New SCOTUS Judge II: The Wrath of Kavanaugh

[Aridas]

If you want to use the pedophile comparison, well, pedophiles can't help themselves. They end up acting on their impulses.

You're seriously going to forward that claim?

All the pedophiles who successfully resisted those impulses would firmly disagree with you.

If someone hangs out in a public park for years without doing anything, then the "perhaps" you should consider isn't simply that he's there for the fresh air, but that maybe he isn't a pedophile.

Is it your desire to show that you have no credibility? In the scenario given, there was no question that the person is a known pedophile, with no restrictions on why they're considered that. In your response here, you are pushing the entirely nonsensical proposition that not doing anything in a very public setting makes for cause to think that one wouldn't do anything in a much more appropriate setting for such... especially in the many cases where the pedophile is known to be a pedophile because they actually did or are doing such in an alternate setting.

 

[Ziggurat]

Is it your desire to show that you have no credibility? In the scenario given, there was no question that the person is a known pedophile

Then it's not a relevant scenario to Kavanaugh, is it?

 

[Ziggurat]

Either way, I would characterize making "my subordinates should be eye-candy for me" a necessary condition for jobs like those to be distinctly problematic from the start

Nobody has actually established that this is a necessary condition.

 

[Aridas]

Then it's not a relevant scenario to Kavanaugh, is it?

Pathetic.

The original analogy was relevant. Your counter for it was nonsensical and not based on reality. When a bit of how nonsensical your counter is was pointed out, you're now trying to invoke how nonsensical your counter is as reason to dismiss the original analogy.

If this is actually the current quality of your logic, I think it may seriously be time for you to consult with a mental health professional to check if there's a serious underlying problem in play and hopefully get it treated.

 

[Ziggurat]

Pathetic.

The original analogy was relevant. Your counter for it was nonsensical and not based on reality. When a bit of how nonsensical your counter is was pointed out, you're now trying to invoke how nonsensical your counter is as reason to dismiss the original analogy.

If this is actually the current quality of your logic, I think it may seriously be time for you to consult with a mental health professional to check if there's a serious underlying problem in play and hopefully get it treated.

When you try to claim that someone can't do logic, it helps if you're not flailing about incompetently with it yourself. Your position requires that it is completely established that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. That has not, in fact, been established. You seem ignorant of not only the fact that it isn't established, but that your position even needs for it to be established. Which is why you don't even try claiming it has been, but jump right to trying to insult my intelligence.

 

[johnny karate]

If only there was a screenshot of an Instagram post on a partisan website implying that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. Ziggurat would be immediately and completely convinced.

 

[Aridas]

When you try to claim that someone can't do logic, it helps if you're not flailing about incompetently with it yourself.

Your position requires that it is completely established that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator.

No, it doesn't. You made a counter-argument about pedophiles that was filled with falsehood to try to show that the analogy doesn't apply to Kavanaugh. I addressed the validity of your counter-argument, not so much the original analogy.

That has not, in fact, been established.

With 110% certainty, sure. We've been given plenty of good reason to think that it likely is the case, though, which quite means that it works for the analogy in question. Further, your quoting of me was just half that point - you cut it off halfway through the point - and the part you cut out makes it much clearer that your attempted use of it was distinctly in error. Maybe it would help if you paid attention and actually read for comprehension and not for quote out of context gotchas, though, and then we wouldn't go on these irrelevant side trips? Better yet, be willing to admit that you made mistakes, like an honest person, and then, if you still want to push the issue, try again in a way that doesn't rest on falsehood and/or fallacy.

Of actual relevance, though, what has been established was that you invoked lies and obvious fallacy in your arguments and that those lies and obvious fallacies are what I took issue with.

You seem ignorant of not only the fact that it isn't established, but that your position even needs for it to be established. Which is why you don't even try claiming it has been, but jump right to trying to insult my intelligence.

Alright, I'll say it a bit more firmly. If you're actually being serious here, seek help immediately, before you deteriorate even further.

 

[Ziggurat]

If only there was a screenshot of an Instagram post on a partisan website implying that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. Ziggurat would be immediately and completely convinced.

If Kavanaugh was the one that posted it, yeah, that would indeed be pretty damning. But you're right, there isn't any such post.

 

[Ziggurat]

With 110% certainty, sure. We've been given plenty of good reason to think that it likely is the case, though, which quite means that it works for the analogy in question.

Yeah, no. No we haven't. We've been given tenuous reasons by uncredible witnesses.

 

[Belz...]

Let it go already

Irony!

 

[johnny karate]

If Kavanaugh was the one that posted it, yeah, that would indeed be pretty damning. But you're right, there isn't any such post.

Actually, all it would take is for a partisan hack website to claim that Kavanaugh posted it, and you'd immediately and without question believe it.

 

[Aridas]

Yeah, no. No we haven't. We've been given tenuous reasons by uncredible witnesses.

So you wish, at least. Even if that were true, though, that does not, in any way, excuse the lies and obvious fallacies that you invoked, which, again, are what I was directly taking issue with.

 

[Matthew Best]

Yeah, no. No we haven't. We've been given tenuous reasons by uncredible witnesses.

Turns out even a cursory investigation by journalists turns up more evidence than the one done by the FBI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/sunday-review/brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez-yale.html

Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau — in its supplemental background investigation — interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own.

Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her “credible.” But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation. “‘We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else,’” Bill Pittard, one of Ms. Ramirez’s lawyers, recalled the agents saying. “It was almost a little apologetic.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island and member of the Judiciary Committee, later said, “I would view the Ramirez allegations as not having been even remotely investigated.” Other Democrats agreed.

Ultimately, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, concluded, “There is no corroboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.”

 

[The Norseman]

Let's all not forget his misleading (even lying) testimony under oath in 2004-2006.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...tt-kavanaugh-give-false-testimony-under-oath/

 

[Aridas]

Turns out even a cursory investigation by journalists turns up more evidence than the one done by the FBI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/sunday-review/brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez-yale.html

Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau — in its supplemental background investigation — interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own.

Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her “credible.” But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation. “‘We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else,’” Bill Pittard, one of Ms. Ramirez’s lawyers, recalled the agents saying. “It was almost a little apologetic.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island and member of the Judiciary Committee, later said, “I would view the Ramirez allegations as not having been even remotely investigated.” Other Democrats agreed.

Ultimately, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, concluded, “There is no corroboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.”

Mmm. I was wondering whether to post similar, but... this was also known at the time, I was pretty sure. This part, at least, was fairly well known, I thought, by people who were actually paying attention. It became apparent, extremely quickly, that the FBI "investigation" was pretty much a farce and it was apparent all along that the GOP, at best, simply didn't care about Kavanaugh significant wrongdoings and actively worked to hide an overwhelming amount of relevant records (only allowing a tiny, tiny fraction that they had already vetted to be available)... at best, because a number of Kavanaugh's detractors on the right seemed to deem every additional bit of wrongdoing and refusal to take responsibility for his actions to be a positive qualification, apparently.

Something new from that, though, is an additional story -

We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly.

Pattern of behavior.

Either way, there was a bunch of attempts to distract from the real issues with the focus of some people on the drinking part, but drinking, even heavy drinking, was never a real main issue.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Mmm. I was wondering whether to post similar, but... this was also known at the time, I was pretty sure. This part, at least, was fairly well known, I thought, by people who were actually paying attention. It became apparent, extremely quickly, that the FBI "investigation" was pretty much a farce and it was apparent all along that the GOP, at best, simply didn't care about Kavanaugh significant wrongdoings and actively worked to hide an overwhelming amount of relevant records (only allowing a tiny, tiny fraction that they had already vetted to be available)... at best, because a number of Kavanaugh's detractors on the right seemed to deem every additional bit of wrongdoing and refusal to take responsibility for his actions to be a positive qualification, apparently.

Something new from that, though, is an additional story -



Pattern of behavior.

Either way, there was a bunch of attempts to distract from the real issues with the focus of some people on the drinking part, but drinking, even heavy drinking, was never a real main issue.

Also known as the "Mel Gibson Defense."

 

[pgwenthold]

Mmm. I was wondering whether to post similar, but... this was also known at the time, I was pretty sure. This part, at least, was fairly well known, I thought, by people who were actually paying attention. It became apparent, extremely quickly, that the FBI "investigation" was pretty much a farce and it was apparent all along that the GOP, at best, simply didn't care about Kavanaugh significant wrongdoings and actively worked to hide an overwhelming amount of relevant records (only allowing a tiny, tiny fraction that they had already vetted to be available)... at best, because a number of Kavanaugh's detractors on the right seemed to deem every additional bit of wrongdoing and refusal to take responsibility for his actions to be a positive qualification, apparently.

Something new from that, though, is an additional story -



Pattern of behavior.

Either way, there was a bunch of attempts to distract from the real issues with the focus of some people on the drinking part, but drinking, even heavy drinking, was never a real main issue.

When I was a grad student, we had an undergrad working with us who was going on a job interview and he asked, "Do you think I should tell them I like to drink and have sex?" Needless to say, we advised against it, on the idea that it would not reflect well on you at a job interview.

I guess that doesn't matter any more.

 

[Aridas]

When I was a grad student, we had an undergrad working with us who was going on a job interview and he asked, "Do you think I should tell them I like to drink and have sex?" Needless to say, we advised against it, on the idea that it would not reflect well on you at a job interview.

I guess that doesn't matter any more.

Heh. It does still matter, of course, but this situation is a bit different from that in a few important ways.

 

[pgwenthold]

Heh. It does still matter, of course, but this situation is a bit different from that in a few important ways.

Yeah, this was an interview for a lifetime appointment in the top positions of one of the three branches of the US Government. The clown in my lab was just interviewing for a flunky industrial lab tech job.

 

[Ziggurat]

Something new from that, though, is an additional story -

Small problem with that story. Mollie Hemingway is reporting that the book this story is based on claims that the alleged victim has no memory of the event.
https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1173203831397801984
No doubt those who wish to condemn Kavanaugh will just conclude she forgot it, but it's undeniably journalistic malpractice to not report that rather important fact.