Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation hearings and beyond.

ElaineA · Sep 17, 2018

CWatts said:
We're not talking about putting him on trial for the attempted rape, or even firing him from his federal judgeship. We're talking about a *lifetime* appointment to the Supreme Court.

Just take a second and wrap the mind around this terrific point. Kavanaugh isn't going to be set back by this. He will still have his lifetime appointment on the federal Court of Appeals. He only won't get to be one of the nine most elite judges in the land. Boo-hoo. He *should* be prosecuted for theft of documents, and for lying to congress the first time. He *should* lose his law license for both of those things. Instead, he is so certain of his own magnificence, he will categorically deny the account of a woman he sexually assaulted, and brazen it out.

Alpha Echo said:
I believe her. I believe the attack has cost her a lot through the years. Whereas, Kavanaugh grew up to become a judge. Now, he's in line to become a Supreme Court Judge. He's supposed to go on to make heavy decisions in the highest US court, some of which will likely be centered around rape.

Yes, but it's also much more than that. It's any case regarding women's rights. This incident is just another piece in the puzzle showing exactly how this man thinks of women. We already know he doesn't believe we have the right to bodily autonomy when it comes to our health. This just ices the understanding that he doesn't believe women have bodily autonomy, period. We are objects for the at-will gratification of men. His buddy, Mark Judge, has also written extensively about his attitudes toward women, his drunken behavior (and Kavanaugh's, too, who Judge gives the pseudonym McKavanaugh in writing about his high-school self). They were, and are, close friends with closely aligned socio-political views.

Women are only to be believed when they support men, ally with men (like the handy 65 character-vouchers), never when they accuse.

As good ol' coach Dennis Green said, "They are who we thought they were!"

hester · Sep 17, 2018

I believe her. I also believe it won't impede Kavanaugh's appointment. The current state of Republicanism is that women are disposable and dispensable.

It's also worth noting that she was only fifteen when it happened (assuming the ages given are correct).

lizmonster · Sep 17, 2018

hester said:
I believe her. I also believe it won't impede Kavanaugh's appointment. The current state of Republicanism is that women are disposable and dispensable.

TBF, this has been true since at least 1980, possibly before. But now, as with racism, they're blunt, public, and proud of it.

AW Admin · Sep 17, 2018

lizmonster said:
But now, as with racism, they're blunt, public, and proud of it.

I wanted to emphasize this; the patterns of thought and behavior aren't new.

They're just more accepted now. Which is why it's important to be vocal about not accepting them.

Don't be silent. Call out the unacceptable behavior and language.

Roxxsmom · Sep 17, 2018

lizmonster said:
TBF, this has been true since at least 1980, possibly before. But now, as with racism, they're blunt, public, and proud of it.

I think it's more a matter than many people have always thought of women that way, and quite a lot of them still do, in spite of decades of feminism and greater female participation in all aspects of society (including government). For a brief time, people didn't want to admit how sexist they still were (this goes for many women as well), but now it's "cool" to be a bigot (dogwhistle is to rant about so-called political correctness) in oh so many ways and to more actively champion a return to the old status quo.

The idea that women are supposed to subvert their personhood for reproduction is still alive and well. Women who sacrifice their lives (by refusing medical treatment that would endanger their unborn child) to bring a baby into the world are seen as heroic and portrayed as role models. Is it any wonder that maternal mortality (especially among women of color, but for all women) is getting worse, even as infant mortality is declining in the US? Many people, even medical professionals and other women, can't bring themselves to focus on the issue of maternal well being as something that might sometimes be justifiably separate from that of her children.

MaeZe · Sep 17, 2018

Well, I said if there were information it was a pattern and not just a one-off drinking too much and indeed that is what more evidence shows. A lot of this was linked to from another story upthread.

Democracy Now covered the new evidence this morning.

As Blasey Ford Alleges Kavanaugh Assaulted Her, Will Senate Repeat Mistakes Made with Anita Hill?

Blasey Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University in California and says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. She at first expected her story to be kept confidential, but changed her mind after it leaked. She now says she is willing to testify about her experience. In an interview published Sunday by The Washington Post, Ford said that in the early 1980s Kavanaugh and a friend were “stumbling drunk” when they pushed her into a bedroom. The Post reports, “While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.”

She took and passed a lie detector test.

But most interesting is she named the other boy, that is in the next story.

Facebook Censors a ThinkProgress Story on Kavanaugh After a Conservative Site Calls It “Fake News” The FaceBook matter is a separate story in itself but this was included:

The third man in the room while she alleges Brett Kavanaugh held her down, groped her, tried to rip her clothes off and put his hand over her mouth and she was terrified she could die—the third man in the room was Mark Judge—

AMY GOODMAN: —Brett Kavanaugh’s friend from the elite prep school. Mark Judge is a filmmaker who writes for, among other publications, The Weekly Standard.

IAN MILLHISER: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things about Mr. Judge that I think are sketchy. He apparently wrote a memoir. It’s sort of thinly fictionalized. Instead of calling the school Georgetown Country Day, which is its actual name, he calls it Loyola Country Day. There’s even a character in that book who’s briefly mentioned named Bart O’Kavanaugh. And Bart O’Kavanaugh at one point gets drunk and pukes in a car. But Mr. Judge’s book is pretty tremendous. You know, he talks about a lot of drinking and mistreatment of women. His yearbook quote at Georgetown—at the prep school that he and Kavanaugh went to—is “Some women need to be beaten like a gong,” or something to that effect. Or I believe it’s “Some women need to be beaten regularly like a gong.” So, this is the character witness that Brett Kavanaugh is bringing in to say, “Yeah, I didn’t do it. You know, he saw what happened, and I wasn’t there.”

AMY GOODMAN: —Brett Kavanaugh’s friend from the elite prep school. Mark Judge is a filmmaker who writes for, among other publications, The Weekly Standard.

IAN MILLHISER: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things about Mr. Judge that I think are sketchy. He apparently wrote a memoir. It’s sort of thinly fictionalized. Instead of calling the school Georgetown Country Day, which is its actual name, he calls it Loyola Country Day. There’s even a character in that book who’s briefly mentioned named Bart O’Kavanaugh. And Bart O’Kavanaugh at one point gets drunk and pukes in a car. But Mr. Judge’s book is pretty tremendous. You know, he talks about a lot of drinking and mistreatment of women. His yearbook quote at Georgetown—at the prep school that he and Kavanaugh went to—is “Some women need to be beaten like a gong,” or something to that effect. Or I believe it’s “Some women need to be beaten regularly like a gong.” So, this is the character witness that Brett Kavanaugh is bringing in to say, “Yeah, I didn’t do it. You know, he saw what happened, and I wasn’t there.”

AMY GOODMAN: And the book Mark Judge wrote is called Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk—

AMY GOODMAN: —which describes his blackout drinking and a culture of partying at his elite high school.

IAN MILLHISER: Right. Yeah, no, I mean, it’s this extraordinary book that like, if you were to write something to destroy your credibility, and to destroy your credibility particularly in this instance, where the accusation is that you and a classmate got drunk and participated in the sexual abuse of a woman, this book would completely blow your credibility.

That makes a difference to me because it suggests a pattern of behavior which has particular relevance given Trump appointed him and women's rights are at stake. Anything Kavanaugh might rule on involving women's reproductive rights would be tainted by his biased attitude toward women's rights.

cbenoi1 · Sep 17, 2018

lizmonster said:
You guys are such optimists.

Ten years ago it would have been a he said / she said. No more. This is the #MeToo era.

-cb

lizmonster · Sep 17, 2018

cbenoi1 said:
Ten years ago it would have been a he said / she said. No more. This is the #MeToo era.

-cb

Which is different how?

MaeZe · Sep 17, 2018

lizmonster said:
Which is different how?

We're older, wiser and there are more women in Congress. And after Trump there will be even more women in Congress. All we need are a couple of Republican Senators to nix this nomination. The pressure is mounting to stand up for women.

Let's see what happens when these old white men try to treat this woman like they treated Anita Hill.

lizmonster · Sep 17, 2018

MaeZe said:
We're older, wiser and there are more women in Congress. And after stuff like this there will be more women in Congress. All we need are a couple of Republican Senators to nix this nomination. The pressure is mounting to stand up for women.

Let's see what happens when these old white men try to treat this woman like they treated Anita Hill.

Oh, how I hope you're right.

But I've seen this too many times to be optimistic.

ElaineA · Sep 17, 2018

Just sat through the Anita Hill hearing on Rachel and OMG what they did to her. I watched it at the time, but I was so naive then. Seeing it now, seeing those fucking white men with ALL the power question her about boobs and dicks. JFC, I HOPE Hatch and Grassley try that again. I double-dog dare them, in fact.

Side note, the info going around social media about the "lingo" in Kavanaugh wrote in his senior yearbook has my husband's jaw hanging on the carpet. Imagine being a man so secure in your superiority you would fight this allegation *knowing* what's out there for your wife and children to learn about, and doing it anyway. :e2smack:

Ketzel · Sep 18, 2018

Trump is claiming that the FBI is refusing to investigate the allegations against Kavanaugh because it "isn't really their thing."
From CNN:
"President Donald Trump said Tuesday he does not believe the FBI should delve any further into the decades-old sexual assault allegation leveled against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, claiming the FBI does not want to be involved.
"I don't think the FBI really should be involved because they don't want to be involved," Trump said, though he then held open the possibility of the FBI involving itself in the matter. "If they wanted to be, I would certainly do that. But as you know, they say this is not really their thing'."

I have no words for this level of idiocy and delusion.

Introversion · Sep 18, 2018

Ketzel said:
I have no words for this level of idiocy and delusion.

I do, but decorum and moderators prefer I not use them here.

BenPanced · Sep 18, 2018

Thursday's vote has been cancelled.

(The official calendar.)

A meeting for next Monday's been scheduled, however; there's still no confirmation if Christine Blasey Ford is attending.

ElaineA · Sep 18, 2018

Dr Blasey Ford's lawyers have sent a letter to Chuck Grassley that she will not attend until there is an FBI investigation (reopening of the background check, not a full criminal investigation). Dr Ford and her family have been driven from her home by doxxing and death threats, so she's not in much of a mood to let the GOP Old Man brigade have at her without a fair and impartial investigation. (Understandably.)

Even Anita Hill got that.

ETA: No link yet. I watched Rachel Maddow read it on air, but no one has posted an article yet.

Ketzel · Sep 18, 2018

CNN Link to the letter.

MaeZe · Sep 18, 2018

ElaineA said:
Dr Blasey Ford's lawyers have sent a letter to Chuck Grassley that she will not attend until there is an FBI investigation (reopening of the background check, not a full criminal investigation). Dr Ford and her family have been driven from her home by doxxing and death threats, so she's not in much of a mood to let the GOP Old Man brigade have at her without a fair and impartial investigation. (Understandably.)

Even Anita Hill got that.

ETA: No link yet. I watched Rachel Maddow read it on air, but no one has posted an article yet.

Not only that, she was supposed to sit right next to Kavanaugh. These fucking old white men, I can't wait until they die out and we can move on with a decent world replacement.

ElaineA · Sep 18, 2018

MaeZe said:
Not only that, she was supposed to sit right next to Kavanaugh. These fucking old white men, I can't wait until they die out and we can move on with a decent world replacement.

I would pay a lot of money to sit in a room and watch someone ask Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley if they know the meaning of the things "Mr. Upstanding Man" Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his annual. I want video of their faces when they say "no" and someone explains to them what the Devil's Triangle and FFFF mean. Assholes.

The fact that Senators Hatch and Graham have both referred to Dr Blasey Ford as "that woman" in the last 24 hours says everything I need to know.

cornflake · Sep 18, 2018

David Brock knew Kavanaugh -- and writes a terrifying explanation of why he shouldn't be on the court --

Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh...

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency

I wonder, given Conway's social media, if he'll respond to this.

DarienW · Sep 19, 2018

ElaineA said:
I would pay a lot of money to sit in a room and watch someone ask Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley if they know the meaning of the things "Mr. Upstanding Man" Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his annual. I want video of their faces when they say "no" and someone explains to them what the Devil's Triangle and FFFF mean. Assholes.

The fact that Senators Hatch and Graham have both referred to Dr Blasey Ford as "that woman" in the last 24 hours says everything I need to know.

I've never gotten over the travesty that was Anita Hill testifying to a room full of white assholes. I don't envy Dr. Blasey Ford. Death threats, oh yeah, us libs are the evil ones. This is screaming in my head full blast with so much frustration!!!! If Congress is going to be this bad, we the people need a new way to intervene--this has been going on too long!

That 4 yo Cheeto already said they wouldn't do an FBI investigation, coz yeah, they're close and they're listening to what he whats them to do . . . wanna bet they use that as the excuse to not follow up since she's asking for one, or hell, just take his testimony and vote without her.

I hate how cynical I've become . . .

A flashback moment--the p***y tape! How many, 12 women of the #metoo movement utterly ignored? Billy Bush got fired just for laughing. That piece of shit is in the White House--what's wrong with this picture, besides everything?

MaeZe · Sep 19, 2018

cornflake said:
David Brock knew Kavanaugh -- and writes a terrifying explanation of why he shouldn't be on the court --

I wonder, given Conway's social media, if he'll respond to this.

Note the difference with cherry picked leaks from the Ken Starr investigation and the tight lipped Mueller investigation.

In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Alessandra Kelley · Sep 19, 2018

I am so grateful for the #MeToo movement, that people are more aware and taking these things more seriously.

MaeZe · Sep 19, 2018

On the subject of corroboration:

https://mobile.twitter.com/jaybookmanajc/status/1042386834284789760

This is the letter, posted on Facebook, from a woman who knew Kavanaugh, Judge and Blasey Ford and claims that the attack did happen, that "many of us heard about it in school," and that it was talked about for days afterward.
The FBI should interview her and others.

The letter is posted in the Tweet.

Rumor has it: Vanity Fair: “CUT BAIT”: AS THE KAVANAUGH NIGHTMARE ESCALATES, TRUMP IS GRIPPED WITH UNCERTAINTY AS IVANKA SUGGESTS CUTTING THE JUDGE LOOSE

CWatts · Sep 19, 2018

MaeZe said:
On the subject of corroboration:

https://mobile.twitter.com/jaybookmanajc/status/1042386834284789760
The letter is posted in the Tweet.

Rumor has it: Vanity Fair: “CUT BAIT”: AS THE KAVANAUGH NIGHTMARE ESCALATES, TRUMP IS GRIPPED WITH UNCERTAINTY AS IVANKA SUGGESTS CUTTING THE JUDGE LOOSE

The sad thing is if the story was all over school, did teachers know and not do anything?

ElaineA · Sep 19, 2018

1982? Not likely, especially considering he didn't go to her school.

Awareness of these things back then was...nil. Not to be talked about, no casting aspersions at popular or promising kids OR teachers. Our business teacher was young and cute and partied with us DECA kids. When rumors reached the Vice Principal, he took a group of us aside and gave us detention for spreading malicious gossip. Turned out, after graduation, one girl moved in with him. So, yeah, not likely.

Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation hearings and beyond.

All about that action, boss.

New year, new avatar.

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

Beastly Fido

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

All about that action, boss.

Leaving on the 2:19

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

All about that action, boss.

Leaving on the 2:19

All about that action, boss.

practical experience, FTW

Sophipygian

down the rabbit hole of research...

All about that action, boss.