Justice Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing *DISCUSSION AND LIVE COMMENTARY*

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https://www.twitter.com/jameshohmann/status/1037700399304728576

Not all heroes wear capes. #booker2020 #3rdmostprogressivesenator

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I’m not interested in what may or may not have happened when these two were minors, and neither are most people.  This is all a farce designed to run out the clock before Dems take back the Senate.  Lets all be honest about that - Im fine with them trying, Republicans played dirty too!  Just stop pretending this is actually a matter the FBI should waste their time investigating.  Total bs.

It's fascinating how Republicans are convinced that their "no one cares" attitude is the attitude of "most people."

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The clock running out isn't really an issue. Trump could nominate a replacement on December 30 and McConnell could just call for an immediate up-or-down vote.

If this were a Democratic plot to somehow Garland the seat until 2021, it's clearly not going to work. Thus, it's incredibly unlikely that that's what this is.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaughs-fact-check.html

Great summary of how far Republicans have gone in their smears and lies.

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One thing that I assumed was going on, but had not been verified, is the Pub staff has been making every effort to interview all the known alleged witnesses (and invited minority staff to participate).

Why in the world would you assume that Republican senators are acting in good faith on this issue? How much counter counterevidence do you need?

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It is virtually certain that if, say, Garland had been credibly accused of this, Obama would have investigated and pulled the nomination unless he was clearly innocent.

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WUT.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1042965763613777921

They really need to have him testify next week too.

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https://twitter.com/EdWhelanEPPC/status/1043117304152817664

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I'm sure that the people defending Kavanaugh would be just as forgiving of Hillary Clinton if she had used a private email server when she was 17 as well.

Only White men deserve second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) chances, don't you know?

Atlas lefties haven't criticized Keith Ellison for accusations of domestic violence and labeled him a woman beater.

But I guess accusations only matter when it's against a conservative white man.

What are you talking about? He was widely condemned here.

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I'm sure that the people defending Kavanaugh would be just as forgiving of Hillary Clinton if she had used a private email server when she was 17 as well.

Only White men deserve second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) chances, don't you know?

Atlas lefties haven't criticized Keith Ellison for accusations of domestic violence and labeled him a woman beater.

But I guess accusations only matter when it's against a conservative white man.

What are you talking about? He was widely condemned here.

Ftghn has nothing but falsehoods and false equivalences to support 99% of her arguments.

But don't worry folks! She repeats the mantra "reasonable questions" in almost every one of her posts, so it MUST be so.

Try that again when we have a bunch of different threads about it like we do for Kavanaugh. Really, even one active thread regarding this since it's still an ongoing situation with Ellison.

And my questions on this thread had everything to do with the case based on what is known or what we should know before accusing someone of being a rapist. Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's unreasonable or invalid.

Get over your obsession and lay off the drunken talk-to-text posts.

I mean... you literally said, "Atlas lefties haven't criticized Keith Ellison..."

That's false. You don't get to be like "oh, uh, well it doesn't have as many threads as Kavanaugh has" and get off the hook.

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It's fairly obvious that no GOP senators have a different opinion than Graham. This is all for show.

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Does he really have comprehensive enough calendars going back 36 years to disprove anything?

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While obviously I dont agree with their attitudes, I find it highly unlikely that this story will change anyone's mind. They'll say see was drunk and can't remember and point out how BK's character witnesses deny it.

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Honestly, Deborah Ramierz's story should sound very plausible to anybody who has ever met a drunk frat boy.

Oh yeah for sure. I just don't see it tipping anyone from pro-Kavanaugh to the anti- side.

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I just don't get what McConnell's doing.
Kavanaugh is becoming politically toxic, and could easily be replaced by Barrett.
Instead he's roaring ahead, in an attempt to muscle the nominee onto the court.

Either he's playing 12th dimensional chess, beyond the scope of my feeble mind, or he's losing his touch. If Cruz makes a gaffe during the testimony, or during voting, and actually puts Texas into play, then McConnell can only blame himself.

He's got less capital to threaten the Red-state Dems with, given how public the Kavanaugh allegations have become, and he's unnecessarily endangering Heller and Cruz by making them vote for a highly controversial nominee.

Not the mention the effect on the House.

Ignoring the questions of how long replacing Kavanaugh would take and whether they'd still have the votes to confirm someone by then, it would be demoralizing.  It would look like the Republicans either admitting they made a mistake in supporting him, or that they aren't loyal their people when they come under fire. 

I don't know why the Republicans are so resistant to this.  Look at what happened with Harriet Miers; after she withdrew, Alito was appointed and unanimously confirmed.  Surely no conservative can be unhappy with how he turned out on the bench.

Uh, Alito's confirmation vote was not unanimous. Check your history book and try again.

Plus Harriet Miers was not pulled a month before a national election, she was pulled earlier in the process, and conservative Senators were tepid at best in their support for her nomination.

My point is that Kavanaugh is not the only conservative judge around, and he could be replaced with an equally conservative candidate to get the same long-term result but without (more) controversy.  There's still time to get another nominee through, if they move expeditiously.  So it just seems to me like that would be the politically smart thing to do.

The problem is that if Kavanaugh goes down, any man can go down. Any man can be taken down at any time by any vengeful woman who claims they were assaulted in kindergarten 50 years ago. It'll be like the Salem Witch trial writ large.

Just the guilty ones. For example if I were the nominee, there would be no credible stories about me. Presumably same for you, and many other potential Trump nominees, including Gorsuch.

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https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1044378163927797760

This sort of thing is typical high school fare. Most people have said or wrote things in high school they wish they hadn't. It doesn't mean your entire life should be ruined. Next.

The fact that he and others consider themselves to be "alumni" of this woman suggests that he's probably FOS when he claims he was a virgin throughout high school and college. And if he's dishonest about that, it makes him less credible when he claims to be innocent of the other accusations.

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I also find it interesting since death threats have been mentioned by numerous people on here that not a single one of them have expressed any sort of concern for the fact that Kavanaugh and his family have been receiving them as well. But I guess since he's the accused he doesn't deserve anyone's concern, nor do his wife and kids, amirite?

Why are you such a combative, mean-spirited person in every thread you post in? Not a single Democrat here has expressed any support for the death threats you're talking about (this is the first I'm hearing of them) and obviously we all strongly condemn them. You know this, but as usual you'd rather get a "sick burn" in on the libs than have a sincere, good-faith discussion.

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I also find it interesting since death threats have been mentioned by numerous people on here that not a single one of them have expressed any sort of concern for the fact that Kavanaugh and his family have been receiving them as well. But I guess since he's the accused he doesn't deserve anyone's concern, nor do his wife and kids, amirite?

Why are you such a combative, mean-spirited person in every thread you post in? Not a single Democrat here has expressed any support for the death threats you're talking about (this is the first I'm hearing of them) and obviously we all strongly condemn them. You know this, but as usual you'd rather get a "sick burn" in on the libs than have a sincere, good-faith discussion.

There are a whole lot of Atlas Leftists I can say that about, from personal experience.  You know them, too, you know their works, and remained silent.

fhatgn has a valid point here.  Where is the acknowledgment of the death threats against Judge Kavanaugh?  Did he bring them on himself?  If the allegation is false, then he most certainly did not, in which case, the quesition of who brought them on is begged.

This whole thing has been mishandled by Trump.  This whole thing has been shoved forward without regard to the harm this very debate does to the SCOTUS as an institution.  In and of itself, I consider what has been brought up against Kavanaugh to be enough for a President to pull his nomination.  In a more rational world, the nomination would have been quietly pulled, Kavanaugh and Ford would have gone back to their anonymity, and our public institutions would have been the better for it because the allegation Dr. Ford is making can likely never be proved in a Court of Law.

Instead, this thing has been managed to where people now do have reason to launch false allegations.  At best, it gives people motive to inflate actual circumstances of bad behavior decades ago to the level of an unpunished sex crime.  There are those who would try this, and that will be a disaster when it happens.  But now we are in a lose-lose situation.  If Kavanaugh is confirmed, millions of Americans will believe there is a rapist on the Court.  If Kavanaugh is rejected, he will forever be a martyr by some, setting back the legitimate cause of sexual assault victims because there is little possibility of public consensus on this issue at this point.

I think America is better off if we say "No" to Kavanaugh at this point, but we have been harmed as a nation by the way this is turning out.

I didn't know that they existed, and presumably neither did others. But obviously we all condemn them completely and think that the losers who made them should face serious consequences.

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Of course not. He might have before the allegations, but he has all the cover he needs now.

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The notion that he'd be better off electorally by voting for him is so f**king stupid I don't have the energy to deal with it.

This. Any voter who demands their Senator vote for right wing Supreme Court justices isn't going to be voting Democratic in the first place.

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Since we are also including actions someone supposedly did as a teenager, we also have Cory Booker, who has admitted to groping a woman when he was 15, even after he admits she rejected his advances on his first attempt, and she came to him after admitting she was drunk and didn't know what she was doing. But people think he'd make a fine choice for President one day.

I've literally never heard that story, and I doubt many others have either. It's not on his Wikipedia page, for example.

But assuming it's true, it does make him less appealing as a presidential candidate. There are a few key differences though that you're willfully ignoring though:

1. A single grope is not as bad as what Kavanaugh has been accused of. Still inappropriate and wrong, but not close to the same level.

2. According to your story, Booker has admitted his wrongdoing and is remorseful. If Kavanaugh had said from the beginning something like, "yeah I partied hard when I was young and crossed the line a few times, but I'm ashamed and remorseful and I've legitimately changed since then, and I dont remember the incident with Ford happening as she describes it," he'd probably be on his way to confirmation. Instead his "I was an innocent flower," schtick is casting uncertainty onto everything he's said.

3. Booker's constituents get the chance every 6 years to vote him out (and could recall him right now if they want). Voters get no say on whether Kavanaugh gets a lifetime appointment and never have the chance to remove him. Voters are free to decide whether Booker can stay a senator or not and/or rise to the presidency.

Finally, you yet again hackishly and needlessly aggressively insinuate that liberals think its OK when Democrats assault women when that's clearly false. See Al Franken and John Conyers, neither of whom were accused of anything near as bad as Kavanaugh or Trump but were quickly jettisoned anyway. I think even you know that had they been Republicans, they would still be in Congress.

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McConnell's floor remarks today:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's fairly obvious that McConnell is grandstanding here. If they had no idea about the allegations, how were they able to immediately produce a denial letter signed by 65 classmates (ironically including Renate and the man they tried to pin the assault on)?

Maybe they didn't know Ford's name, but they undoubtedly knew how Kavanaugh acted in high school and that allegations were potentially likely to come up. Why else would they have premade such a strong denial?

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Finally, you yet again hackishly and needlessly aggressively insinuate that liberals think its OK when Democrats assault women when that's clearly false. See Al Franken and John Conyers, neither of whom were accused of anything near as bad as Kavanaugh or Trump but were quickly jettisoned anyway. I think even you know that had they been Republicans, they would still be in Congress.

As a corollary:

Imagine that Kavanaugh had decided during his 20s that he's actually a liberal Democrat. He has a similar career path, and in 2018 President Hillary Clinton nominates him to the Supreme Court.

Then all these allegations come out. I think we can all agree that the nomination would be pulled, and that no Democratic senators would support him after this. Similarly, all Republicans would believe the accusers and Fox News would talk nonstop about how awful Hillary is for putting him up. He would get 0 votes in Committee if it somehow still came up for a vote.

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This article discusses the theory that the incident with Fors happened, but Kavanaugh was so drunk that he legitimately doesn't remember. Seems way more plausible than the other "nobody's lying" theory:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-alcohol-assault-allegations.html

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Theory: Kavanaugh is claiming to be a choir boy virgin in high school despite all the evidence to the contrary because that's what he told his wife he was like back then and doesn't want to admit to a decades old lie to her.