New SCOTUS Judge

[Bob001]

No, she is not, they offered to do it in public, in private, to send staff there. they are going to treat her with kid's gloves.
BK is going to get excoriated by Shut Up Men Hirono, Spartacus and Kamala and the rest of the "idiots" as our friend referred to them.

Several Repubs -- Hatch and Grassley among them -- have already said they don't believe her. At present the matter is "he said/she said." That won't change if they alone testify. An independent FBI investigation would obtain evidence that neither party can obtain for her/himself. That would support whoever is telling the truth, no matter what the leanings of the senators on the committee.

And it's "kid gloves," soft leather from baby goats, not "kid's," like children's mittens.

 

[sylvan8798]

^Maybe he means they will spank her with children's mittens? Which would certainly be preferable to spanking her with a Forbes magazine with Trump on the cover.

One has to wonder about this apparent Religious Right penchant for pinning their hopes on such questionable people. Kavanaugh is their Great White Hope, and now they have to defend him just as they have been defending Trump, and defended Roy Moore, et al.

 

[Minoosh]

Dianne Feinstein, California, Ranking Member
Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Dick Durbin, Illinois
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
Chris Coons, Delaware
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
Mazie "Shut Up men" Hirono, Hawaii
Spartacus Booker, New Jersey
Kamala Harris, California

Not that I agree that it's a stalling tactic, but if it were, that would be a GOP innovation.

Anyway, what's the rush?

 

[Bob001]

^Maybe he means they will spank her with children's mittens? Which would certainly be preferable to spanking her with a Forbes magazine with Trump on the cover.

One has to wonder about this apparent Religious Right penchant for pinning their hopes on such questionable people. Kavanaugh is their Great White Hope, and now they have to defend him just as they have been defending Trump, and defended Roy Moore, et al.

Kavanaugh's past decisions and statements pretty much assure that he will decide any issue that comes to him in favor of Trump: subpoenas, indictments, firings etc. That's why they want him so eagerly.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

TBD: post #850, please?

 

[Minoosh]

A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-yale-amy-chua

She and another purported witness are both unavailabe for clarification. From The Guardian,

Chua has cancelled her classes at Yale this semester and, according to her office, has been hospitalised and is not taking calls. Rubenfeld sent an email to the Yale Law School community that said his wife had been ill and in hospital and had a long period of recuperation ahead of her.

 

[crescent]

Drinking does not equal admitting that he was a massive drunk, although if we are going by the yearbook?

Would explain why Ford's recollection of the alleged party is so flawed.

Brett Kavanaugh's drinking impaired Christine Blasey Ford's memory?

Fabulous logic.

There are, of course, articles suggesting that Ford was also a heavy drinker. With no evidence - none at all. She went to a school where heavy drinking occurred, but none of the yearbook or other references mention Blasey Ford as a heavy drinker - none. Nobody has come forward to talk about all the times that Blasey Ford got drunk, or vomited in a car, or passed out, or anything remotely similar.

Compared to Kavanaugh, who was documented in the yearbook as a drinker. Whose drinking was mentioned in books by others. Who wrote about it and mentioned it in speeches. Kavanaugh's youthful drinking binges were very well documented by his friends and by Kavanaugh himself.

 

[Cain]

A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-yale-amy-chua

From the article:

A Yale Law School official said in an emailed statement: “This is the first we have heard claims that Professor Chua coached students to look ‘like models’. We will look into these claims promptly, taking into account the fact that Professor Chua is currently unreachable due to serious illness. If true, this advice is clearly unacceptable.”

Why is the advice unacceptable? If you want a job with this mutherfucker, your chances will improve if you look the part. Her own daughter apparently secured a clerkship with Kavanaugh.

These elite prep schools and the Ivy league only confirms how incestuous and elite Washington is. I wonder if the connections made at Harvard are as valuable as connections made at Phillips Exeter.

 

[Bob001]

Jennifer Rubin assesses Kavanaugh's current situation. He's not out of the woods yet.

Trump, whom a flock of women has accused of harassment and assault, and the all-male Republican contingent on the Senate Judiciary Committee might think they have Ford cornered. The reality is that she has many options, some of which are far more dangerous to Republicans than what she has demanded, namely an FBI investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...kavanaughs-accuser-has-options/?noredirect=on

 

[xjx388]

Here's a genuine question: How is the FBI going to investigate something that happened 35 years ago and has never been investigated before. There is no possibility of gathering physical evidence and no contemporary documentation of the event. All they have are people's memories and their word based on those memories?

It still comes down to he said/she said. And if that's all we have, then the accusations hit a fundamental wall -the presumption of innocence.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Well, by that reckoning she is a massive drunk too, right? And when did BK "admit" to being a massive drunk again?

I quoted two of his girlfriends disputing that.

Looking forward to the evidence for this "Two out of three have admitted to being massive drunks" claim as respects BK.

Tick tock

Are you quibbling over the fact that they admitted to frequent binge drinking as being different from being a drunk? "Binge drinking enthusiast" is fine if that is the euphemism you would like to use rather than drunk. Feel free to proceed accordingly.

 

[crescent]

Here's a genuine question: How is the FBI going to investigate something that happened 35 years ago and has never been investigated before. There is no possibility of gathering physical evidence and no contemporary documentation of the event. All they have are people's memories and their word based on those memories.

It still comes down to he said/she said. And if that's all we have, then the accusations hit a fundamental wall -the presumption of innocence.

They would not be investigating it for potential criminal charges. They would instead be investigating it as part of the background check for Kavanaugh - a much lower standard of evidence (ETA - no standard, really. Just gathering information, with no conclusions drawn).

It could be as little as interviewing witnesses. See if anyone remembers the party, remembers who else was there. See if there is anything to contradict Kavanaugh's or Ford's versions of events.

Rather than a full report, they might just produce something that says "K makes five claims, two of which were corroborated by witnesses, one which was disputed by witnesses, two or which neither be verified nor disproven".

This would not be in depth. The FBI investigated Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas and it only took three days.



ETA: The presumption of innocence is a thing in legal proceedings. This is not a legal proceeding, although parts of this do take place under oath. This is just a job interview for Kavanaugh. If the charges against him have some evidence, then maybe it is time to find another candidate. That does not mean Kavanaugh is guilty, it just means that the charges are plausible enough to warrant looking for a better candidate.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Here's a genuine question: How is the FBI going to investigate something that happened 35 years ago and has never been investigated before. There is no possibility of gathering physical evidence and no contemporary documentation of the event. All they have are people's memories and their word based on those memories?

It still comes down to he said/she said. And if that's all we have, then the accusations hit a fundamental wall -the presumption of innocence.

This is an interview for a promotion from one lifetime appointment to a more powerful lifetime appointment. This is not a criminal court. There is no presumption of innocence. There are no rules of evidence. There are no rules of procedure. There is only the vote.

Additional interviews would help those who have to vote feel more informed about their vote and the person they are voting onto the court.

 

[Minoosh]

From the article:

Why is the advice unacceptable? If you want a job with this mutherfucker, your chances will improve if you look the part. Her own daughter apparently secured a clerkship with Kavanaugh.

Well if she looks like Mom, yowza! She is definitely qualified.

And the highlighted? Really?

It's not the advice that's unacceptable; it's the standards of a judge that make the advice ... advisable.

 

[Bob001]

They would not be investigating it for potential criminal charges. They would instead be investigating it as part of the background check for Kavanaugh - a much lower standard of evidence (ETA - no standard, really. Just gathering information, with no conclusions drawn).

It could be as little as interviewing witnesses. See if anyone remembers the party, remembers who else was there. See if there is anything to contradict Kavanaugh's or Ford's versions of events.
...

That's exactly what they do in a background investigation: Talk to the principals, talk to people who knew them as kids, talk to their parents and teachers, talk to people whose house might have been the site of the party, talk to people who have dealt with them subsequently about their customary behavior and veracity, etc. The purpose is to accumulate information, not prepare a prosecution, and the FBI does it numerous times every day.

And there is no "presumption of innocence" outside a courtroom. He's a job applicant. It's up to him to prove he deserves the job.

 

[sylvan8798]

And that is why there should be a proper investigation. All that needs to happen for that to happen is for the White House to ask the FBI to do it. Trump claims that he won't do that because the FBI doesn't want to be involved. FBI spokespeople say that they're happy to be involved. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to which one is telling the truth.

I don't even get this, can the FBI just arbitrarily decide which cases they want to be involved in? Don't they have to do what their bosses say? If Trump asks them to investigate they just say "No Sir, we really don't want to do that."?

 

[Bob001]

I don't even get this, can the FBI just arbitrarily decide which cases they want to be involved in? Don't they have to do what their bosses say? If Trump asks them to investigate they just say "No Sir, we really don't want to do that."?

In this case, Trump can authorize them to conduct a background investigation. But he can't order them to investigate whatever or whoever he wants. He can't order the FBI to, say, subpoena Elizabeth Warren's banking records. The FBI and the Justice Dept. are supposed to be independent law enforcement institutions, with the emphasis on law. They can say, and ideally would say, "We have no basis to conduct such an investigation." And in this particular case, the FBI is willing to re-open Kavanaugh's background investigation. It's Trump who is saying no.

 

[The Big Dog]

That's exactly what they do in a background investigation: Talk to the principals, talk to people who knew them as kids, talk to their parents and teachers, talk to people whose house might have been the site of the party, talk to people who have dealt with them subsequently about their customary behavior and veracity, etc. The purpose is to accumulate information, not prepare a prosecution, and the FBI does it numerous times every day.

And there is no "presumption of innocence" outside a courtroom. He's a job applicant. It's up to him to prove he deserves the job.

You know that he has already been at least two background investigations of BK, including this year, right?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-yale-amy-chua

Today I learned:

<off-topic>
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
by Amy Chua

Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do:

- have a playdate
- be in a school play
- complain about not being in a school play
- not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano or violin

</off-topic>

 

[Bob001]

You know that he has already been at least two background investigations of BK, including this year, right?

Sure. And when new information/allegations that they didn't have previously come up -- as now -- they can investigate again -- unless the Repubs don't want them to. They didn't know anything about Ford or her claims during the last go-round.