Time To Smear Kavanaugh's Good Name...

[Mountain Man]

Wow, that letter certainly puts a spotlight on all the trash talk here and elsewhere concerning Ford's fear of flying. A close friend that can validate her fear of flying (And if there is one close friend, there are others, not to mention her family, and I would imagine a check of purchases of certain medications might correlate with flying as well).

Why yes Martha, people with a real fear of flying fly anyway because it's just not practical to drive and the fear is not so completely overwhelming it is possible IF they take the medications necessary to get through it. So I guess all that PhD level (NOT!) 'reasoning' that 'she flies therefore she is not afraid of flying' pretty much goes out the window.

I wonder how many other 'absolutely debunked' elements of Ford's testimony/claims will turn out not to be so 'debunked'?

Given the 'debunking' is based on presumptive speculation in many cases, I would guess there will be more.


Jim

Not that it really matters any more (thank God), but here are the relevant facts about Ford's supposed fear of flying that were revealed during the hearing:

Source: Prosecutor’s Senate Report Outlines 9 Reasons Why Christine Blasey Ford Not Credible

Mitchell lays out Ford’s comments about her claim she is afraid of flying, a fear that delayed everything for a full week.

• “The date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was informed that her [PTSD] symptoms prevent her from flying.”
• “But she agreed during her testimony that she flies ‘fairly frequently for [her] hobbies and … work’.”
• “She flies to the midAtlantic at least once a year to visit her family.”
• “She has flown to Hawaii, French Polynesia, and Costa Rica.”
• “She also flew to Washington, D.C. for the hearing.”

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...senate-report/

© Copyright Original Source

So whatever fear of flying she has, it's obviously not debilitating and did not present an obstacle getting to DC for the hearing. Let's put it this way: someone who has panic attacks and needs medication just to get on a plane would fly as little as possible and not "fairly frequently" as admitted by Ford.

[oxmixmudd]

Not to mention the provable lies that Ford told, such as when and why she added a second door to her house.

Finally, he claims that Ford has always had a fear of flying, but this little factoid is directly contradicted by Ford herself who admitted in her testimony that she happily flies all over the world for work and pleasure.

So, you're right, I do doubt his letter, and I think for good reason.

The testimony I've read does not discuss when the door was added. It discusses the order of the discussion in the counseling session, which took place in 2012.

She did not say she 'happily' flies all over the world. That is you sneering at her. She overcomes her fears, at least per this testimony, by taking drugs to calm her down. Not an uncommon thing. People that are afraid to fly fly anyway because they don't have several days, weeks, or months to make the trip otherwise.

And this is exactly the sort of nasty, uncharitable, and unjustified trash talk I've been talking about.


Jim

[Mountain Man]

And this is exactly the sort of nasty, uncharitable, and unjustified trash talk I've been talking about.

You see what you want to see.

[rogue06]

Wow, that letter certainly puts a spotlight on all the trash talk here and elsewhere concerning Ford's fear of flying. A close friend that can validate her fear of flying (And if there is one close friend, there are others, not to mention her family, and I would imagine a check of purchases of certain medications might correlate with flying as well).

Friends can claim all sorts of things but, as they say, actions speaks louder than words. Now, one can still not like to fly and still fly, but Ford claimed that she feared to fly so much that she couldn't come to D.C. because she was too afraid to fly^[1], and Ford's friend, Kate Devarney, told CNN that her fear of flying is directly related to her allegation of assault, and that an airplane is "the ultimate closed space where you cannot get away."

But in reality Ford had flown to D.C. just a month earlier and then flew there to testify in spite of saying earlier that she couldn't make it to D.C. on time to testify for a previously scheduled date because she would have to drive there all the way across country (the hearing was postponed as a result).

She had also recently flown to Hawaii and Tahiti.






1. My mother actually had severe aviophobia (she actually suffered from several phobias, most notably being terrified of snakes -- she could barely even look at pictures of them in a book). The one time she did fly she was so doped up on Valium that she quite literally walked into a wall, Even still she had such a death grip on the arm rests of the seats during the flight that she ended up pulling muscles in both her arms and had to keep them in slings for a couple days.

[rogue06]

The testimony I've read does not discuss when the door was added. It discusses the order of the discussion in the counseling session, which took place in 2012.

A bit about the door:

Also, from the hearing, she had said...

Over the years, I told very, very few friends that I had this traumatic experience. I told my husband before we were married that I had experienced a sexual assault. I had never told the details to anyone — the specific details — until May 2012, during a couples counseling session.

The reason this came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed a very extensive, very long remodel of our home and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that he and others disagreed with and could not understand.

In explaining why I wanted a second front door, I began to describe the assault in detail. I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court, and spoke a bit about his background at an elitist all-boys school in Bethesda, Maryland. My husband recalls that I named my attacker as Brett Kavanaugh.

According to TheGatewayPundit, the door she describes had actually been installed at least by 2011 - prior to this "couples counseling" session where she was insisting that a second front door be installed.

Oops.

Source: Renovation Records Undercut Ford's Exit-Door Account

Real estate and other records undercut a key part of Christine Blasey Ford’s account of why she finally came forward with charges of attempted rape against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after some 30 years.

Ford testified last week that she had never revealed the details of the alleged attack until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. She said the memories percolated up as they revisited a disagreement they’d had over her insistence on installing a “second front door" when they had remodeled their Palo Alto, Calif., home.

The need to explain a decision her husband “didn’t understand,” Ford testified, pushed her to say she wanted the door to alleviate symptoms of “claustrophobia” and “panic attacks" she still suffered from an attempted rape allegedly perpetrated by Kavanaugh in high school during the early 1980s.

"Is that the reason for the second door — front door -- is claustrophobia?” asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Correct,” Ford replied.

Ford never specified when the renovation took place, leaving a possible impression that it and the therapy session happened around the same time.

But documents reveal the door was installed years before as part of an addition, and has been used by renters and even a marriage counseling business.

“The door was not an escape route but an entrance route,” said an attorney familiar with the ongoing congressional investigation. “It appears the real plan for the second front door was to rent out a separate room."

The discrepancy raises fresh doubts about Ford's candor and credibility amid other inconsistencies, congressional and other knowledgeable sources say, including her purported "fear of flying." Ford initially refused to submit to an interview with the committee because of an alleged airplane phobia, but investigators established that she had taken a number of flights back East this summer, and had previously flown to Hawaii, Costa Rica, French Polynesia and other South Pacific islands.

Palo Alto city records show that a building permit for an additional room and exterior door was issued to Ford and her husband on Feb. 4, 2008 — more than four years before the May 2012 therapy session where, she says, she first identified Kavanaugh as her attacker.

All the remodeling, including a new bathroom, was completed by February 2010. The only additional permits issued to Ford at her Palo Alto address are for "solar panels" on the roof, a "solar hot water system” in the garage, and an “electric vehicle charge station” for the driveway -- all of which were issued after 2012.

Other documents, including health care-provider registration records, reveal that a marriage counselor listed Ford’s home address as her place of employment, ostensibly using the extra room and door for her clinical practice. That marriage therapist, Sylvia Adkins Randall, sold the home to the Fords in 2007, but continued to maintain the address for her business.

Contacted by phone, Dr. Randall expressed concern about her real estate transaction and prior relationship with Ford being reported.

“I don’t want it to be mentioned,” she said. "It’s personal.”

Randall is a licensed therapist who specializes in treating “disturbing memories from the past." She supports Ford and described her allegation against Kavanaugh as “credible.”

Since the second front door was installed, moreover, students from local colleges have lived in the additional room with the private door. In fact, under congressional questioning Thursday, Ford testified she has “hosted” various other residents there, including “Google interns.”

The attorney said the tenants call into question Ford’s claims about why she installed the additional exterior door in her home.

“Renters and a business operating out of Dr. Ford’s home would explain the added door,” he said. "Clearly, there were business purposes [for it], not just ones related to her anxieties."

Also casting doubt on Ford's story is the fact she installed no such escape door at a second home, which property records show she and her husband own in Santa Cruz, Calif., less than five blocks from the beach.

Yet she recently told a close friend, according to media reports, that she has resisted purchasing a home without a second exit from the master bedroom. Without it, she said she would never feel safe.

“Obviously, something happened that traumatized her so much that she’s afraid of being trapped,” her friend Jim Gensheimer, a photojournalist who worked for the San Jose Mercury News, told the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 19.


Property records show Ford and her husband, Russell Ford, bought the beach house in 2007. This July – the same month Ford sent a letter to Feinstein accusing Kavanaugh of attacking her -- Ford applied for permits to build a front porch and new decks at the home, located on Seaside Street in Santa Cruz. There is no application for a second front door, however, and the recent permits are the only ones applied for since 2007.

No evidence has emerged of any other exterior door construction at either of Ford's homes, authorized or not.

"If she rents out the room to Google employees, how does she get access to the second door to escape a perceived attacker?” noted the attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Renting out the room is completely contrary to her stated reason of why she wanted the second front door."

Randall said she is not the therapist who counseled Ford in 2012. She said "it’s just a weird coincidence” that the two are connected through the property and share the same profession. Ford is a research psychologist.

Two other marriage counselors who worked for Randall’s now-defunct Palo Alto clinic -- Couples Resource Center -- also shared an address with Ford’s home.

A Senate Judiciary Committee spokeswoman said that Ford’s lawyers have provided neither the therapist's notes nor the therapist’s name to committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), even though they have furnished that information to Democrats on the committee.

“Democrats won’t share it,” she said, just as they withheld the July 30 letter Ford sent to Feinstein for almost two months.

The aide said that Grassley’s office is following “a ton of leads” to learn the identity of the therapist, and offered that Ford’s story about her therapy session and the so-called escape door is a critical part of the investigation into her allegations.

“The investigative side of the committee thinks it’s a good lead,” she said, “and they are pursuing it."

Ford’s attorneys did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Ford, a registered Democrat who has marched against Trump policies, claims she’s not “political” and that Kavanaugh first “came up in counseling” in May 2012 strictly because of the door.

But something else was going on at the time, and it apparently caught Ford’s attention.

Just weeks earlier, the national media reported that GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney was planning to tap Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court if he won the White House.

In a March 26, 2012, article in the The New Yorker, for example, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin warned that Kavanaugh was on Romney’s short list. Toobin said Kavanaugh would pose a threat to the Affordable Care Act and other Obama policies. He also slammed Kavanaugh's work as a federal prosecutor during the investigation of President Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, noting that he wrote “startling” sections of a report for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, including that “the President fondled and kissed her bare breasts …"

Striking an ominous tone, Toobin concluded: "If a Republican, any Republican, wins in November, his most likely first nominee to the Supreme Court will be Brett Kavanaugh."

Ford, who is liberal, seemed aware at the time that Kavanaugh was in the running.

"I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court, and spoke a bit about his background at an elitist all-boys school in Bethesda, Md.,” she testified, recounting her May 2012 therapy session. "My husband recalls that I named my attacker as Brett Kavanaugh."

Still, Democrats point to her 2012 therapy session as evidence her charges are not motivated by politics. They claim she related her accusation to her husband and therapist “long before” Kavanaugh was in the news as a Supreme Court pick.

Asked by a Democratic senator if there is “a political motivation for your coming forward with your account of the assault by Brett Kavanaugh,” Ford responded, “No."

Republicans aren’t buying it.

“So, after telling no one her story about Kavanaugh for decades, she suddenly remembered and spoke about it in couples therapy, triggered by a spat over a door, in 2012 -- which also happens to be when her fellow Democrats were worrying about the possibility that Mitt Romney could win the presidency and appoint Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court? Call me skeptical," a senior GOP congressional staffer said. “There's obviously more to the story than just a door."

After Romney lost the 2012 presidential race, and the threat of Kavanaugh ascending to the high court passed, Ford moved on.

"After that May 2012 therapy session,” Ford said, "I did my best to ignore the memories of the assault, because recounting them caused me to relive the experience, and caused panic and anxiety."

But she said her attitude changed again in early July 2018, when "I saw press reports stating that Brett Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of a list of very well-qualified Supreme Court nominees.” So she decided to come forward with her story.

"I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh’s conduct so that those considering his nomination would know about this assault,” she said.

Ford went public with her claim in a Sept. 16 Washington Post story.

Dr. Randall said she does not believe that the door was just a pretext to hide a political motive.

“Part of her trauma was feeling trapped, and that stayed with her,” she asserted.
Randall, who specializes in sexuality, depression, anxiety and fears and phobias, says that Ford’s failure to tell anyone for some 30 years about the high school incident stemmed not from “repressed memory syndrome” but from the simple fact she was "15 years old at the time and couldn’t tell anyone about it.”

“She didn’t want her parents to know she was drinking at a house without parents there,” Randall said. “There was a lot of shame involved.”

But the far more recent story of the “second front door" also seemed to recede in Ford's memory banks, only to pop up after speculation about her political motives grew.



She did not mention it in her original letter to Feinstein in July, or the statement she made for a polygraph exam in August, or a personal letter to Grassley last month. The tale of the door emerged, suddenly, on the eve of her testimony before Congress.




Source

© Copyright Original Source

I'll bet that for the most part this will be studiously ignored by the MSM which was all aflutter that Kavanaugh wanted to push back when he learned of Deborah Ramirez's accusation when the New Yorker started questioning his friends and former classmates about it.

[Cow Poke]

Kavanaugh confirmed, quickly sworn in; major Trump victory

Let the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth (and rioting) begin!

[Mountain Man]

And with that, I will retire from this thread.

[Cow Poke]

Another really dumb liberal talking point was calling this a "job interview" so they could whine about Kavanaugh's conduct in the "job interview".

Actually, Kavanaugh had MANY job interviews with these very same Democrats who heard him privately and were cordial, in which he conducted himself, apparently, like a perfect gentleman.

It was only when the hearings turned into a lynching - not a job interview - that Kavanaugh lost his cool.

There will never be a situation in his job on the Supreme Court where he will be ambushed with the vitriol and hate in the course of his duties.

[oxmixmudd]

A bit about the door

That is exactly the text I've read over and over. She is talking about the discussions in the counseling session(s?) and how during that/those session(s?) the topic of why she needed two doors led to the discussion about Kavanaugh. There is nothing in her comments that imply the doors where installed contemporaneously with the counseling sessions.


Jim

[Mountain Man]

Supreme_Court_Kavanaugh_05540.jpg-76aba_s878x585-640x480.jpg

[Cow Poke]

I think the tide actually began to turn when Michael Avanetti got involved, and brought Swetnick to the fray.

Even some of the liberals seem to think so.

Her incredibly unbelievable story seemed to increase the doubt about Ford's story.

Michael Avenatti Turns Radioactive As Liberals Blame Porn Lawyer For Kavanaugh Confirmation

Following Friday's announcement by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) that she would vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the left flipped on one of its recent heroes; Michael Avenatti.

Michael-Avenatti-via-Mario-TamaGetty-Images-e1527860337575_0.jpg

In a fiery speech announcing her decision, Collins ripped unsupported claims by Avenatti's client, Julie Swetnick, that Kavanaugh facilitated a Cosby-esque "gang rape" operation while in high school.

Some of the allegations levied against Judge Kavanaugh illustrate why the presumption of innocence is so important. I am thinking in particular not of the allegations raised by Professor Ford, but of the allegation that, when he was a teenager, Judge Kavanaugh drugged multiple girls and used their weakened state to facilitate gang rape.

This outlandish allegation was put forth without any credible supporting evidence and simply parroted public statements of others. That such an allegation can find its way into the Supreme Court confirmation process is a stark reminder about why the presumption of innocence is so ingrained in our American consciousness. -Sen. Susan Collins

As a result of Collins citing Swetnick's claim, liberals began to pile onto Avenatti - blaming him for Kavanaugh's impending Saturday confirmation, while conservative pundits poked fun.

[Tassman]

Since you likely missed or steadfastly ignored it

All of which is secondary to the fact that if not for the Evangelicals, Trump would not be in power and nor would the US have a tainted Justice on the Supreme Court as a consequence, which may impact upon many sensitive decisions for decades to come/.

“More than 81% of the US’s protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever – and just as ready to make excuses for his decidedly un-Christian misdeeds”.

https://theconversation.com/evangeli...ixon-era-97974

But, hey! You got what you wanted, why worry about how you got it.

[Cow Poke]

All of which is secondary to the fact that if not for the Evangelicals, Trump would not be in power and nor would the US have a tainted Justice on the Supreme Court as a consequence, which may impact upon many sensitive decisions for decades to come/.

“More than 81% of the US’s protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever – and just as ready to make excuses for his decidedly un-Christian misdeeds”.

https://theconversation.com/evangeli...ixon-era-97974

But, hey! You got what you wanted, why worry about how you got it.

Let's see.... ya got an opinion piece, and a claim of a statistic with a statement that says "A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever"....

(bolding and underlining mine) No data on that, just this guys opinion. Wow -- POWERFUL argument! A blogger thinks that Evangelicals SEEM as dedicated.....

[oxmixmudd]

Not that it really matters any more (thank God), but here are the relevant facts about Ford's supposed fear of flying that were revealed during the hearing:

Source: Prosecutor’s Senate Report Outlines 9 Reasons Why Christine Blasey Ford Not Credible

Mitchell lays out Ford’s comments about her claim she is afraid of flying, a fear that delayed everything for a full week.

• “The date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was informed that her [PTSD] symptoms prevent her from flying.”
• “But she agreed during her testimony that she flies ‘fairly frequently for [her] hobbies and … work’.”
• “She flies to the midAtlantic at least once a year to visit her family.”
• “She has flown to Hawaii, French Polynesia, and Costa Rica.”
• “She also flew to Washington, D.C. for the hearing.”

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...senate-report/

© Copyright Original Source

So whatever fear of flying she has, it's obviously not debilitating and did not present an obstacle getting to DC for the hearing. Let's put it this way: someone who has panic attacks and needs medication just to get on a plane would fly as little as possible and not "fairly frequently" as admitted by Ford.

You (and every one else towing this line of argumentation ) are applying a ridiculously harsh standard here. It's purpose is to squash her, not understand if she is telling the truth.

What little we know is that she is afraid enough of flying to have panic attacks and to require medication to do it. That is enough to cause anyone to push back against a flight to a place where they will be asked to do something they don't really want to do. In this case face a hostile public audience where her every word about an event she is and has been afraid would result in an intolerable amount of humiliation will be picked apart, mocked, and ridiculed.


Jim

[Tassman]

Let's see.... ya got an opinion piece, and a claim of a statistic with a statement that says "A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever".....

There are many such links all saying much the same, as you well know. Yet you prevaricate over the demonstrable fact that if it were not for the Evangelicals Trump would likely not be in power. You lot put him there. Presumably, he represents Evangelical values.

“White evangelicals are the only religious group to support Trump. A new poll says 71 percent of white evangelicals approve of his presidency”. “Trump’s standing among white evangelicals has remained virtually unchanged at 71 percent, according to a recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll conducted in late August and early September.” “In April, 75 percent of white evangelicals told PRRI they viewed his presidency favorably, an all-time high since the inauguration. Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election”.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/...idency-support