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Justice Kennedy Retires, July 31.


Ms. Spam
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Collins is voting yes. Looks like it'll be 51-49. 50-50 at the worst, but I expect Manchin will stay with him. So either Manchin and Flake both flip, which would be wildly unexpected, or he's in as of tomorrow.

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Okay this is a conversation I had with female at work couple of days ago. She wondered why I didn't believe Dr Ford. I never said I didn't believe her. I actually have been on record at work that events could have happened. Just not the way presented. Bear with me that I am presenting a scenario that I believe is likely to have happened instead of the horror story we got. Remember Harry and the Henderson's? I'm doing my John Lithgow to that bike rider.

 

The party. Was it a party? 6 people don't make a party. 6 people is a gathering. Was it the end of a party? Either way is it possible that Ford and Kavanaugh were talking, flirting through out the evening? Maybe she found Kavanaugh cute and was stoked that a senior was giving her attention. Both probably had a few to drink, but they make their way upstairs into a bedroom. They start making out, end up on the bed and like a guy who thinks he has a green light starts running his hands all over. She starts feeling unsure and says stop. Been there before, though I've always stopped. She gets louder he tries to quite her. His buddy busts into the room drunk off his ass, sees what's going on laughs and like Ford said tackles him and they roll around on the floor forgetting about her. She gets up and leaves. Leaves, not runs out, goes to the bathroom first and then takes off without telling anyone. Like I said it's just my guess in what actually happened. So of I course I get yeah but, but I fire back but what? Is my story that hard to believe? It kinda falls in line to what she was saying. All i left out was the "I thought he would inadvertently kill me" line. I left out the sense of impending death. I left out the ominous laughter of the two assailants and replaced it with 2 drunks guys rolling around in the floor. My take doesn't excuse what MIGHT have been attempted rape, it just doesn't paint the victim as a damsel in distress. It takes into account a 17 year old boy and a 15 year old girl in situation gone wrong because of alcohol.

 

So of course there is the requisite "why would she lie"? At first I didn't believe she was lying. I did think she might have told the Dems a story they knew wouldn't move the needle. When it seemed all was lost why not pull this story out of mothballs, with a little extra umph on it to make it more salacious. They knew there was no legal recourse, but in this Metoo era we just need a credible victim. Forget the story itself shows how shallow it is when you scratch the surface. Doesn't matter. The average person just reads the headlines and grabs their torch.

 

The lady I'm talking to about this says she believes Ford. I ask her how? It's one thing to think she's credible, but to take her at her word? Let's look at what we know.

-she can't remember when the party was. She has it narrowed down to a five month period

-she can't remember where the party was. She knows what golf club community it was in but can't remember the house

-she doesn't know how she got there

-she doesn't know how she got home. She lived far enough away to say she needed a ride.

-everyone she says was at the party doesn't remember the event including her good friend who she never revealed this too.

 

According to the Mitchell report

-she appears to have lied about having a fear of flight.

-she appears to have perjured herself about her fear of enclosed places.

-her marriage counseling doesn't appear to be centered around the Kavanaugh incident.

-once again all of the "wintesses" she cites cannot corroborate her story. Not one!

 

What does she remember? Nothing that can be substantiated.

- the guys laughing. Was it a Vincent Price Thriller laugh or even Dr Evil laugh? Was it drunk guy who just couldn't stop laughing?

- the room the attack happened in. Convenient especially when you can't remember the house this supposedly happened in. Not to mention I'm sure the room has been changed around since the 80s.

 

-it was Bret Kavanaugh. You're foggy on a lot of other stuff. You sure it was him? We have no idea on how these two even know each other. It doesn't sound like they had any other interactions.

 

This comes from a therapist that was on a local radio show here. He mental state is hard to figure out. According to her there was no physical violence, no actual rape. Was the attempted assualt enough scar her emotionally. Potentially. Had Kavanaugh participated in this behavior and failed there is a chance he'd try it again. We haven't heard that though. Most sexual assualt victims don't report attacks out of fear of the perpertrator, not for fear of not being believed. If she feared him that much, it's likely he repeats that behavior at some point. As far as we know he hasn't. Where is her mental block coming from? Maybe from being assualted but maybe from some other incident we'll never know of. There are variables at work here we aren't privy to.

 

Sorry if this seems a little disjointed, but I'm doing this on my tablet. I started in my phone and that was not happening.

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For Poe and Met, how big of a deal would you rate it if he was lying about his drinking while testifying? A few classmates who claim to be friends have claimed that he was lying.

The problem is that the friends aren't actually contradicting what Kavanaugh testified to. He said that he had drunk in excess. All he really said beyond that was that he never had a blackout (got so drunk he didn't remember what happened the next morning). Basically, the people claiming that he lied are just saying the same thing Kavanaugh said but not sparing the embarrassing details.

 

It's a political argument, not a legal one.

 

 

 

Kavanaugh has shown that he doesn't have the ability to be impartial, to me. I mean Clarence Thomas made a similar statement at his hearing about how Anita Thomas' statement hurt his family but he was less - strident?

 

Thomas literally called them a racist lynch mob!

 

Clarence Thomas:

And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.

 

That's much stronger language than Kavanaugh used.

 

 

 

I think Kavanaugh is definitely an alcoholic and needs help.

 

There is no evidence whatsoever that Kavanaugh ever had an alcohol problem, much less one that's persisted. All we have evidence of is that Kavanaugh was a stupid kid once.

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For the record, the more time that's gone on and the more shenanigans we've gotten from Ford, the more I'm leaning towards believing that this is all a hoax. Republicans are being careful to step around and suggest that she's merely mistaken and all that, but the behavior of her legal team and Ford herself contradict the narrative they're trying to present of a babe in the woods just trying to do her civic duty.

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This is a dog and pony show. It was orchestrated by the people who framed the government to keep checks and balances as part of the process to having a justice installed on the Supreme Court. A justice can be impeached. Yes, I do think Kavanaugh is an alcoholic. There's lots of functioning alcoholics and recovering alcoholics in this world that do a lot of different kinds of jobs. Some nominees are boring staid nerds and some have had some fun in college. It's all Meh in the end. I think this is more of a indicator of what's wrong with Congress though than who actually gets to serve on the Supreme Court.

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Yes, I do think Kavanaugh is an alcoholic.

 

Explain your reasoning.

 

I've seen no testimony that Kavanaugh's drinking was beyond his ability to control. Youthful binge drinking is indeed dumb and puts a person at risk for alcoholism, as his friend Judge suffered. However, if Kavanaugh is a functioning alcoholic, he's done an amazing job of hiding it. As we've heard incessantly, Kavanaugh had passed 6 FBI background checks. If there's one thing we know the FBI checks for these sort of things, particularly with people who will work directly with the president himself, it's whether the subject has a history of substance abuse. They ask your neighbors, they ask your friends, they ask your co-workers, they ask your family, they ask you.

 

So if Kavanaugh is an alcoholic, he's hidden it from the world so completely that no one would no know. But somehow it can be diagnosed from 30-year-old stories of fairly typical high school and college antics? Antics that are being focused on as if getting plastered was all he was doing all day instead of graduating at the top of his class in a highly competitive private school while playing on multiple sports teams and making it into Yale Law School, pursuits that likely gobbled up quite a lot of his time as his calendar shows off.

 

Is it possible Kavanaugh is a drunk? Sure, secure in his home where we can not see him, but unlikely, and certainly you would never know this. What is more likely is that the Democrats' tactics are working and their innuendos are painting an inaccurate picture of the man in your head.

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What does she remember? Nothing that can be substantiated.

- the guys laughing. Was it a Vincent Price Thriller laugh or even Dr Evil laugh? Was it drunk guy who just couldn't stop laughing?

- the room the attack happened in. Convenient especially when you can't remember the house this supposedly happened in. Not to mention I'm sure the room has been changed around since the 80s.

 

-it was Bret Kavanaugh. You're foggy on a lot of other stuff. You sure it was him? We have no idea on how these two even know each other. It doesn't sound like they had any other interactions.

 

I would add to that her statement that she only had one beer. This would be an odd thing to be definite about considering she doesn't remember much of anything else.

 

Now why would she somehow remember this, trivial at the time, fact when so much else is hazy? Very simple. She needs to make clear that she was still mostly sober and a reliable witness. It's an impossible detail to prove is wrong, so it's safe from perjury charges. Unlike if she had given us a location or a time. If she'd given us something concrete, Kavanaugh could have simply whipped out his calendar and proven her wrong and that would have been bad.

 

Awfully convenient, isn't it?

 

The more this goes on, the more this feels like the Duke lacrosse case. Right down to the narrative that he must be guilty because we know what those kind of privileged boys are like.

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Years of living with my alcoholic Grandfather, my alcoholic Mother, going to Alanon meetings, helping students who's parents are alcoholics, my sister now who's addicted to pills, co-workers. His first move was to get defensive about it. Denials. I don't get a say in how he gets into the Supreme Court but I have my impressions just like you do.

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Collins is voting yes. Looks like it'll be 51-49. 50-50 at the worst, but I expect Manchin will stay with him. So either Manchin and Flake both flip, which would be wildly unexpected, or he's in as of tomorrow.

Looks like it'll be 50-48 in the end. Murkowski is going to vote "present" so that Daines can walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding tomorrow.

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This whole episode has been a seriously stupid unforced error by people who believed their own propaganda more than the intended consumer did. Y'all done ****ed up and there will be a price.

I doubt it. There's some talk that perhaps Republicans have been energized for next month's election. Maybe, maybe not. But in the long run, it's a Pyrrhic victory. Democrats have successfully poisoned the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, having many people think it illegitimate and political (despite the opposite being true). Kavanaugh will likely have the same reaction that Thomas did to his trauma and become immunized to the pull to the left of the DC cocktail circuit, but Roberts will likely be that much more hesitant to pull the trigger on any controversial rulings in order to maintain the court's public image, pushing him more into the liberal camp of preserving their rulings (ironically, making him more political). They've created another wedge whereby Republicans are on the side of rapists and can point to how they treated this poor sweet sexual assault survivor and supported this "privileged toxic male" who had the audacity to get angry at his sanctimonious tormentors that destroyed his reputation forever.

 

The Democrat's behavior will be forgotten. HBO movies will be made. The screaming, the naked political manipulation, the coordinated circus of the confirmation hearings. Well, except maybe Senator Spartacus, because that was just so stupid and easily mocked.

 

And above all, everything strange about Ford's story and subsequent behavior will fade. The gaps in her story will never be brought up again and the certainty that it was true will cement.

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We are witnessing a zenith fall. It is craziness from both sides. Much like I actually liked the Tea Party when they first came about as a grass roots movement because most of their ideas were logical and made fiscal sense. Now it's presidents mocking victims at rally's for his 2020 campaign for more money he's already spent, crazy people threatening the lives of others like ricin mailed to Ted Cruz and people in Maine raising money for an unknown candidate that will replace Susan Collins.

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From author Chuck Wendig:

 

There will be renewed calls for civility. Ignore them. They ask for civility as a way for you to grant them complicity in what they do.

 

Civility is for normalcy. When things are normal and working as intended, civility is part of maintaining balance. But when that balance is gone, civility does not help return it but rather, destabilize it further. Because your civility gives them cover for evil.

 

Note: this isn't the same as calling for violence. But it is suggesting that you should not be shamed for using vigorous, vulgar language. Or for standing up in disobedience. Or for demanding acknowledgement and action in whatever way you must.

 

fuck Trump. But he's just the ugly fake-gold mask they've put on this thing. fuck all the GOP, fuck that blubbering, bristling frat boy judge, fuck McConnell, Ryan, Grassley, Collins, every last one of them. fuck them for how they've shamed victims and helped dismantle democracy.

 

They will tell you to smile, that we need to get back to business, that we gotta heal the rift and blah blah blah, but thats the desire of a savvy bully, who wants you to stop crying after he hit you, who wants you not to fight back. But you can cry. And you can fight back.

 

They can eat shit. All of them. They can eat a boot covered in shit.

 

Winter is coming, you callous fucknecks, you prolapsed ***holes, you grotesque monsters, you racists and rapists and wretched abusers, you vengeful petty horrors.

 

Sidenote: some will tell you to be civil because our rage and scorn will fuel the other side, but fuck that double standard in both its ears.

 

Well, if you hadn't said those SASSY WORDS and demonstrated ANGER at our whittled-down democracy, I for a second might've been convinced not to eat this baby. But fie! Fie on you! Your incivility MADE me eat this baby!

 

Spoiler warning: they were always gonna eat that baby.

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Kavanaugh has shown that he doesn't have the ability to be impartial, to me. I mean Clarence Thomas made a similar statement at his hearing about how Anita Thomas' statement hurt his family but he was less - strident? I think Kavanaugh is definitely an alcoholic and needs help. Some tiny bit of empathy would go further than this.

"I think Kavanaugh is definitely an alcoholic."

 

Base on what evidence? I know the call the call for evidence is some grand insult / threat these days, but that firm statement has to be backed up with undeniable proof, not "because I say so" accusations.

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Sidenote: some will tell you to be civil because our rage and scorn will fuel the other side, but **** that double standard in both its ears.

 

Well, if you hadn't said those SASSY WORDS and demonstrated ANGER at our whittled-down democracy, I for a second might've been convinced not to eat this baby. But fie! Fie on you! Your incivility MADE me eat this baby!

 

Spoiler warning: they were always gonna eat that baby.

 

My head hurts. We just went through a week where the last gasp of hope on the left, from people already on record saying they'd vote against him, was saying that Kavanaugh displayed an in-judicial temperament for the sin of being angry at being called a rapist and, having his reputation completely shredded, and being portrayed as nothing more than a "frat boy judge".

 

Anyway, it's done. He's sworn in. And he'll never again be welcomed in the DC cocktail circuit, so the Greenhouse effect probably won't be happening.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

OK Fozzie, as a man of my word, I concede you were correct. :)

 

So, I have uploaded the avatar you selected for me. I hope you don't mind a few touch ups I made to Grumpy Trumpy.

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First day on the job. First impressions are that he's gravitated towards Kagan. Not too surprising as the two have a history. She once was involved in hiring him to teach at Harvard, a job he lost thanks to the allegations.

 

That and the two just so happen to be sitting next to each other thanks to their being seated by seniority.

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Kavanaugh has shown that he doesn't have the ability to be impartial, to me. I mean Clarence Thomas made a similar statement at his hearing about how Anita Thomas' statement hurt his family but he was less - strident? I think Kavanaugh is definitely an alcoholic and needs help. Some tiny bit of empathy would go further than this.

What is meant by impartial? There are a few understandings of what the word means in relation to judges and justices. I understand the word to mean there is not a bias for or against any of the parties before the judge/justice. His remarks on 9/27 do not show him to lack that kind of impartiality.

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