead of someone with a history of being joined in full by Democrat-appointed judges as often as by Republican-appointed ones (a difference of less than 0.3%)^[1] and someone widely respected for making his decisions based solely on law and precedent rather than political ideology, they might get someone who sees liberal causes and plaintiff or defendants as already having two strikes against them and swinging wildly at the third pitch (for foreign readers, this is a baseball metaphor meaning that liberals will have a tough job convincing him of anything).





1.

[Sparko]

During the hearing, Ford cruelly implied that her life-long friend Leland Keyser couldn't remember the party or the assault because of Keyser's ongoing health problems. Apparently Keyser and her family are taking it about as well as you'd expect

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ser-under-bus/

Ford is starting to sound manipulative.

BTW my brother found this very relevant article, written back in 2014 in Psychology Today about false accusation, why people make them and how they affect others. The bolding is mine.

---------------------
False Accusations, Scapegoats, and the Power of Words

Being publically accused of a crime one did not commit could lead a person to jump off a bridge. Once the information is out there, defending yourself, clearing your name, fighting suspicion and tolerating disdain is a horrible predicament.

People with little information can form strong opinions and take unwarranted retaliatory action from expulsion from the clan to spreading the false word. In Jane Eyre, the cruel headmaster tells the girls to let no one be her friend, take her hand or comfort her. You get the sense that this is the worst for Jane, worse than the head blow and the lack of bread.



Kids who are scapegoated with words that cause unbearable humiliation sometimes commit suicide. Freud said the pain of the ego is the worse kind of pain. A supervisor in analytic school told me that kids who are tortured with words are often more traumatized than those who have been physically abused.

It is widely known that people with certain kinds of pathology are brilliant at looking like victims when they are actually perpetrators. They can ruin the life of an innocent person. You can see this on Law and Order, learn it in Psych 101 or know it instinctively.

When you hear a story, consider the narrator. Who is this person? Why is she telling this story when she is? What feelings does she convey when she tells it? If there was true victimization, then the wish to retaliate is utterly understandable. You as the listener may feel like crying too. But what if the true story is not as it seems? You might have a strange lack of empathy. Sometimes people dramatize. Some lie or they feel so injured for rational or irrational reasons that they come to believe their own distortions. There are those who are at peace when they lie and those who toss, turn and torture themselves about doing so. In short, some people lie and some do not.

You might wonder as you listen, is this person truly seeking wellness, self-protection or justice or is the goal to destroy someone else? If a person is lying to hurt someone else it is a very aggressive act and the accuser needs help. Such choices do not foster a healthy existence with generous, loving relationships.

You might hear a tale of woe, and just have the feeling that the teller is not all that woeful. Maybe there is a need to blame or malign for secondary gain: attention, fame, money, importance or drama. Maybe the person is not in touch with reality and is retaliating against an imagined transgression.Maybe the goal is to take someone else down for competitive, regressed, or even unconscious reasons. They just want what the other one has.

Making a false accusation in a public way is an aggressive act. In the movie The Bad Seed, a sociopathic child has an angelic demeanor and manages to destroy many lives. Sweet faces, soft voices and tears can hide sadistic impulses. If you know someone like this, the best thing you can do is steer clear and build up your own life in a positive, separate way. Time takes away the sting, people eventually figure out the truth and recovery is possible. You may be stronger, better, savvier after you get out from under this mess you did not create.

I once attended an event where the speaker said some people are brought into this life to build, others to tear down.
=========

[Sparko]

Well yes. He was a drunk and party animal in high school and college.

So was I. But I never attacked a woman. In fact I was a virgin throughout high school just like Kavanaugh claims he was.

There have been multiple witnesses to that fact. Several has testified that he becomes belligerent when drunk. Ergo it is very possible an incident like the one described could have happened and he either doesn't remember it or isn't admitting it.

Sure. And there is every possibility it did NOT happen and Ford is lying or mistaken about it. That is WHY the burden is hers to bear, not his.

To rely on a reputation, one is counting on the fact that one's history and reputation would say the type of behavior required was completely out of character. Well, in high school and college that sort if behavior was IN character when he was very drunk. And that is why his reputation AFTER college and high school isn't much help.

After high school I stopped drinking and going to parties, pretty much. Now I might have a drink a couple of times a year. But I still never accosted a woman in high school or after.

Nevertheless, that is my answer. That is the only answer there is in a he said/she said where you can't produce an alibi.

I'm really not sure you or MM's point beyond that. Does the fact a man is vulnerable to attack in this area mean that it is impossible her accusation is true? Statistics are that false accusations of this sort are relatively rare. But it most certainly does happen.

OTOH, sadly, assaults of this sort are not in fact nearly so rare. And so the fact is, the percentage of men accused of assault that are shown to be guilty is in fact larger that the percentage of women that accuse and are lying.

Percent false report : between 2 and 7%
Percent not reported at all: 2 out of 3 (63%)

https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics

In addition, as many as 1 in 5 women over their lifetime will be sexually assaulted. As compared to 1 in 71 men.

The reality is, the odds are very much in Ford's favor. At this point we can't know, but we definitely, if we are going to pick a side without knowing, would be more likely to be correct if we picked Ford's side. Not that I'm suggesting picking a side.


Jim

Statistics and What If's and Possibilities are not evidence Jim. Unless there is evidence the accusation should be dismissed.

The reason we even have the principal of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is to prevent innocent people of being convicted of crimes they did not commit, even if it means some guilty people might go free. That principal was so important to our founding fathers that they put it in the constitution.

So yes there is a possibility that Kavanaugh did this and he is the liar, but as it stands the only one who has had anything they said denied or outright refuted is Ford. Every witness has said they don't remember or it didn't happen. And she did not report it at the time. Therefore the only thing we can conclude is that Kavanaugh is innocent because there is not enough evidence to convict him.

[Sparko]

And that, my friends, is why I abide by the Billy Graham rule.

That still wouldn't stop some woman from making a false accusation against you making up some entirely imaginary incident 30 years ago.

[Mountain Man]

Ford is starting to sound manipulative.

BTW my brother found this very relevant article, written back in 2014 in Psychology Today about false accusation, why people make them and how they affect others. The bolding is mine.

---------------------
False Accusations, Scapegoats, and the Power of Words

This quote from the article also struck me in light of Ford's shy demeanor and "little gir's" voice during the hearing:

"Sweet faces, soft voices and tears can hide sadistic impulses."

[lilpixieofterror]

This quote from the article also struck me in light of Ford's shy demeanor and "little gir's" voice during the hearing:

"Sweet faces, soft voices and tears can hide sadistic impulses."

[Sparko]

Getting a rape kit done is certainly ideal, but it is both ignorant and cruel to expect all rape victims to never bring to light the crimes of their rapists unless they think to get one done and are able. The MeToo movement was spurred by accusations without proof from many years ago. Should that not have happened? Should Larry Nassar still be molesting children?

In America you notify the government that someone has committed a crime and the government investigates.

If you automatically believe every accusation until it is proven false you end up with a society of manipulators using the system to punish people they don't like falsely. Which is why our constitution has in it the principal of innocent until proven guilty. To prevent railroading.

So while relying on sufficient evidence to convict might result in some guilty going free, it prevents a lot of innocent from being imprisoned or even put to death.

I am SOOOOO glad you liberals did not write the constitution. Our justice system would have been nothing but a Kangaroo court like the Salem Witch Trials.

[Mountain Man]

That still wouldn't stop some woman from making a false accusation against you making up some entirely imaginary incident 30 years ago.

And as you pointed out in the Psychology Today article, even an accusation on its own can be ruinous.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who knew a youth pastor who had a hugely successful ministry until one day, a teen girl accused him of molesting her. She later admitted that she was lying and just seeking attention from her parents, but by then, the pastor had been fired, his former ministry had collapsed without his leadership, and no other area church would hire him because he was perceived as "damaged goods". All because of a false accusation.

Frankly, I don't blame Kavanaugh for reacting the way he did during the hearing. Not only do I not blame him, but I think he was fully justified.