Lessons to be learned from the Kavanaugh Hearing

[Mumbles]

I've heard that argument and it has some merit. But I wonder if it is overrated particularly in this case. There is a real problem of lack of transparency in our government. Where alternate facts are presented and actual facts are obfuscated and or ignored. Where the majority totally controls the information. Where the White House can bury the Senate in worthless information while concealing 90 percent of the relevant documents.

A good point, and one that I cannot really answer adequately, mostly because there are a number of competing demands - and relies at some level on either guarded trust, or negatively on blanket distrust (which is why I simply see no option but to assume that everything out of the current white house is some sort of intentional lie).

 

[Foolmewunz]

She was tasked with making a report on Ford. She was not tasked with making a report on Kavanaugh. That has nothing to do with HER being audacious.

Ooooh, why didn't we see that?

I don't suppose you know exactly WHO it was who tasked her with making her report on Ford, but didn't task her with comment on the actual suspect. Would that be THE REPUBLICANS who control the committee? The woman's a prosecutor and has equal or not more experience in determining whether a defendant is lying. I believe that's actually right there on page one of the job description. So, I know, Cletus, let's have her write up a report on the complainant's credibility.

Can you answer me? Do you believe the smoke you blow? Or is this for a merit badge or special bonus features in some Defend The Castle online video game?

 

[Loss Leader]

Ooooh, why didn't we see that?

I don't suppose you know exactly WHO it was who tasked her with making her report on Ford, but didn't task her with comment on the actual suspect. Would that be THE REPUBLICANS who control the committee? The woman's a prosecutor and has equal or not more experience in determining whether a defendant is lying. I believe that's actually right there on page one of the job description. So, I know, Cletus, let's have her write up a report on the complainant's credibility.

I just saw a study that showed that people in positions of detecting lies (police, prosecutors, etc.) are no better at it than anybody else. And the best people can do is about 54%, which is just slightly better than chance.

However, one doesn't need to be a trained prosecutor to know that the internet has many, many references to "devil's triangle" and none of them are about a drinking game. One also doesn't need any training to see that Kavanaugh was angry, emotional, and political in his testimony. That alone should disqualify him.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I just saw a study that showed that people in positions of detecting lies (police, prosecutors, etc.) are no better at it than anybody else. And the best people can do is about 54%, which is just slightly better than chance.

Oh, I don't disagree. My point was as to just how she was coincidentally assigned homework to write a report on the complainant and not the accused. As the loyal opposition has been saying the entire thing was a scam from the week before they were heard. He did a dress rehearsal in the friendly confines of the Fox studios, he was fed questions by the "prosecutor" so he could repeat his choir boy defense from the Fox interview, and when it was all over, she is tasked not with reviewing his obstreperous performance but with writing a report on the accuser.

I'll take Blame the Victim for five hundred, Alex?

However, one doesn't need to be a trained prosecutor to know that the internet has many, many references to "devil's triangle" and none of them are about a drinking game. One also doesn't need any training to see that Kavanaugh was angry, emotional, and political in his testimony. That alone should disqualify him.

I'm wondering if he will be holding press conferences to explain away his behavior when he wigs out in the Supreme Court and rails about Democratic/Progressive plots to steal our precious bodily essence. He's had to twice now defend himself because people didn't quite buy whatever performance he's put forth.

>> This is someone we think is fit to serve on the Supreme Court for thirty years? He lies, he dances around truths he doesn't want to discuss, he's a complete party-driven political hack. His performance during the Starr Chamber Tribunal was abyssmal.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Ford’s Friend Felt Pressured to Revise Her Initial Statement Denying Knowledge of Assault

Christine Blasey Ford’s lifelong friend, Leland Keyser, told the FBI she felt pressured by Ford’s allies to reconsider her initial statement denying any knowledge of the high-school gathering where Ford says she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh.

Keyser specifically accused Monica McLean, a retired FBI agent and friend of Ford’s, of pressuring her to modify her statement, the Wall Street Journal reports.

-- National Review (Oct 5, 2018)

Oh my, witness tampering.

Also, Monica McLean is the one who is alleged to have been coached by Christine (two front doors) Ford on how to beat a polygraph test.

 

[Belz...]

I just saw a study that showed that people in positions of detecting lies (police, prosecutors, etc.) are no better at it than anybody else. And the best people can do is about 54%, which is just slightly better than chance.

However, one doesn't need to be a trained prosecutor to know that the internet has many, many references to "devil's triangle" and none of them are about a drinking game. One also doesn't need any training to see that Kavanaugh was angry, emotional, and political in his testimony. That alone should disqualify him.

Kavanaugh also paused for a while before answering the Devil's Triangle question. He was clearly looking for an answer, imo.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I'm just wondering how Kavanaugh would have reacted if a witness in his court had behaved as he did.

 

[Ziggurat]

However, one doesn't need to be a trained prosecutor to know that the internet has many, many references to "devil's triangle" and none of them are about a drinking game.

Why would there be, if it was shared among a small group in pre-internet days? That makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Darat]

Oh my, witness tampering. Also, Monica McLean is the one who is alleged to have been coached by Christine (two front doors) Ford on how to beat a polygraph test.

Good to know you've recognised his crimes....

 

[angrysoba]

Why would there be, if it was shared among a small group in pre-internet days? That makes no sense whatsoever.

Most of his answers just don't pass the giggle test.

 

[Belz...]

Why would there be, if it was shared among a small group in pre-internet days?

And you believe that?

 

[quadraginta]

I'm just wondering how Kavanaugh would have reacted if a witness in his court had behaved as he did.

He's set a new standard for proper decorum during testimony.

The courtroom ought to be a lot more fun to watch with him around.

 

[Dr. Keith]

And you believe that?

When I was in school we referred to the tires on our cars as *******. It was weird when we would talk about kicking ******* and people thought we meant assaulting a black man. But hey, that's language for you.

 

[Dr. Keith]

He's set a new standard for proper decorum during testimony.

The courtroom ought to be a lot more fun to watch with him around.

I can't wait to hear Nina Totenberg trying to read off a teary eyed rant from oral arguments.

 

[quadraginta]

Why would there be, if it was shared among a small group in pre-internet days?

And you believe that?

I don't even believe they were "pre-internet days".

Hell, Usenet connected to ARPANET in 1980. By the time of Kavanaugh's escapades it had been around for three years, had hundreds of hosts and thousands of users.

Not to mention the BBS communities, which were another thing entirely.

I was accessing Usenet in '83, as well as multiple BBS's, and I was just a construction grunt, trying to raise a family.

Surely a silver spoon rich kid would be able to get online.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I don't even believe they were "pre-internet days".

Hell, Usenet connected to ARPANET in 1980. By the time of Kavanaugh's escapades it had been around for three years, had hundreds of hosts and thousands of users.

Not to mention the BBS communities, which were another thing entirely.

I was accessing Usenet in '83, as well as multiple BBS's, and I was just a construction grunt, trying to raise a family.

Surely a silver spoon rich kid would be able to get online.

It was a nerds game back then. Until the early 90's there was no prestige or advantage to be gained by being on the internet. At least in the rich kid crowd.

 

[LSSBB]

I don't even believe they were "pre-internet days".

Hell, Usenet connected to ARPANET in 1980. By the time of Kavanaugh's escapades it had been around for three years, had hundreds of hosts and thousands of users.

Not to mention the BBS communities, which were another thing entirely.

I was accessing Usenet in '83, as well as multiple BBS's, and I was just a construction grunt, trying to raise a family.

Surely a silver spoon rich kid would be able to get online.

In 1983 in my high school, a substantial number of the kids had computers and could access online information, using Trash 80s, C-64s, even early Apples.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't even believe they were "pre-internet days".

Hell, Usenet connected to ARPANET in 1980. By the time of Kavanaugh's escapades it had been around for three years, had hundreds of hosts and thousands of users.

In a nation of about 230 million people (back in 1982), what's the probability that Kavanaugh and his friends were among those thousands?

Not to mention the BBS communities, which were another thing entirely.

Yes, they were a different thing. They were mostly local.

I was accessing Usenet in '83, as well as multiple BBS's, and I was just a construction grunt, trying to raise a family.

Surely a silver spoon rich kid would be able to get online.

If he wanted to, that may well be true. But there's no record he actually did, no record that he wanted to, and most high school kids didn't, and not because of any lack of privilege. It simply wasn't popular back then.

 

[quadraginta]

I don't even believe they were "pre-internet days".

Hell, Usenet connected to ARPANET in 1980. By the time of Kavanaugh's escapades it had been around for three years, had hundreds of hosts and thousands of users.

<snip>

Not to mention the BBS communities, which were another thing entirely.

Yes, they were a different thing. They were mostly local.

I used Fidonet (a BBS network) to contact people in Russia for friends of mine who had adopted from there.

How "local" is that?

I was accessing Usenet in '83, as well as multiple BBS's, and I was just a construction grunt, trying to raise a family.

Surely a silver spoon rich kid would be able to get online.

If he wanted to, that may well be true. But there's no record he actually did,

<snip>

There's also no record that he actually didn't. (At least that we have seen.)

This is a standard you yourself have used as (presumably) acceptable rebuttal. What do you think of it now?

 

[theprestige]

And of course in the 80s there was no established online repository of popular culture memes. There was no Wikipedia. There was no Urban Dictionary. There were no social media echo chambers elevating and amplifying ideas across a broad swath of the public. There was the infrastructure of the Internet, sure, but there was nothing like the Web we know and love. Even in the mid-90s, the web was a pale shadow of what it is today, not nearly the repository of common knowledge and accessible factoids we now take for granted.

The argument that the Internet existed in the 1980s, and therefore this subculture must have known about that subculture and shared their special jargon is laughable. The fact that this argument is actually being made is one of the things that leads me to believe some people would in fact accept any excuse to disqualify Kavanaugh. (Another piece of evidence has been Craig4's assertion, posted without any objection here, that no (legal) trick is too dirty or too low to keep Kavanaugh off the bench.)