What are the inconsistencies? Guys who think this sorta crap is OK would boast about their successes, and joke about their failures. And people share stories about their summer vacations at the beginning of a school year.
There are none. That article was profoundly dishonest.
The FBI in general has the power to look at sealed records. Sealed records are generally to stop the public from seeing the records. With that, I’m not sure if the FBI would be allowed to make the information public or not - especially since it’s not part of a criminal investigation.
Well, if there’s one thing I have learned about justice, it’s that process is more important than truth.
Plus, I would like to ask the Kavanaugh supporters if they liked the show Perry Mason. Because in every third episode, he would call a surprise witness, and Hamilton Burger would complain. Did you watch the show and just think that Mr. Burger was robbed of his well-earned and just convictions over and over again, because Mr. Mason had his chance to call witnesses earlier in the trial?
A question about Statute of Limitations. If the SoL is changed from, say, 7 years to never, can the “never” stretch back to a time before the old SoL would have been in effect? Or does it remain “never, except not more than 7 years before the new time frame took effect”?
There is a Supreme Court case that my google-fu cannot find.
Short version: If the statute has expired, it cannot be extended. If it has not, it can be.
For example: I commit a crime in 1990 than in 1990 has a 5 year SOL. In 1996, the Legislature abolishes the SOL for that crime. I am home free.
If under the same circumstances, the Legislature abolishes the SOL in 1994, I am still subject to prosecution.
Generally speaking, retroactively putting someone in jeopardy who was no longer in jeopardy because the statute had run is not permissible. See: Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607 (2003).
Man, not me. I hope they hump this goat all the way to the mid-terms.
I agree with every other word you wrote, and that’s exactly why I hope they continue to support this sorry excuse for a SCOTUS nominee. My god, it’s going to energize women to turn out like nothing else possibly could.
That’s what I thought. Thanks. I don’t know if the SoL in Maryland for sexual assault has always been “none”, but I suspect it was changed recently. I believe that has been fairly common in several states-- a recent change in the SoL for sexual assault.
This is so ugly. She has less than two days to come up with a statement. So that means that on Monday, she’s reading a statement to a group of men who have had since Friday to assign their staffs to come up with fake counter-arguments to every sentence?
And she has to come up with this during two days of camping out somewhere other than her home, to escape potential violence?
What a bunch of nasty bullies the Republicans are.
Speaking of inaccuracies, the New York Times published Debunking 5 Viral Rumors About Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s Accusertoday.
Major right wing sites, including Laura Ingraham and Gateway Pundit, have repeated and spread these claims, and have not admitted any error.
There is such a thing as fake news, it turns out. But it’s exactly opposite what the right claim it to be.
Judge refuses to testify. That’s not strong.
How many people can be said to be famous teenage blackout drunks? Not many I would think. But we have one here. I really think he needs to testify even if under subpeona. I get a bad vibe from the scenario.
It sounds like EVERYONE refuses to testify except Kavanaugh. If “willing to testify” is how you want to measure the strength of a claim, I guess we have a clear winner.
Ford hasn’t refused to testify.
By the way, Ford has taken a lie detector test. Regardless of the question of admissibility in court, which isn’t at issue here, her willingness—like her call for investigation—shows a certain confidence that her claims will be upheld by the facts.
Kavanaugh does not appear to be willing to take a lie detector test; he’s had every opportunity to do so but has not chosen to. Likewise, he has had every opportunity to call for a full investigation by the FBI–an investigation that might find evidence that would be convincing on the topic of whether or not the allegations against him have merit. Yet Kavanaugh has failed to call for an investigation.
Why do you suppose he has declined these opportunities to express confidence that he’ll be exonerated? Why on earth would he fail to take a lie-detector test, and fail to call for a full FBI investigation?
Is it because he lacks confidence that his denials will be supported by emerging evidence?
I guess I can wait until Monday to see if I get to laugh at this or not.
Yes, we discussed some questions that come to mind regarding this claim. Without them being answered, this still seems like nothing more than a gimmicky idea by Ford’s attorney.
I want you to think through the implications of the formulation you are using here carefully.
If “had every opportunity to do so but has chosen not to” = “does not appear willing to”, what does that mean for Ford’s willingness to testify? If it means “hasn’t refused”, as you claim above, then isn’t it also true that Kavanaugh “hasn’t refused” to take a lie detector test?
I predicted this attitude several pages ago:
After wasting a couple hours on this thread, three bits of obvious BS stick in my mind.
- Why did Kavanaugh have a pre-made list of women who said he didn’t rape them?
This was a lie.
AFTER the accusation was made, women who knew Kavanaugh organized themselves to write a letter attesting not that “he didn’t rape me,” but to affirmatively declare that in their experience, Kavanaugh was an absolute gentleman. This has been publically known for days, though if you consume only liberal media you wouldn’t know that. https://www.weeklystandard.com/virginia-hume/about-that-letter-from-women-in-support-of-brett-kavanaugh
What we have here is the opposite of a #metoo accusation, where one woman speaking out leads to others coming forward with similar stories … here we have one accusation, from one woman, and literally every other person that has ever known the guy and is willing to speak on the record says “I’ve never ever seen him do anything like that.”
This was a red flag from the start for any sentient creature.
- “She brought this up to her therapist years before Kavanaugh was nominated.”
Yeah, this was also bullshit. Ford came up with her accusation in 2012, when Kavanaugh was already being publically discussed as a likely SCOTUS nominee. (e.g. Holding Court | The New Yorker) And we know she knew this because her own husband has told us that she was talking about this in 2012 (The Senate must investigate Christine Blasey Ford's accusation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.). By her own account, she said nothing about this profoundly important event in her life to anyone for 30 years – not her husband, not a girlfriend, not any of the therapists she’s worked with – and then the first time she ever said anything to anyone was when she realized her allegation might be relevant to national politics.
IOW, her motivations have always been political.
- “She took a lie detector test.”
Yeah, so she and her lawyer say. Who administered it? What were the questions and what were her answers? If this was supposed to enhance her credibility, why is it being kept secret? Without any disclosure, this means as much as “I have a girlfriend who lives in Canada and doesn’t have a phone, and she has evidence for everything I’m saying.” Shit like that makes you look worse, not better.
- “The Democrats want an investigation”
LOL. If they actually thought there was anything to this, they’d be looking for the involvement of the MontCo Sheriff’s department, who has jurisdiction and could prosecute a crime if there was one, and they’d be urging Ford to make a statement ASAP, since that’s where actual investigations with conscious victims always begin. “Investigation first, allegation later” is not the way competent law enforcement organizations work. She’s been offered make actual formal claims under oath in public, in private, at location of her choosing … and she declines every opportunity. Hell, she could write down a 500-word affadaivit and submit it. But she’s smart enough to know that making false statements under oath is a crime, so she’s never, ever going to speak to police, nor congress. The Dems want some vaguely-defined unique process, completely different from either a normal criminal investigation, or a normal background check, that can easily be dragged on past election day, run by an agency they have influence over, without any involvement from the victim.
Moreover the fact that the Dems now do NOT want her speaking – about 48 hours after demanding she be allowed to – also tells us that despite all the media insistence that Ford is “credible,” the Dems have little confidence she’d make a persuasive witness. Hell, I doubt she ever even talks to serious media. Maybe The View or Maddow, six months from now when she’s flogging her book.
It was a bullshit allegation from the start, doomed to fail, which is why DiFi wisely sat on it. It will be interesting to see if we ever find out why it came out in the end … could be this was her intent all along, could be she changed her mind, but my guess is someone forced her hand.
The good news for the Dems is that while Kavanaugh will still be confirmed, at least this shitshow has driven the Corker/Flake/Collins moderates and the hard right closer together, and even less likely to take seriously any arguments the Dems make during the next nomination. The Mazie Hirano “vaginas never lie” crowd was coming to the polls in November anyway. Especially if Trump keeps his yap shut, this smear job will remind center-right moderates what their choices are.
Well done, guys.
furt: Without going into the entirety of your long tirade, the story all along has been that “someone forced Feinstein’s hand”. Her staffer(s), or someone close to her or them, leaked it. Once the cat was out of the bag, it took on a life of its own.
And I’m pretty sure the local police would not touch this. It’s standard practice for the FBI to do investigations for presidential appointees. IIRC, they were the ones who did the investigation for the Hill/Thomas issue.
Speaking of stuff that needs to be chucked into the quarry, the false equivalence of (a) being willing to testify, and (b) being ready and willing to testify on Monday, and having to provide her written testimony by Friday morning in order to do so, despite having been dodging death threats all week - yep, that false equivalence needs to be deep-sixed in the Marianas Trench.
Anita Hill’s name became public on a Sunday. The re-opened hearing on the Thomas nomination commenced on Friday of the same week. And it was the Democrats who set that schedule as they held the Senate majority.
But now it is too great of an imposition for Ford to be expected to testify with more than a week elapsing from her name being made public and the date for a hearing?