New SCOTUS Judge II: The Wrath of Kavanaugh

Samson said:
ex drunk is the point, but Trump doesn't drink is also the point.
I think he is shaping to calculate he can dump Kavanaugh to political advantage, and I think he should. There are a few women who vote in the country.
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"Ex drunk"?

Usually, that would suggest someone who had a problem with alcoholism, not just a hearty partier. Colleges, and high schools, of the time were filled with binge drinkers. Most of us did not go on to become alcoholics. I certainly don't think of myself as an "ex drunk", even though my alcohol consumption patters seem very similar to Kavanaugh's.
 
acbytesla said:
What the hell? I'm with Big Dog on this and I'm almost never on the Big Dog's side. I HAVE NEVER seen anyone use asterisks for emphasis.
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I do it often.

for me it goes back to the days of old word processors (Wordstar?) where it would put whatever you put between the asterisks in bold type.

One of the things I found amusing about WhatsApp is that it also turns text between asterisks into bold type.

/derail
 
Samson said:
Same in New Zealand, I have never seen a word in media concerning any judicial appointment.
In the Supreme court 3 of 7 are women, including chief justice Sian Elias.
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[off topic]

The leader of our country, the Prime Minister, has absolutely nothing to do with judicial appointments. He/she doesn't even get to find out who they are until after they are appointed. Judicial appointments are solely in the purview of the Governor-General upon recommendation of the AG.

In the case of Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court justices, the nominations come from the Chief Justice and the Solicitor-General by way of recommendation to the AG. Once the appointment is approved, the AG informs the Cabinet. The appointments are not discussed or approved by Cabinet.
 
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Meadmaker said:
"Ex drunk"?

Usually, that would suggest someone who had a problem with alcoholism, not just a hearty partier. Colleges, and high schools, of the time were filled with binge drinkers. Most of us did not go on to become alcoholics. I certainly don't think of myself as an "ex drunk", even though my alcohol consumption patters seem very similar to Kavanaugh's.
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Writing judgements is a serious endeavour.
Not compatible with being a current drunk.

I suspect incidentally most contributors to message boards are current drinkers.
 
Samson said:
Writing judgements is a serious endeavour.
Not compatible with being a current drunk.

I suspect incidentally most contributors to message boards are current drinkers.
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You are lacking data on functional alcoholics: drug and alcohol abuse is unusually common in top professionals.
Kavanaugh might still be a heavy drinker as long as he knows when to be sober.
 
MikeG said:
But criminality may well be uncovered in the course of this background check. What then?
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Verifiable criminality? I doubt that. I don't know what to make of Julie Swetnick's story, but from what I read about her MSNBC appearance it sounds like some of her memories have shifted. He was sloppy, handsy and she saw him loitering by the punch bowl. The wiener-waving is cringeworthy if true.

One detail I've heard somewhere does have a ring of truth, and that was the date rape drug of choice was Quaaludes. It was so incapacitating that the U.S. banned it in 1985. I consider alcohol a date-rape drug in and of itself, but Quaaludes were probably popular for that purpose. But it really doen't tell me anything about Kavanaugh in and of itself.

I hope there are some teachable moments for teenagers and parents over this whole deal.
 
MikeG said:
Who are the FBI reporting to? Surely not to the president? Is it to Congress? Why wouldn't they just publish their conclusions?

Again, what sort of system is it that means the president, and the president alone, gets to ask the FBI to do this work?
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The FBI is part of the executive branch of government. Ultimately, all members of the executive branch report to the president.

Congress may launch investigations of their own, but they wouldn't have the same authority.

As far as making the FBI report public, there are privacy concerns. They will be interviewing ordinary citizens whose only concern in this matter is that they knew Brett Kavanaugh in college. Not everything that went on in Yale dormitories ought to be a matter for public discussion.


I have wondered exactly what they will release, and how, and I really have no idea. They do not ordinarily reach conclusions as such. They usually gather data and present it to the decision making body, prosecutors or in this case the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.


My hunch is that they will make their interviews, summarize it in a report, and present both the report and the contents of the interviews in a confidential document provided to the committee. The committee will review the material and leak the juicy parts.




Here, anyone...literally anyone......can ask the police to investigate something, and it is then up to the police as to whether they do or don't.
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It's pretty much the same here, but if the President says investigate something, they definitely will, and they can't just go around investigating people because they feel like it. Therefore, a presidential directive becomes both necessary and sufficient to launch an investigation of this sort.

And for all the sanctimonious blather going around about perjury, just as it was 20 years ago with Mr. Clinton, not every lie told under oath is perjury, and not every instance of perjury would be prosecuted. There are plenty of cases where acts that are, technically, crimes, but in reality no one is ever prosecuted for. (This is similar to mishandling classified documents. If everyone who mishandled classified matter were prosecuted, the jails would be overflowing with aerospace engineers, but in reality, most cases are not treated as crimes, despite what you might have heard in the last few years.)

If evidence were uncovered that showed Brett Kavanaugh lied about sexually assaulting women, I would not be surprised if he were impeached, and possibly even prosecuted after being removed from the bench. If Brett Kavanaugh lied about drinking, there is no way he would be convicted in the Senate, and if somehow the case ended up as a criminal prosecution, any conviction would be thrown out as an unconstitutional instance of politically motivated selective prosecution.

The sanctimony is strong in this case, but in reality no one would ever under any circumstances be prosecuted for lying about the meaning of "boof" in their high school yearbook.
 
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Stacyhs said:
That's not fair. While Kav demonstrated during the hearing that he is arrogant, we do not know if he is a drunk. No evidence has been presented that he drinks more than what is considered socially acceptable now.
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It's really not evidence of anything, but when you ask an alcoholic about their drinking, hearing the "I like beer, okay?" response in an offended or defensive tone will not surprise you. I've heard it before and that was definitely what I was reminded of when he said it.

Once again... this is not evidence that Kavanaugh is or ever was an alky, nor that he drinks too much now.
 
Minoosh said:
I don't know what to make of Julie Swetnick's story, but from what I read about her MSNBC appearance it sounds like some of her memories have shifted. He was sloppy, handsy and she saw him loitering by the punch bowl. The wiener-waving is cringeworthy if true.
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That's what she said in her statement, so if that's what she also said on TV then it doesn't appear to be the case that her story has changed.
 
Meadmaker said:
And for all the sanctimonious blather going around about perjury, just as it was 20 years ago with Mr. Clinton, not every lie told under oath is perjury, and not every instance of perjury would be prosecuted.
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"Perjury is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding. In some jurisdictions, contrary to popular misconception, no crime has occurred when a false statement is (intentionally or unintentionally) made while under oath or subject to penalty. Instead, criminal culpability attaches only at the instant the declarant falsely asserts the truth of statements (made or to be made) that are material to the outcome of the proceeding. For example, it is not perjury to lie about one's age except if age is a fact material to influencing the legal result, such as eligibility for old age retirement benefits or whether a person was of an age to have legal capacity."

Take special note of that last part.

In a hearing to determine your suitability for a job or appointment, anything you say under oath that might influence the outcome of the hearing is material.

If being truthful and honest is a requirement of the job or appointment (which is surely must be for any appointment as a legal Justice) and you dishonestly minimise your wrong doing, and paint yourself as someone you are not (e.g., claim choirboy status when you were in fact a drunken ratbag) then you are in fact trying to subvert the process in order to get the job or appointment.
 
smartcooky said:
"Perjury is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding. In some jurisdictions, contrary to popular misconception, no crime has occurred when a false statement is (intentionally or unintentionally) made while under oath or subject to penalty. Instead, criminal culpability attaches only at the instant the declarant falsely asserts the truth of statements (made or to be made) that are material to the outcome of the proceeding. For example, it is not perjury to lie about one's age except if age is a fact material to influencing the legal result, such as eligibility for old age retirement benefits or whether a person was of an age to have legal capacity."

Take special note of that last part.

In a hearing to determine your suitability for a job or appointment, anything you say under oath that might influence the outcome of the hearing is material.

If being truthful and honest is a requirement of the job or appointment (which is surely must be for any appointment as a legal Justice) and you dishonestly minimise your wrong doing, and paint yourself as someone you are not (e.g., claim choirboy status when you were in fact a drunken ratbag) then you are in fact trying to subvert the process in order to get the job or appointment.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you tried to secure a conviction in a non-political situation (i.e. an actual criminal trial, as opposed to an impeachment proceeding) it would be thrown out as a politically motivated selective prosecution.


The sexual assault allegations are different, but the drinking statements could never be prosecuted as perjury.
 
acbytesla said:
I don't do Twitter, so maybe that's why I have never seen it. We have a bold, italics and highlight buttons as do pretty much every forum I frequent.

That said, I can easily see how i or others might have missed that usage.
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It might also be because you are not an old fart.

Prior to displays which were even capable at all of displaying text in bold, italics, underlined, etc., it was quite common to see asterisks and underscores placed on either side of a word to indicate emphasis.

Even as more people had access to such technology there were many environments (such as Usenet) where people were encouraged not to use anything but plain text because many of the users still accessed such platforms using terminals that could not process the augmented text formats.

This practice became embedded into early word processing software, and even was adopted in John Gruber's "Markdown" text markup language (developed in 2004) because of its earlier ubiquity.

It's been around for a long time, and was *widely used* ( :)) in the not so distant days of early message boards and email.

Like many things, improvements in technology have made it somewhat redundant, but there are still plenty of us doddering oldsters who see it and process it without a second thought. Anyone who spent much time in the Usenet, BBS, or message board communities even as recently as the early 2000s would be familiar with the conventions. Anyone who was around in those environs in the 80s and 90s will likely have used them themselves.
 
Meadmaker said:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you tried to secure a conviction in a non-political situation (i.e. an actual criminal trial, as opposed to an impeachment proceeding) it would be thrown out as a politically motivated selective prosecution.
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This isn't a trial, criminal or otherwise.

It's a job application.

The sexual assault allegations are different, but the drinking statements could never be prosecuted as perjury.
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His falsehoods about his drinking are directly related to his claims about his ability to recall his actions, and to his forthrightness in the application for this job.

He isn't being tried for being a blackout drunk, but he is being interviewed for one of the most important and enduring jobs it is possible to hold in this country.

Honesty during such an interview would seem to be a rather important character quality under such circumstances.

When someone is being interviewed for high security positions (Federal LEO, etc,) they won't necessarily fault you for admitting to having smoked pot, but they will dump you for lying about it.
 
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