I imagine the second from the left on the top row is what you look like--on a good day. — Bitter Crank

I don't have that much hair even on a good day.



Ok, so you're a cross between Karl Marx and Santa Claus. :100:

↪Bitter Crank Sorry for calling you a shithead. — frank

New rule. It's OK to flame Karlaclaus. He probably deserves it. :fire:

Pretty amazed at the fact that Kavanaugh asked a senator if she had ever gotten black out drunk, not just once...but twice.

Ok, so you're a cross between Karl Marx and Santa Claus. :100: — Baden

so true, so true...

These are not incompatible beliefs — Rank Amateur

Yes, it's consistent with him being drunk and not remembering doing it. And it's consistent with her making a mistake about it being him. However, he paints a picture of himself as almost certainly not even being at that party, and she says she's 100% sure it was him. I think Mark Judge is key. If he was really in the room, it's highly unlikely he doesn't remember what happened. Refusing to subpoena him and ruling out the FBI though make it very easy for him to maintain his denials and almost impossible to fully resolve the issue. It looks most likely we'll be left in that limbo with Republicans quickly voting Kavanaugh through and the public not getting fair closure. Even more polarization and animosity to ensue.

Something I've noticed, which may not be very significant but nevertheless is interesting: When asked about the "devil's triangle" mentioned in his calendar, Kavanaugh testified that it's a reference to a drinking quarter game. But Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary say that it's a threesome involving two men and a woman (also, an obscure board game, and a synonym for the Bermuda Triangle). There appears to be zero Google hits for "devil's triangle" being used to refer to a drinking game and that don't relate to Kavanaugh's testimony. Of course it's entirely possible that it was a local and temporary idiom.

Also related to high-school slang: one Senator asked Kavanaugh about the "Renate Alumni" reference in his yearbook. The Senator was inquiring about the meaning of the expression. Kavanaugh already had apologized to the woman about that. But now he was implying the expression didn't even mean anything of a sexual nature and he was scolding the Senator, disingenuously suggesting that the Senator himself was trying to sully the woman's reputation rather than prompt Kavanaugh to acknowledge (as he had already done when he apologized to her!) that his bragging was rather offensive.

Odd. Never heard of that. Innocent me...

Just want to add here, btw: Whatever anyone thinks about either of the two main protagonists in this case, the sheer scale of emotional destruction caused by this whole thing is horrible. Just on a purely human level, no matter what happens with the vote, this is not going to be a victory for anyone.

Odd. Never heard of that. Innocent me... — Baden

Neither had I, regarding the "devils triangle" thing. I heard of it when it was reported that the Wikipedia disambiguation page for this unusual phrase had been recently edited in order to make the definition match Kavanaugh's testimony. The source of the edit was traced to a Congressional IP. So, it looks like a Republican staffer Googled the phrase "devil's triangle", was directed to the Wikipedia page, saw that it referred to a sexual act involving two men and a woman, though this was rather inconvenient for Kavanaugh, and edited it to make it refer to a drinking game instead.

So votes today regardless. 3 testimonies from separate women for which corroborated evidence could be found if you'd look for it, if it happened. Then there's Brett, who lied on Fox about his drinking habits and painted a surreal holier-than-thou picture of himself - a casual liar at least. Then there's the potential big lie about using illegally obtained democratic emails during his work, knowingly, about which he possibly lied as well.

The partisanship seems to be owned wholly by the republicans by refusing to call Mark Judge to testify or to have the FBI look into Brett's moral character in more depth.

Why doesn't that surprise me...

I don't know. I've been very interested in politics, particularly the U.S., for a long time, but the level of poisonous hatred and dishonesty out there at the moment, brought into sharp focus during these testimonies, I find increasingly disturbing. Things are in danger of becoming truly dysfunctional, and I think we need to take that very seriously and do our reconciliatory bit where possible to work against it.

The partisanship seems to be owned wholly by the republicans by refusing to call Mark Judge to testify or to have the FBI look into Brett's moral character in more depth. — Benkei

The American Bar Association is now calling for the nomination process to be put on hold, and for the FBI to investigate. And Alan Dershowitz, of all people, is seconding their motion.

And Alan Dershowitz, of all people, is seconding their motion. — Pierre-Normand

:gasp: Woah.

:gasp: Woah. — StreetlightX

To be fair, he's always been a very loose cannon.

The American Bar Association is now calling for the nomination process to be put on hold, and for the FBI to investigate. And Alan Dershowitz, of all people, is seconding their motion. — Pierre-Normand

This is really the only way to go. Brushing this whole thing under the carpet now and "ploughing through" is just wrong. Whatever the explanation for this mess, it needs to be thoroughly searched for. I don't see how any fair-minded person could be against that. A simple "yes" or "no" without more information is going to rip the country to pieces and would be little more then a pyrrhic victory for either side.

I generally can't stand Alan Dershowitz, but he takes a reasonable non-partisan position in this article and should be commended for that:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/27/alan-dershowitz-postpone-kavanaugh-confirmation-until-fbi-can-investigate-accusations-against-him.html

That's, uh, one way to put it :sweat:

Odd. Never heard of that. Innocent me... — Baden

Neither had I, regarding the "devils triangle" thing. — Pierre-Normand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-MFsRfPoys

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/kavanaugh-classmate-tears-into-him-over-drinking-denial-ive-witnessed-him-stumbling-drunk/

Brookes told Cuomo she and “a number” of her Yale colleagues were “extremely disappointed in Kavanaugh’s characterization of himself and the way that he evaded his excessive drinking questions.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale he was a big partier, often drank to excess,” she said. “And there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember. In fact, I was witness to the night that he got tapped into that fraternity, and he was stumbling drunk in a ridiculous costume saying really dumb things. And I can almost guarantee that there’s no way that he remembers that night.”
...
At the end of the interview, Brookes accused Kavanaugh of “blatant lying.”

Regarding the "devil's triangle" thing, I still have vivid recollection of the time when an 8th grade teacher - in a very strange and uncomfortable class (for me) called "teen living" where we talked about sex and other "difficult" things - used the term in reference to vagina. That's the first thing I thought of here with the old yearbook reference, but it may very well have additional meanings.

I do think it's odd that Kavanaugh is so hostile to the idea of an FBI probe into these supposedly false accusations. You'd think he'd be begging for it in order to clear his name, or at least receptive to one if that will satisfy the unconvinced. But he's really against it, and this lends itself to reasonable speculation that he's probably not being completely forthright about his past. If you're innocent and have been telling the truth all along then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Or so it would seem.

I do think it's odd that Kavanaugh is so hostile to the idea of an FBI probe into these supposedly false accusations. — Erik

When he was pressed on this issue, he and the other Republicans appeared almost schizophrenic. On the one hand, they were arguing that the Senate handling of the allegations against him amounted to nothing more than a devious McCartyan show trial, and that the politicized process was more painful to Kavanaugh than living Hell. But when the possibility of a FBI handling of those matters was raised, Kavanaugh was insisting that he was delighted to being subjected to this process before the Senate committee, and that the very wise and respectable committee members were much better equipped for handling those delicate matters than the bumbling and clueless FBI.

Some more musing: even if we assume it's a "he's said, she's said" thing then there's a 50% chance Brett was a complete douchebag and is lying about it now. Do you want to confirm a SCOTUS judge with that likelihood?

So it's quite obvious that for some reason the Republicans are very worried of losing the majority in the Senate and want to confirm Brett now even though the upcoming seats opening up are mostly held by Democrats already and as such that outcome is very unlikely as well. Even if they lose the majority, the process still seems to be that the President proposes the candidate which for the foreseeable future is still going to be a conservative/Republican candidate. It's just not going to be Brett if the Democrats would gain a majority, so it's still not a big loss for the Republicans. It seems tactically and politically stupid from where I'm standing but perhaps I'm missing an angle I'm not considering here.

It seems tactically and politically stupid from where I'm standing but perhaps I'm missing an angle I'm not considering here. — Benkei

Maybe the Republicans don't mind so much if it isn't Kavanaugh who gets the seat. But Trump minds very much since Kavanaugh is the only one who asserted that a sitting President can't be indicted and that he ought to be able to fire at will a prosecutor investigating him. And the Republicans are bound not to make Trump and his base too angry.

A very good point! Something's definitely fishy about this. A couple Dems almost seemed apologetic about the hypothetical investigation after Kavanaugh's impassioned remarks on what these proceedings have done to his family and reputation. I'm normally cynical but at one point I was struck by how sincere one of the Dems sounded (forgot which one) when addressing Kavanaugh, imploring him to embrace the idea of the FBI looking into these affairs for closure so they could all move forward with possible confirmation. That was my impression at least - a genuine desire to get to the bottom of these troubling allegations.

Furthermore, his repeated attempts to keep the focus on his many achievements during that time - impressive as they are - seemed designed to distract. Being an exceptional student and athlete etc. does not preclude one from also being a douche who drank too much on occasion and acted (at the very least) like an ass. He clearly tried to create that false dilemma. Sure, he acknowledged his drinking habits, but he did so in a strange way that upon further reflection seemed pretty manipulative. Hard to pinpoint exactly what it was but I do think he had a clear strategy in mind, that this wasn't quite as improvised and "from the heart" as I'd originally assumed.

My amateur analysis as nothing more than a reasonably competent bullshitter.

There’s also an upcoming court case that is concerned with double jeopardy and federal pardons (i.e can you subsequently be charged with the equivalent state crime).

There’s also an upcoming court case that is concerned with double jeopardy and federal pardons (i.e can you subsequently be charged for the equivalent state crime). — Michael

Would that be a case where Trump doesn't necessarily need that it be Kavanaugh specifically, but he needs that a fifth conservative seat be filled ASAP?

http://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/571285/

I don’t know if it’s conservative issue.

I don’t know if it’s something that every conservative would rule for. — Michael

That's interesting. But this article doesn't make clear if there is anything about Kavanaugh that could lead us to expect that he would decide such as case differently than any other conservative judge.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-is-a-class-traitor.html

"It strikes me that Republicans are scared of Ford because she is essentially a class traitor. Two of the accusers whose names we know, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, were immediately marked as outsiders by the circle of old school friends and Republican operatives that closed around Brett Kavanaugh from the start. Deborah was, the Times reported, “the daughter of a telephone company lineman and a medical technician” — nearly a townie, half Puerto Rican, doing her time scrubbing dorm toilets and serving her classmates food while Kavanaugh was, according to his roommate, coating his dorm bathroom in vomit. Julie Swetnick was worse, by the lights of Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep defenders: “Never heard of her. I don’t remember anyone from Prep hanging out with public school girls, especially from Gaithersburg."

On the dynamics of power at play with respect to how nobody is talking about the other accusers at all.

His hardcore base is presumably a fraction of Americans so if it factors in that strongly I'm not understanding the power dynamics of US politics. An angry Trump is like any other day, right? His anger is like the wind, it blows in a different direction each day so you just stay inside for a day and then he'll be complaining about Mueller again or the media.

As to credibility of Brett, I decided to look at Brett's wife through his hearing. It's interesting at times but obviously not conclusive. Another thing I noticed is when he's asked on FOX News whether he ever met Blasey Ford; he doesn't attempt to remember or recollect if he does but immediately replies that he may have met her but implies that he doesn't know her. He never looks away from the interviewer, he's totally concentrated on his message which contain obvious lies. I find that odd and unnatural behaviour. Now compare this with how his wife talks in the same interview, she smiles, looks away at times and basically isn't a robot. This is what strikes me about Brett most of his replies and answers, they're not recollections but studied and prepared replies.

That said, I believe his story about the calendars, it's clearly confirmed by his wife's reaction and recollection of his dad are real and one of the few moments he really remembers (and we know what he looks like when he's recalling events). It's one of the few moments he's a human being. In sum, Blasey Ford offered testimony, Brett mostly offered a prepared speech that wasn't anything like testimony.

In total, I suspect Brett was a stupid and often drunk teenager who definitely groped and was too aggressive to women at that age. The Blasey story and the dick-in-the-face with Ramirez seem like the kind of stupid shit "normal" boys could get into, especially as members of fraternities. I'm not necessarily convinced about the gang rape accussations and suspect that if he did partake that he was shit-faced drunk. He probably was present at parties where such things happened. Julie Swetnick's statements are, in that respect, not conclusive as she's observed efforts to spike punch (the goal of which is her interpretation but we cannot know Brett's mind), she saw a line of boys including Mark and Brett and was subject to one gang rape where Mark and Brett were present at the party but nothing that is conclusive that Brett and Mark raped her as well or raped other girls. It's not certain Brett was successful in spiking punch or drugging girls or that they carried it further than groping and forceful kissing. So possible and plausible but doesn't seem provable at this point.

In all this, what strikes me is the casual lies about his drinking habits. To date that seems substantiated by other people over and over again. It's an unnecessary lie and undermines his credibility and that is what makes him unfit for the position in my view.