New SCOTUS Judge

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Meadmaker said:
No.

I'm saying it's plausible.

For what it's worth, I'm also a victim of sexual assault, and I don't mean some sort of technical "she groped me without permission" sort of sexual assault. I mean one that did not include penetration, but which was more violent and more invasive that what Ms. Ford alleges happened to her. My attacker succeeded in getting my clothes off, and his.


Forget the stereotypes here. Just look at the evidence, in this specific case, not in a bunch of cases you might find to be similar.
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I am looking at the evidence in this specific case and I find it compelling. If she had not told her therapist about this, including details that fit Kavanaugh and Judge, and her husband (including their names) 6 years ago, I would call it a simple she said/he said. But she did. And I find it implausible that those details were due to coincidence and/or a conspiracy.
 
Fudbucker said:
And... that means she's probably not lying, unless you subscribe to Meadmaker's sorry argument that she's one of these rare people who deviously plots for years to take down a guy and waits for just the right time.

So if she's not lying, she's either very mistaken or Kavanaugh tried to rape her. I don't think she's any more mistaken about this than an altar boy is about the priest that molests him.

If this were Chris Ford accusing Father Kavanaugh of molestation after 30 years, and Chris had confided in a therapist years ago before going public, you would not be questioning his story.
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I don't support meadmaker's reasoning, because it is all Holmsian sleuthing with no real facts to back it up, plus seems to be driving toward only two possible outcomes: one or the other main party is lying. The actual occurrence may not match either of their stories, in matching who was present, when the incident occurred, and what happened. My point is we may never know the real truth.

I agree that we would not want a liar as supreme court justice, or a sexual predator. I do not agree that prevention of Kavanaugh's nomination would screw the process going forward, we don't have a crystal ball. I do know that there are other incidents with Kavanaugh indicating perjury, and that in itself is a worrisome factor, including shading how truthful he may be in the Ford matter.

Other than that, I think the prudent thing is to wait for the testimony this week and see if anything else comes forward. I disagree with. Ot using the FBI to o train more detailed information. Right now this is a trial by media and soundbites, more definitive fact finding by FBI professionals would help.

I don't see why we should out of hand dismiss the incident as all fabrication, and it seems like there is a rush to do. That is despite the probability, based on statistics cited earlier in the thread regarding similar victim's stories, that it is probably not a fabrication.
 
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Meadmaker said:
No.

I'm saying it's plausible.

For what it's worth, I'm also a victim of sexual assault, and I don't mean some sort of technical "she groped me without permission" sort of sexual assault. I mean one that did not include penetration, but which was more violent and more invasive that what Ms. Ford alleges happened to her. My attacker succeeded in getting my clothes off, and his.


Forget the stereotypes here. Just look at the evidence, in this specific case, not in a bunch of cases you might find to be similar.
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So now it wasn't bad enough because a worse thing happened to you? :boggled:
 
Stacyhs said:
I am looking at the evidence in this specific case and I find it compelling. If she had not told her therapist about this, including details that fit Kavanaugh and Judge, and her husband (including their names) 6 years ago, I would call it a simple she said/he said. But she did. And I find it implausible that those details were due to coincidence and/or a conspiracy.
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The fact that she told the names to her husband does indeed boost the credibility.


Thursday, she'll be answering questions live. If her case is as flimsy as I think it is, it will unravel under questioning. We're trying to make judgements based on very, very, incomplete evidence. Any number of things could happen which would turn this case completely around. I guess we'll stay tuned.
 
Stacyhs said:
I am looking at the evidence in this specific case and I find it compelling. If she had not told her therapist about this, including details that fit Kavanaugh and Judge, and her husband (including their names) 6 years ago, I would call it a simple she said/he said. But she did. And I find it implausible that those details were due to coincidence and/or a conspiracy.
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She did not tell the therapist any names.

She said there were 4 boys. False.

4 of 4 she has identified, including her female friend, denied it.

Plus it was 30 years later while in marriage counseling.
 
Meadmaker said:
The fact that she told the names to her husband does indeed boost the credibility.


Thursday, she'll be answering questions live. If her case is as flimsy as I think it is, it will unravel under questioning. We're trying to make judgements based on very, very, incomplete evidence. Any number of things could happen which would turn this case completely around. I guess we'll stay tuned.
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I agree that any number of things could happen during the questioning on Thursday. I just hope there is no repeat of the Anita Hill fiasco.
 
Meadmaker said:
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Wouldn't that be nice. Souter, Kennedy, and O'Connor were all Republican appointees, but they ended up being despised by the right wing because they didn't follow the party line. We can hope.
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Not going to happen. Kavanaugh record says, no, he's a Thomas/Scalia extremist.
 
And, after my last visit, I went and visited the Drudge Report. I consider the Drudge Report an unreliable source, but they are willing to print rumors where other places demand confirmation.


Well, there are plenty of rumors. Pending allegations of a new accusation. We'll see what turns up. Go there at your own risk.
 
There have been rumors of further allegations:

The Drudge Report prominently teased Sunday an upcoming report featuring a new twist in the controversy surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The top of the prominent right-leaning news aggregator asked in capital, red letters: "Another Woman?"

...

Farrow, writing for the New Yorker, has been at the forefront of bombshell reporting in recent months, exposing sexual misconduct allegations against media giants such as Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves.

...

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal battle with President Trump, declared on Twitter that he represents a woman with "credible information" regarding Kavanaugh and his high school friend Mark Judge, who Ford says was in the room during the alleged incident. "We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify. The nomination must be withdrawn," Avenatti added.

Reacting to the Drudge Report's tease Sunday evening, HuffPost reporter Yashar Ali said "several rumors" have been going around all day and that two White House sources confirmed to him they were aware of a potential story.
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Linky.

I think this is the story. Avenatti's not in it, so that might be a separate one.

As Senate Republicans press for a swift vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University. The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices reviewing the allegations believe that they merit further investigation. “This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said. An aide in one of the other Senate offices added, “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying.”

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

In a statement, Kavanaugh wrote, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name--and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building--against these last-minute allegations.”

...

Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)

A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that's not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.

And yet, after several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”

By his freshman year, Kavanaugh was eighteen, and legally an adult. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh swore under oath that as a legal adult he had never “committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature.”

...

The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party. The magazine contacted several dozen classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh regarding the incident. Many did not respond to interview requests; others declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party. A classmate of Ramirez’s, who declined to be identified because of the partisan battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, said that another student told him about the incident either on the night of the party or in the next day or two. The classmate said that he is “one hundred per cent sure” that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He independently recalled many of the same details offered by Ramirez, including that a male student had encouraged Kavanaugh as he exposed himself. The classmate, like Ramirez, recalled that the party took place in a common room on the first floor in Entryway B of Lawrance Hall, during their freshman year. “I’ve known this all along,” he said. “It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.” The story stayed with him, he said, because it was disturbing and seemed outside the bounds of typically acceptable behavior, even during heavy drinking at parties on campus. The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”

Another classmate, Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself. Oh is not certain of the identity of the female student. Ramirez told her mother and sister about an upsetting incident at the time, but did not describe the details to either due to her embarrassment.
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Linky.

It's a very long article.
 
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This appears to be the original letter that was sent to Feinstein. It appears she sent it as requested to Grassley. The cover letter reads:

As you know, the letter was given to me in confidence and I am giving it to you with the expectation that you will maintain its confidentiality and that it will not be released publicly or disseminated further, as requested by Dr. Blasey Ford's counsel Debra Katz.
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Hm.
 
Stacyhs said:
Thanks for posting this. It's the first I've heard of it. So another woman has come forward and says B. Kavanaugh behaved in an unacceptable sexual manner while drunk. And named witnesses to it.
Looks like Ford's story has suddenly become more plausible, doesn't it?
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No, and she was the drunk one.
 
Oh my.

Ummmm…...this one's going to be difficult for the judge to explain away. Plenty of specific names, dates, and places. Not looking good for Kavanaugh.


Of course, the story is young, so we can withhold judgement for a bit. If it's true, there's so much there that it will be confirmed, but it seems like his past may be catching up to him.
 
That makes three accusations against K then. It's going to be much harder for the GOP to cram this through now. Karma can be a real bitch, heh Brett?
 
He's toast. There was a chance he could have skated by but this is looking like Roy Moore all over again.
 
Fudbucker said:
If this were Chris Ford accusing Father Kavanaugh of molestation after 30 years, and Chris had confided in a therapist years ago before going public, you would not be questioning his story.
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Father Kavanaugh might be a kid-toucher, but if he has a vote on the Supreme Court that could stop baby-killin', we've got stand with him against this hi-tech lynching.
 
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