New SCOTUS Judge II: The Wrath of Kavanaugh

Hilarious detail from the police interview of the bar fight previously mentioned by a classmate.

For his part, speaking to the officers, Mr. Kavanaugh did not want “to say if he threw the ice or not,” the police report said.
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Linky.
 
MikeG said:
Professor Charles Ludington, a class-mate of Kavanaugh's, has said publicly that Kavanaugh lied under oath about his drinking, and described him as "belligerent and aggressive when drunk".
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After last Thursday, I would describe him as "belligerent and aggressive when sober".
 
MikeG said:
Professor Charles Ludington, a class-mate of Kavanaugh's, has said publicly that Kavanaugh lied under oath about his drinking, and described him as "belligerent and aggressive when drunk".

BBC

He expects to speak to the FBI about this matter.

No sane system would operate like this. Politically appointed judges: what sort of crazy idea is that?
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All of these witnesses are professors with PhDs.
 
Belz... said:
Sorry Joe. I really dislike hypocrisy is all.
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//slight hijack, if anyone asks for a spin-off into a new thread I won't be offended//

I get that I come across as something of a hypocrisy apologist at times, but the last thing I want to do is defend it as a concept.

I'm just tired of it being the only talking point in political discussions because all it does is score points for one of the sides, it doesn't address or fix any actual issues. We can scream hypocrisy at each other all day and when we're done the problems are still there and we haven't put any way of fixing them on the table.

Essentially I see the focus on hypocrisy as functionally having turned too many discussions into nothing but a light version of Bob's "Ideological Purity" fetish, where being untrue to some larger ideal is a greater sin than being wrong or bad or evil on any objective sense. It's essentially the same thing except in degree.

I don't like hypocrisy, I'm just tired of it being the only sin the internet recognizes.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Mitch McConnell says Senate will vote on Kavanaugh this week

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-n...ion-oct-18/h_e882161d1734bec58b7e04a996ce5dd5

Sad part is we could have voted last week, vote now, vote next week, next month, or next year and within a metaphysical certainty it will still be along party lines.

As angry as this whole thing as made me, I'm angrier about how little it matters.
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The longer it takes, the more calls and emails these guys are going to have pouring into their offices. And more incidents like this are going to occur:

Bob Corker told two sexual assault survivors who were questioning him about Kavanaugh, “I know this is fun for y’all.” It's at minute ~1:45 when Corker reaches his car.

First he panders then he can't help himself questioning their sincerity. Notice that was right when he was getting in his car so they couldn't respond.
 
JoeMorgue said:
//slight hijack, if anyone asks for a spin-off into a new thread I won't be offended//

I get that I come across as something of a hypocrisy apologist at times, but the last thing I want to do is defend it as a concept.

I'm just tired of it being the only talking point in political discussions because all it does is score points for one of the sides, it doesn't address or fix any actual issues. We can scream hypocrisy at each other all day and when we're done the problems are still there and we haven't put any way of fixing them on the table.

Essentially I see the focus on hypocrisy as functionally having turned too many discussions into nothing but a light version of Bob's "Ideological Purity" fetish, where being untrue to some larger ideal is a greater sin than being wrong or bad or evil on any objective sense. It's essentially the same thing except in degree.

I don't like hypocrisy, I'm just tired of it being the only sin the internet recognizes.
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I do believe you are in false equivalency territory here. Not that the Democrats are never hypocritical, obviously they are. But the GOP has taken hypocrisy to historically towering heights defending all things Trump.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I do believe you are in false equivalency territory here. Not that the Democrats are never hypocritical, obviously they are. But the GOP has taken hypocrisy to historically towering heights defending all things Trump.
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I never said anything about how much either "side" was hypocritical or which side was more hypocritical.

Not... everything... is... about... awarding... points... to... one... of... the... sides.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I never said anything about how much either "side" was hypocritical or which side was more hypocritical.

Not... everything... is... about... awarding... points... to... one... of... the... sides.
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And not everything is about "both sides are equally bad, always".

Some times one side is just worse than the other. And I think we're in the middle of one of those times right now.
 
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Belz... said:
"Honorable members of the committee, my name if Brett Kavanaugh. In recent days there have been allegations against myself that I sexually assaulted a number of women during my student days. I deny these allegations. I will be the first to admit that, during those years, I did drink heavily, to the point of making myself sick. It was a juvenile and irresponsible behaviour that I've thankfully grown out of. It is possible that, at some point, I blacked out, and that I did or said things that I today do not remember. I have never, to my knowledge, sexually assaulted anyone, but it is possible, if perhaps unlikely, that I have said or done reprehensible things while under the influence, and which I do not recall. If that is the case, then I would be horrified at the revelation, and would offer my sincere apologies to anyone that I would have hurt. In any event, I hope that turning my life around since those days shows that I am sincere in my dedication to acting responsibly in a civil, adult world, and that I am still worthy of your consideration. I leave my fate in your hands."

I just wrote that off the top of my head. Saying that wouldn't have taken 45 minutes, and would sound a lot more responsible and respectable.
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Actually, I don't think that Kavanaugh could have "got away" with a statement to that effect. Why not? Because to have admitted to drinking to a blackout/non-remembering state when at high school would effectively mean that it would be impossible for him to refute Dr Ford's claim (and would additionally lend further credence to her claim).

I very strongly suspect that Kavanaugh and his (no doubt numerous and highly-paid) legal and PR advisers would have considered every possible way to proceed, including taking this sort of line. But in the end, if his overriding concern was to save his own skin and get onto the SC with his reputation relatively intact, then there was no way in practice in which he could admit to drinking to such excess at that point in his life.

I suspect that he and his team realised that the only possible way to try to spin things before the Senate Committee was to outright deny that he'd ever drunk to a blackout/non-recall state, and hope that any contradictory testimonies or accounts could be batted off in some way or other. I suspect that a deliberate decision was taken to "grey-area" this issue ("sure, I drank beer - sometimes a few too many beers"): this - for Kavanaugh - would have the proposed dual effect of blurring the line (no pun intended....) on just how drunk he actually was in the habit of becoming, plus appealing to the committee and the wider watching public along the lines of "oh well that sounds like I drank when I was that age, and I never sexually assaulted anyone in the way described by Dr Ford, so.....".

I'd reiterate that (in my opinion) nothing Kavanaugh said in front of the committee last week was in any way unrehearsed or un-strategised. I would find it improbable to the point of inconceivable that he wouldn't have spent many, many hours with legal and PR advisers, working out his optimum strategy. When he stated (pompously and, again, self-righteously) that he'd written his statement all by himself the previous evening and hadn't shown it to anyone else, well that might well be totally accurate. But that doesn't preclude him from (for example) having had detailed notes from numerous consultations and strategy meetings in front of him, and having written the speech as nothing more (or less) than an articulation of the conclusions they'd all previously reached.......
 
LondonJohn said:
Actually, I don't think that Kavanaugh could have "got away" with a statement to that effect. Why not? Because to have admitted to drinking to a blackout/non-remembering state when at high school would effectively mean that it would be impossible for him to refute Dr Ford's claim (and would additionally lend further credence to her claim).

I very strongly suspect that Kavanaugh and his (no doubt numerous and highly-paid) legal and PR advisers would have considered every possible way to proceed, including taking this sort of line. But in the end, if his overriding concern was to save his own skin and get onto the SC with his reputation relatively intact, then there was no way in practice in which he could admit to drinking to such excess at that point in his life.

I suspect that he and his team realised that the only possible way to try to spin things before the Senate Committee was to outright deny that he'd ever drunk to a blackout/non-recall state, and hope that any contradictory testimonies or accounts could be batted off in some way or other. I suspect that a deliberate decision was taken to "grey-area" this issue ("sure, I drank beer - sometimes a few too many beers"): this - for Kavanaugh - would have the proposed dual effect of blurring the line (no pun intended....) on just how drunk he actually was in the habit of becoming, plus appealing to the committee and the wider watching public along the lines of "oh well that sounds like I drank when I was that age, and I never sexually assaulted anyone in the way described by Dr Ford, so.....".

I'd reiterate that (in my opinion) nothing Kavanaugh said in front of the committee last week was in any way unrehearsed or un-strategised. I would find it improbable to the point of inconceivable that he wouldn't have spent many, many hours with legal and PR advisers, working out his optimum strategy. When he stated (pompously and, again, self-righteously) that he'd written his statement all by himself the previous evening and hadn't shown it to anyone else, well that might well be totally accurate. But that doesn't preclude him from (for example) having had detailed notes from numerous consultations and strategy meetings in front of him, and having written the speech as nothing more (or less) than an articulation of the conclusions they'd all previously reached.......
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And here Mitchell complained that Ford was prepped by the Democrats.
 
LondonJohn said:
<snip>

I'd reiterate that (in my opinion) nothing Kavanaugh said in front of the committee last week was in any way unrehearsed or un-strategised. I would find it improbable to the point of inconceivable that he wouldn't have spent many, many hours with legal and PR advisers, working out his optimum strategy.

<snip>
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I suspect that's one reason they decided to stifle Rachel Mitchell. Her questions were not scripted, and they were requiring Kavanaugh to extemporize, which obviously wasn't going very well.
 
Venom said:
Televangelist Bryan Fischer saying the "demons of hell" are out to get Kavanaugh.

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I dunno bout you, but I could see the hellfire in Ford's eyes! They was blazin' hot like you see in them scary horror movies like Freddy Kruger! And that lady senater, Rosbu..Robuh...Rashashanah...whatever...why dinnit she never anser Brett's qeusttion bout her blackin out frum drinkin? Cuz she's EVE! Like all them there wimmen who got poor Adam throwed outta Paradise! Theres a reason EVEL is spelled with the name EVE in it!!!
 
LondonJohn said:
I'd reiterate that (in my opinion) nothing Kavanaugh said in front of the committee last week was in any way unrehearsed or un-strategised. I would find it improbable to the point of inconceivable that he wouldn't have spent many, many hours with legal and PR advisers, working out his optimum strategy. .......
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I think when he asked Sheldon Whitehouse what HE drank, and then pressed Amy Klobuchar on whether SHE had ever blacked out from drinking that those couldn't have been part of a thought-out strategy. They were jaw-droppingly inappropriate and hopefully not something he would have ever allowed in his own courtroom. Imagine a defendant on the stand suddenly asking the prosecutor "have YOU ever had too much to drink?" It would be irrelevant and inappropriate, someone would object, and the judge would sustain it.
 
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