I’ll wait to see what the FBI has to say…unless for some reason someone with a desire to conceal Kavenaugh’s criminal past doesn’t allow the FBI to speak to her.
I’ve never been aggressive while drinking. Unless you’ve heard something. What have you heard?
So here’s one more person from Kav’s life who is speaking out against him. This is amazing to me. If he doesn’t get confirmed, it won’t be because of his accusers. It’ll be because of the opinions of those who are in the best position to defend him but who aren’t.
That’s one of his close friends who thinks Ford is telling the truth. Surprisingly, someone who knows him well is more willing to accept Ford’s testimony than some posters on this board, who don’t know him at all. Wonder what that says about the posters here…
On one side of the ledger, Ford is wholly credible…
Her story is certainly plausible, and certain details she offers lend it additional credibility. She correctly identifies, for example, a social circle that appears actually to have existed around Kavanaugh during the summer in question…While Kavanaugh said he didn’t recall meeting Ford but that it was possible they had interacted, it seems overwhelmingly likely that her claim to have known him and his circle socially while the two were in high school is true.
While Ford can offer no contemporaneous corroboration of story in the form of testimony from people who remember being present at the alleged event, her story is not wholly uncorroborated either. She appears to have told her therapist about the alleged event years ago, and she identified Kavanaugh as her attacker to her husband years ago, as well.
She initially raised the allegation with her congresswoman before Kavanaugh’s nomination took place. …
That she believes this story sincerely is corroborated, if only weakly, by her polygraph exam. …
Her story is also corroborated, imperfectly but perceptibly, by Kavanaugh’s high-school calendar. Ford describes the attack as taking place at a gathering at which at least four boys—Kavanaugh, Judge, Patrick (P.J.) Smythe, and a boy whose name Ford could not remember—and one girl, Leland Keyser, were drinking beer. Ford specifically allowed for the possibility that there might have been others present as well.
… Why exactly Kavanaugh imagines his calendar entries to be powerfully exculpatory I am really not sure.
Ford’s story also finds some degree of corroboration in Mark Judge’s employment history. Ford claims that she saw Judge some weeks after the alleged attack at the Safeway where he worked and that he was visibly uncomfortable seeing her. The Washington Post verified from Judge’s own memoir that he was, in fact, working at a grocery story as a bagger in the relevant period. Assuming the FBI investigation firms that up, it would offer another data point tending to corroborate her account’s consistency with verifiable facts.
His opinion basically matches mine. Whether or not Kavanaugh did what he was accused of, he has not showed himself to be fit for the office in his handling of the matter.
Fundamentally, Kavanaugh has no way of knowing that Ford is lying. The majority of accusers are speaking the truth. This isn’t to say that she’s correct in her memory or understanding of the events (nor that she’s incorrect, either), just that she’s telling the truth as she believes it. She believes that he attempted to rape her, and that’s a horrible thing for someone to feel.
A gentleman, who had faith in his own innocence, would try to deal with the accusation in a humane and understanding way.
Instead, Kavanaugh has shown himself to be a partisan schmuck and a petty liar, in his own self-defense. I have no faith in his ability to judge impartially. And that makes him fundamentally unfit for the office.
If you had lived among Minnesotans as long as I have, you might realise that her question was a clear example of the sarcastic but subdued post-modernist irony they prefer. Sen Klobuchar is well-known for her bitterly trenchant wit in the lefty salons of Eden Prairie and Roseville. But nice.
I’m not at all clear about the relationship between Kavanaugh and the author. The headline says “I Know Brett Kavanaugh…” and he says in the article “I have a long relationship with Kavanaugh, and I have always liked him” and “in 20 years of knowing the person”. He goes on to say this:
That sounds like an acquaintance, not a “close friend” to me. But does anyone know different? Do Kav and Wittes hang out on the weekends, or anything like that?
Even if they’re not showering together when their wives are out of town, he knows Kavenaugh better than you do.
Which I readily concede. Do you concede “That’s one of his close friends” is not correct?
There’s just so much smoke. I am looking for the fire.
What are you conceding? That someone who knows him well finds him less credible than Ford. That someone who’s known him for decades thinks it’s possible that he once attempted to rape a 15-year-old girl?
Sure.
Forgot to note, since the Kav apologized for his nasty little outburst, it never happened. Therefore, we must reset our opinion about his temperament and self-control to the default Republican position of serene and Vulcanic calm.
It’s not unreasonable to think that many people can put aside their animosities when they take up a job where one of their responsibilities is putting aside their animosities.
This person in particular, though, has created quite a bit of doubt about that.
Between the fact that he was selected because his positions are favorable to the president in the first place, and his acrimony against the democrats that dared to ask him questions, I do believe it is very unreasonable to expect Kavanaugh to be trusted to set aside his personal animosity.
Okay, so if you saw a defendant reacting that way to charges being read against him, would you think that this is a cool, calm collected person who would never act that way, or would you think that this guy is desperate and trying to bully his way out of trouble he put himself into?
More evidence of the FBI doing a bang-up job of investigation…
Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, wrote to the FBI Tuesday complaining that the bureau has not responded to their attempts to schedule an interview, nor their efforts to share witnesses and evidence related to her claims.
Citing a report that the FBI has “no plans” to interview Blasey Ford, her lawyers wrote: “It is inconceivable that the FBI could conduct a thorough investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations without interviewing her, Judge Kavanaugh, or the witnesses we have identified in our letters to you.”
and [regarding Ramirez]
at the end of the interview, her lawyers provided the FBI the names and known contact information of additional witnesses (totaling more than 20) who may have corroborating information. Although we do not know the status of the investigation, 2/
we are not aware of the FBI affirmatively reaching out to any of those witnesses. Though we appreciated the agents who responded on Sunday, we have great concern that the FBI is not conducting—or not being permitted to conduct—a serious investigation. 3/
I think I know how the FBI is wrapping up so quickly…
Michael Proctor and Mark Osler wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that they can no longer support Kavanaugh’s confirmation because of the “nature” of his testimonty in front of the committee last week while addressing accusations of sexual misconduct.
Not sure about the grammar of that first sentence, but I think the gist is clear.
Haven’t heard this mentioned, but: if it’s just Kavanaugh who was throwing up due to having a weak stomach for spicy food and beer, then how is it a “Club”?
I guess if he’d said ‘a bunch of us couldn’t deal with spicy food so we formed a club’ then it would make sense.
But he hasn’t claimed that.
Of course the common-sense explanation is that a bunch of h.s. guys liked feeling ultra-cool by drinking mass quantities of alcohol and then vomiting, and planned to do a lot of that during Beach Week, so they signified this bond between them by calling themselves the “Beach Week Ralph Club.”
But that common-sense explanation doesn’t fit with Kavanaugh’s present need to create a squeaky-clean image, so we’re given this Club of One (apparently) explanation.
Weak.
It isn’t an answer to the question at all; it’s an expression of entitlement. Aggrieved, outraged entitlement. How dare this mere Senator threaten (via his impertinent questions) the career path of Lord of the Universe Brett Kavanaugh???
To me, it doesn’t matter if they are just colleagues or BFFs. The point is that this someone who knows Kavanaugh on both a personal and professional level, and thus, presumably has insight into his character and temperament that potentially could have offset the bad way he came across at the hearing. But that insight doesn’t seem to rescue Kavanaugh.
I’m reminded of my freshman year of college at the University of Wisconsin. The drinking age was still 18 in Wisconsin then, and in the dorm where I was living, “drive the bus” (short for “driving the porcelain bus”) was the euphemism that we had for throwing up after drinking.
Some wiseguy in our dorm grabbed a bunch of paper bus schedules, which included a small picture of a bus on the front, and cut out all of the bus pictures. When someone in the dorm would barf, this guy would tape a bus picture on the “bus driver’s” dorm-room door, emblazoned with his name, the date, and, if the person threw up more than once, a number in a circle (i.e., (3) for vomiting three times).
This is exactly what the Beach Week Ralph Club reminds me of.
That was what I took away from post #5617 as well. All one has to do is apologize and all doubt can be safely dismissed.
*“warn the neighbors that we’re loud, obnoxious drunks with prolific pukers among us. Advise them to go about 30 miles…”
Judge Kavanaugh signed the letter: “FFFFF, Bart.”*
Signed, FFFFF Bart is not consistent with his obvious bullshit explanation about his stuttering friend.