End of #metoo

batgoat wrote: »

Two men ALLEGEDLY pinned her to a bed, covered her mouth and tried to remove her clothing... I would say it's reasonable to assume that's attempted rape...

You kinda missed the key word. ALLEGEDLY!!! FYP.

leggo wrote: »

I don’t know if Kavanaugh is the guy to bring down the movement: I mean you’ve got a highly credible accuser (even Fox News say as much and you know they’d love to slate her if they could) versus a lad who’s supposedly willing to do ‘anything’ to prove his innocence but refuses point blank to say he’d be happy for an FBI investigation to happen. Why wouldn’t an innocent man who knows the rigours of justice and wants to clear his name wish to submit to a process that would have to suppose him innocent until evidence of guilt arose, unless he knows there might be said evidence out there? I believe her tbh in this case and think any subsequent appointment of his here would be another damning indictment into the frailty of America’s justice system.

As a lad, I get that other men are threatened by this and terrified a skeleton in their closet may arise so pray for an ending, but I don’t think it’s ever going to get to a stage where it ‘ends’ and things go back to how they were. If you used to get away with slapping your secretary’s bottom in work, I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s going to fly again. However I do think it’ll level off eventually and people en masse won’t just believe everything they read on Twitter sans evidence, and that’s a good thing too (like I know women personally who posted emotional stories slating people but I’ve also witnessed tell HUGE lies or be sexually aggressive towards men themselves, so it definitely wasn’t a zero-sum process). I think this period has been, and continues to be, perhaps an overdue over-correction, which is what happens whenever you oppress a segment of society and don’t offer a viable solution in its place: you get an angry, emotional reaction rather than a logical one that’s fair on all sides. I get where it came from and I think once it balances out we’ll have a better, more equal culture for it, which I’m happy with since I’ve a sister and loads of other women in my life that I care about and want that for.

Cabaal wrote: »

The most disturbing thing here is Trump and others refusal to even entertain any investigation initially.
In any normal situation or company if a person was going into such a high power role and claims were made against their character there would be and should be investigations.

In any normal circumstances, an accusation would be reasonably credible and there would indeed be time for an investigation, because such an appointment would continue if the investigation found nothing. If something were found, then someone similar would be found to replace a now impaired nominee. That's not the case here though.

The Democrats have made it clear that they are out to "Bork" judge Kavanaugh. They invented the term "Borking" a conservative out of a Supreme Court position or other high office in 1987 when the Left mounted a challenge to Ronald Reagan's proposed apointee to a Supreme Court seat, Robert Bork.

Remember, Reagan did not nominate partisan hacks, earlier in the decade Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor, who disagreed with him on many issues but whom he considered the most qualified for what he was trying to do. The appointment of political hacks to the Supreme Court did not start until the 1990s with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But the Left ran a successful campaign to derail Robert Bork's nomination, and Borking entered the English language in 1991 when feminist activist Florynce Kennedy said at an NOW meeting that she and her ilk were going to "Bork" Clarence Thomas. They tried it with Anita Hill, and failed.

Since the 2016 election, the Democrats made it clear that no matter how qualified any Trump nominee, no matter how committed they were to upholding and interpreting the law, that they were going to do everything in their power to Bork any of Trump's nominees. They all voted against Neil Gorsuch, but they didn't have any real way of stopping him. So there was no point in weaponising a false rape claim against him, because the resulting delay would have served no purpose. Even if they had destroyed Gorsuch with false allegations, Trump would have nominated someone similar.

What is different with Judge Kavanaugh is that this appointment comes not long before the mid-term elections, when the Democrats are hoping for a "blue wave". If they get a blue wave, the innocence or guilt of Kavanaugh will make no difference whatsoever - their plan to Bork him will have succeeded.

Once you understand that, everything about this becomes crystal clear.

I was in the U.S. during some of the Senate hearings and ... forget about televising it ... they should have had it in a 3-ring circus and charged admission. The refrain from Democrats was all the same: "We want a delay (until November), we want millions of pages of documents that we're not going to read, and answers to thousands of questions that we don't, care about the answers to, and time to consider each ... until at least November ... despite the fact that no amount of answers or no amount of documentation will make any difference whatsoever as they will all vote No, no matter how much documentation is produced, how many questions are answered, how much time the Democrats are given to review any of the above, or after these accusations were made, whether he is innocent of them or not. It. makes. no. difference. Full stop.

The Democrats have not been hiding their policies. They will do everything in their power to block Trump nominees - and they've said so in no uncertain terms - because they want a Supreme Court that is full of Ruth Bader Ginsburgs. They have been absolutely clear about this.

Once you understand this, these accusations and the timing of their release, i.e. after the above 3 ring circus, after thousands of questions, hearings, millions of pages of documents and dozens of private meetings with Senators, including Diane Feinstein who had the letter, but just before the vote, all becomes clear. These 4 decade old, hazy, ill-defined accusations (no dates, times, places or similar details of any kind) come from a Hillary supporting feminist, California college professor (i.e. a member of the "Resistance"), and were timed to come out at just the right time - by the Democrats - to delay the nomination vote, which the Democrats said from the start that they wanted.

The Democrats made it clear, in no uncertain terms that they were going to do this. They've said very clearly that this is about changing the Constitutional role from "advise and consent" to "obfuscate and destroy". Why do we not believe them?

Trump and many Republicans blindly supporting him isn't enough to show he's a good person....I mean for feck sake they previously backed Roy Moore even after him not denying he had a thing for teenager girls (even ignoring the sexual misconduct stuff). In fact it was well known he had a thing for them.

Neither do the Democrats saying he's bad. I'd take the Democrats more seriously if they were not lead by Keith Ellison, himself a #MeToo case, but it's OK because he leads the Democrats.

Malayalam wrote: »

I saw him struggle to remain composed, I saw no hysteria. This person has been accused of molestation, facilitating gang rape and suggestions of paedophilia have been thrown into the mix for good measure. His family have been vilified and received death threats. He was attempting to defend himself not only before the senate but also knowing a huge national and international audience would witness him trying to defend himself against accusations that are as low as one can be accused of. I didn't begrudge him his emotions. It's of zero consequence to me who is appointed, I'm only going by what I saw in that testimony.

He has been subject to nearly as much scrutiny as all previous nominees in history combined, had been subject to the most hostile approval hearings in history after Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, called a murderer by Yale's Dean of law school and the at the 11th hour, been subject to a politically timed bogus accusation for the sole purpose of destroying him.

If he is innocent, he has every right to be angry, and to direct that anger at those responsible.

Anthony Kennedy among other things, reaffired Roe v. Wade many times over, and has been a "swing vote" that often voted with Ginsberg and her crowd. Despite being a Reagan appointee, he was probably the most milquetoast conservative ever, except perhaps Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan) and others appointed by Republican presidents during that era. Especially since the protection of Roe v. Wade is a defining issue for the Left, and Kennedy, O'Connor and David Souter all did so, the Democrats would look like a right pack of schmucks if they did not vote for Kennedy.

As I pointed out earlier if a Democratic president nominated someone who had strong views on eliminating the second amendment there would be war in DC.

And yet, that's exactly what Ginsberg wants to do. In Heller v. DC (2008), Ginsberg and her allies wrote essentially that the Second Amendment did not say what it actually says, in black and white and in plain English. You see the problem here? An activist court could easily neuter not just the Second Amendment, but any part of the Bill of Rights, or indeed any individual right (free speech, due process etc) that an activist court may consider incompatible with leftist identity-politics or "social justice."

First up Democrats have every right to be pissed. Republicans blocked Merrick Garlands hearing for 14 months.

You can certainly argue that the Republicans did not treat Merrick Garland fairly, but they did not use bogus accusations just before a key point to destroy him personally. Merrick Garland still has his good name. Brett Kavanaugh's has been permanently and severely stained. That's what makes this a new low.

Then you have a President under investigation with half a dozen of his campaign team either under arrest

Funny, this president is accused of colluding with Russia, yet he bombed the crap out of Assad's army in Syria many times, including incidents where large numbers of Russian operatives were killed in Syria. He also doubled down on a lot of Russia related sanctions and re-imposed sanctions on another of Russia's key allies, Iran. Oh and let's not forget, Trump also approved of the sales of lethal weaponry to the military of the Ukraine, which is kinda fighting a Russia backed insurgency. This saw the US sell weapons to the Ukraine for the first time since their conflict with Russia began.

If Putin paid for this "stooge" he should look for a refund. Yet, I almost expect that if Trump launched nukes at Moscow, the leftists (who survive) would be like "Trump just did that to distract us from his collusion with Putin"

And that's why Republicans are trying to force him through without proper vetting because they know election is upcoming and Democrats are leading in many polls.

So you admit this is all about Borking a Trump nominee?

Again how do you know Dr Ford is lying.

I never said she was lying, or if I did, it was un-intentional. Please show me where I used the word "lying" or withdraw that question.

Rather, I suspect that something did happen to her at some point, but that her memory is simply not reliable as to any of the details, including the identity of the attacker.

As to how I "know" naturally I don't know for sure, but there are very strong reasons to suspect that the allegation is not true.

1. They were politically timed, they came out literally the last week before the confirmation vote.
2. She said she did not want to go public, but nevertheless wrote to journalists from two left-leaning newspapers, took a polygraph test and wrote a letter to Diane Feinstein.
3. The accusations are almost 4 decades old. This is problematic in the best case because not only do memories fade/become coloured, but hitting someone with old accusations as opposed to new ones closer to the time makes it much, much harder for the accused to obtain exculpatory evidence with which to mount a defence. Simply put, if I accuse you of doing something bad this day last week, and it's not true, you can say "no, I was nowhere near that place, I was on CCTV somewhere else and witnesses will say I was doing X, Y and Z at the time. I even have travel receipts, e-toll records, train tickets, airline tickets or whatever to show that my version of events is correct". Yet, if I accuse you of doing something bad decades ago, you will have much less access to exculpatory evidence given the passage of time. That automatically makes old accusations more suspicious and should increase the burden of proof on the accuser.
4. The leak was orchestrated by a group that has said in no uncertain terms they will do everything they can to stop Kavanaugh, and made it clear that they wanted a delay until November. How convenient that they now have new grounds for such delay ...
5. The human memory is not the most reliable form of evidence, even under the best possible circumstances. In connection with a project I am working on, I asked a fried who is a retired US police officer if it's true that witness statements are notoriously unreliable and that for example if you have 20 witnesses to an event, you could get 20 different stories? His response? You might get 21! He then told me a story of a traffic accident where they nearly arrested someone who was not involved, on the word of a RANDOM witness who said that driver had participated in the accident by swerving and then fled the scene, only for the investigation to show that this was not the case. Unlike Ford, the witness had no stake in the case and told this story a very short time after "seeing" the accident. According to my friend, this is not uncommon.
6. Witness testimony is unreliable even in the best of circumstances (e.g. a traffic accident 5 minutes ago) it's even less reliable when the witness has a massive personal stake in the case and the events are so old.
7. Ford is a California college professor, feminist, Hillary supporter and likely #Resistance member. Extreme bias can colour memories, and Ford would be a likely candidate for something like this, especially if she has other personal difficulties, e.g. with mental health.
8. The terms that she demanded for her testimony included a requirement that Kavanaugh go first and that she had the last word ... no civilised trial (and this was a trial) requires that the defense present their defense and then rest their case before the prosecution case against them has been made ... Maybe that's how they do things in Commiefornia, but in places where due process is required, the defense gets to answer any claim made by the accusers/prosecutors. Forcing the defense to defend against claims that have not been made yet is kind of a no-no. Either Ford wanted this, or her lawyers did. Either way, that ALONE should knock on the head any question of whether this was political or not.
9. Ford's claims are so full of holes that they do not even make a good "he said, she said" case. They also fall short of a very low standard of evidence called "preponderance of the evidence."
   
   Don't take my word for it. Read Rachael Mitchell's report, a 9 page analysis of Ford's testimony. There are holes in these claims you could drive a freight train through.
   And these are not just a few inconsistencies, they are wide ranging problems. Witness she referred to who do not corroborate her story and in some cases said the exact opposite. Major changes in her story, like she first could not come to DC because she is afraid to fly, yet flies regularly in connection with family and hobby matters. Outright omissions like where this happened, when during the Summer of 1982 (after first claiming was the mid 1980s, then the early 1980s). Where was the party? Who was at the party? (that part kept changing) Who invited her? After sneaking out of the house and not having her own transportation, how did she arrange a ride home when she did not have a mobile phone (it being 1982 and everything) and could not return to the house to use the land-line?
   https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4952137/Rachel-Mitchell-s-analysis.pdf

If nothing else, the Mitchell report makes it clear that this case is so full of problems that it cannot possibly be taken seriously by any reasonable person. If a man can be destroyed on the basis of this kind of nonsense, we are heading into very dark times.