Huh, I thought the reason they were rushing it was because they were worried another accusation would come out.
I didn’t think so poorly of them to think for a second that they were rushing it because they knew another accusation was coming out.
I said earlier barring something dramatic…multiple accusers is pretty dramatic.
Clarence Thomas had multiple accusers but only Hill testified. I think times are too different today though to survive - assuming these are credible.
I can totally understand why a woman would have a need to report this to the FBI only now, after years. They are doing a civic duty to warn the public of a great harm to society in general. You can’t impugn them for that.
I am sure that none of these women want to relive their experiences, and would rather never think of them again or discuss them, especially not in public. There is no benefit to them, and only downside.
But, to see someone who you know to be a predator sitting in one of the highest seats of power in the world, without doing something to stop it, on balance, I can see how they decided that that would cuase them more trauma.
I applaud the courage it takes to stop being a private citizen and subject yourself to scrutiny from those who would like most to destroy you, and not for money, not for power, not for a political position or for being confirmed to a very high honor, but only because they see it as the right thing to do, and they can’t not do the right thing anymore.
So that’s the playbook? One uncorroborated allegation is not enough, but two is?
This is a political process. Senators are going to be highly concerned with how this is viewed by the country. As they should (at least to some degree). Confirming a judge that the public sees (or might see) as illegitimate and unacceptable is harmful to the country.
Unless Kavanaugh personally wants to withdraw, I would never count the Republicans out. They are better at this game. This is just getting started.
I understand how politics works, but I was operating in this thread as if we were having an open discussion about what is right and what is not. Many times I have thought out loud and made statements that I would not publicly stand by in my own name, nor would it be responsible to make them in court. I am trying to work out for myself how these things should be handled.
Let’s say my sister, God forbid, made an uncorroborated claim of sexual assault. I would absolutely believe her. I would hope I could have enough self control to allow the police to do their job without taking action myself and risking everything, including prison. I think everyone would believe someone that they are close to.
But Ford is not my sister and neither is this other (two other?) lady. On one hand you have hundreds of people who have worked and went to school with Kavanaugh who says that he is a man of exemplary character and would absolutely never do anything such as this. On the other hand, you have Ford and everyone she has mentioned denied that this happened.
On the new allegation, you have Ramirez, coming forward not in July, not last week, but today after it seemed that Ford’s allegations had lost their steam and that Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed, telling yet another story that most of her contemporaries say that they have no recollection of (as posted above, one guy says he remembers hearing about it, but why didn’t HE come forward? Was he too traumatized?)
My concern with this process is that any nominee can be derailed by false allegations. Again, maybe Ford or Ramirez are indeed telling the truth. There is no substantiation of that, but the playbook is out there and any nomination in the future can be derailed by simple false allegations. This is not good for the country.
Three. Michael Avenatti’s got a third woman for a client.
Michael Avenatti
Verified account
@MichaelAvenatti
I represent a woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify. The nomination must be withdrawn.
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4:33 PM - 23 Sep 2018
Michael Avenatti
Verified account
@MichaelAvenatti
My client is not Deborah Ramirez.
False allegations won’t be able to derail anything, if they’re thoroughly investigated. False allegations don’t stand up well to thorough objective investigations, in my understanding.
Maybe they’d be able to delay things. But that’s not that bad. Certainly a reasonable trade-off if the alternative is “don’t investigate any late-breaking allegations”.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that folks don’t want to come forward. Why would they? It turns their lives upside down. Ford already has had to move due to death threats. If, say, I had a classmate who I’d witnessed doing something bad in college, and they were up for some prominent position, I hope I’d have the strength of character to come forward and speak about it if I thought they had lied about it or it was otherwise morally disqualifying. But I don’t know for sure. My life would never be the same again.
What’s not good for the country is a rapist being nominated to the Supreme Court.
Maybe that should be a bigger concern than some hypothetical future nominations, hmmmmm…?
As you well know, these types of allegations will never be able to be proven false. What could possibly be found in an investigation of Ford, for example, that would lead most people to conclusively believe that her allegation was false?
The Republicans and their fans ceded the “right” with The McConnell Ignoration of Garland. You can’t be “right” after that. The only thing left is gamesaying opposition.
But they could be proven true.
And it kinda looks like that’s what’s happening.
Two more accusers? One repped by Avenatti.
If this thing wasn’t a circus before, it’s about to become one. I’d say Kavenaugh is done. There’s got to be someone else out there without the baggage.
This reminds me of Clinton picking his AG back in the early 90s. Zoe Baird to Kimba Wood. Both of those two had nanny problems with paying taxes. Then fuck it, Janet Reno who’s NEVER had kids and the hell with this.
There is no substantiation for Brett Kavanough’s claims, either. And you know how we determine if an allegation is false? That’s right. We have an investigation.
And you know who’s stonewalling on investigating these allegations? That’s right. It’s Brett Kavanough and the rest of the Republicans who’ve already announced that they don’t care about the truth, they just want him on the court.
We may not know whose claim is true, but we can all see for ourselves who’s hiding something.
They could find evidence of conversations (emails or otherwise) between Ford and Democratic strategists/operators, if this allegation was manufactured somehow. They could find evidence of past unfounded allegations from her. They could find many, many other things that could help exculpate Kavanaugh if Ford’s allegations are false.
So, about the timing of the Ford testimony…
Many of us said there was no need to rush it, unless the Republicans were trying to prevent evidence from getting out.
And some posters on the right said that claim was absurd…
And now we know that the Republicans were in fact trying to prevent evidence from getting out…they knew there was at least one other accuser, and they wanted to force a vote before the second (and third…) accusers could go public.
So it turns out that all of us who suspected that the Republicans were trying to force a vote to prevent evidence from getting out were right.
Let’s all remember that the next time we have this debate.
People need to understand that a lawyer like Avenatti isn’t going to hang his hat on a shoddy story. He has a lot to lose by backing someone who wouldn’t last a minute under interrogation. At least in the case of Ramirez, she came forward right after Ford did. It is just becoming public because it took that long for her lawyer to investigate her story and her credibility. I gotta imagine that same is true for Avenatti’s client.
I would not be surprised if we hear from another lawyer representing someone else before the week is through. Two things we should have learned from the #MeToo movement: 1) sexual abusers never stop at one victim and 2) All it takes is one brave accuser to embolden a whole slew of others.
The GOP knew this was going to happen, which is why they were so adamant to hold the hearing Monday, without any FBI investigation. And that’s why they’ve pivoted from “There’s no way Kavanaugh could have done such a thing!” to “Why ruin a good man’s life over youthful high jinks!”
Judge’s former girlfriend Elizabeth Rasor told the New Yorker that Judge once told her about an incident involving him and other men taking turns having sex with a drunk woman. Judge’s attorney said he denies the allegation.
Wonder if the name of one of those other men who raped a drunk girl was Brett.