US Politics Mega-thread - Page 809

On October 05 2018 16:43 ReditusSum wrote:
I have been drunk a lot of times. I mean a lot. I've been drunk enough to stumble, slur my speech, puke, make a fool out of myself, etc. But I have only legitimately "blacked out" from drinking once. Every other time, I was three sheets to the wind, but I was still aware to some degree and the next day I might not remember every single joke or event, but I would remember the general events and tone of the conversations. So it is possible to drink a lot and never actually "black out" from drinking to the point where you could rape someone and not remember it.

Passing out from drinking is not the same as blacking out, or rather, it could potentially be the same, or it could potentially just be a person who is drunker than a skunk and then passed out. I've "passed out" drunk plenty of times, but I was only "blacked out" where I was walking around and talking but can't remember anything at all about the night one time. This is also inconclusive to me, precisely because the implication here is that Kavanaugh was "blacked out" and possibly assaulted Dr. Ford but just couldn't remember it, or perhaps remembered it as making a pass at a girl and didn't realize how horrified and frightened she was by it. So the accusation that he was blacked out to that point is very specific and having passed out once, or puked while drunk, doesn't really mean that he is lying when he says he never "blacked out".

Misrepresenting the claim doesn't really bother me. The witnesses can't corroborate the allegation. Period. Effectively, this means it didn't happen as far as they are concerned. Yes he is technically incorrect, but as far as he is being accused, I can understand his reasoning here. If you already have a problem with Kavanaugh, I could see this being seen as "dishonesty" but it really doesn't rise to that level for me.

The gathering she describes is somewhat specific though as far as location and people attending. I read this as him obviously saying: "I was never at a small party that wasn't really a party with those four people at that location."

The July 1st meeting seems like the only real inconsistency here, but without more details as to the precise nature of that gathering for "skis" I can't be sure that he is explicitly lying. It could be that this wasn't really a party at all, was specific to something else, there wasn't a lot of drinking, or any number of other reasons why it wouldn't qualify as a "party" and so wouldn't be relevant to his general assertion that the parties he attended never involved those specific people. I have gone to a friend's house for a few beers plenty of times where it couldn't be classified as a party or even a kick-back and therefore if I was being asked to list parties and kickbacks I would probably leave those out.

Has it been proven that he was aware his grandfather went to Yale? Regardless, this seems pretty weak.

Poor Rennate. She has the whole world calling her a slut because some dumb kids in a yearbook. I really can't blame Kavanaugh for not wanting to drag her name through the mud, and again, not sure exactly what he meant at the time. Certainly seems like they were implying she was getting around, but then again, who knows?

All this stuff is pretty hyper-nitpicking, and completely ignores the gaping holes in Dr. Ford's testimony, the allegations of her ex-boyfriend that she committed perjury multiple times, and her total lack of evidence or even solid recollection.

Milwaukee's District Attorney John Chisholm went so far as to rule that "there was no basis to conclusively link Mr Trammell's death to the actions taken by the police officers"

On October 05 2018 15:54 On_Slaught wrote:


Here's 10 for ya.

1. BK says in 2004 that he did not "personally" handle the judicial nomination of Judge Pryor and he "was not involved in the handling of his nomination." HOWEVER, emails show that he was involved in it before then. 4 emails show he is a liar. One, from 2003, literally was called "Pryor Working Group Contact List" which states that he should give the sender the contact info of "other person/groups that are going to be involved." The second literally says "Brett, at your request, I asked Matt to speak with Pryor about his interest" and that they should continue to discuss the matter going forward; The third shows he was sent an email saying there would be a meeting the following day about the Pryor nomination. Forth is an email he was sent inviting him to a conference call to coordinate Judge Pryors nomination. Copies of the emails below for reference.

+ Show Spoiler +

2. BK said in 2004 that he had never received any of the stolen Democratic documents by Miranda. HOWEVER, new email leaks show he absolutely "received" them.

+ Show Spoiler +

3. BK said in 2006 that he was not involved in the legal questions around detaining/torturing enemy combatants. HOWEVER, he recently admitted he was involved in discussions about access to counsel for detainees when meeting with Durbin. Durbin also claims there are emails that "support that fact."

+ Show Spoiler +

4. BK said last week that he had never been blackout drunk. Of course it's obvious to everyone why he has to say this. If he admitted to this then it would open the door to the possibility that Ford was telling the truth and he simply didn't remember. HOWEVER, there are a number of people coming out to say that this is flatly untrue. Their experiences with BK were with someone who would get drunk to the point of incoherence. Frankly, I don't even need their accounts to know this is bullshit. I'm not stupid or naive enough to believe that somebody who drank as much as this guy did (and whose best friend was an alcoholic) never drank to the point of blackout. Also, his friend Judge admits to getting blackout drunk back in high school in his book. Anyone really believe his best friend and drinking buddy wasn't doing the same? This is pure cover.

5. BK said last week that Bart O'Kavanaugh was a fictionalized character. HOWEVER, we now know his nickname back then was Bart. Also, the book references him puking after being drunk, something he not only admitted to being a regular occurrence in the hearings themselves but also in his 1983 letter. The reference to Bart in the book? Says he was "passed out after drinking." Obvious why he wouldn't be upfront about this.

6. BK said multiple times last week that all 4 people at the party said what Ford claimed never happened. HOWEVER, this is a misrepresentation of the facts resulting in a lie. What they said was they did not remember this happening.

7. BK said last week that "I have never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation." HOWEVER, Ford simply describes a small gathering of friends with drinking. His own calendar shows these sorts of gatherings are were not uncommon. Why deflect something so simple? Why not just say "sure I went to some house parties like this but I don't remember this one?" It simply isn't credible that he "never attended" a gathering like the one Ford described.

8. BK said about Ford's claims last week that "[N]one of those gatherings included the group of people that Dr. Ford has identified. And as my calendars show, I was very precise about listing who was there; very precise." HOWEVER, Ford said that Mark Judge and PJ were there. We know MJ was his friend but his calendar also says on his July 1 calendar entry that he was hanging with PJ. That's 2 of the 3 men Ford said were at the party.

+ Show Spoiler +

9. BK said he got into Yale without connections. HOWEVER, we know his grandfather attended Yale, making him a legacy student.

10. BK, through his lawyer, said as part of his explanation of Renate Alumni, that he had merely kissed Renate. HOWEVER, she says they never kissed. It's worth noting that apparently in one of the other 'Renate Alumni' kids yearbooks it says "You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate." Not exactly something you'd expect to see if these kids and her were telling the truth about their promiscuity, but whatever.

This doesn't even include things like his involvement of the Pickering judicial nomination and the legal questions behind warrantless wiretapping. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people could point out. Guy is bad news and the legal community, at least, knows it.

This article goes into a lot more of the fishy stuff and absurd deflections in many of his answers. His deflections are embarrassing when you dig into them. Nobody acts like this unless they have a guilty conscious and/or are trying to cover-up something.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals—indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you.

The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force—even, death—into situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.

On October 05 2018 18:20 Grumbels wrote:
I don't understand why police even have weapons. If police are armed, they will escalate ordinary situations involving petty annoyances. Situations where violence is the only solution are very rare and could involve specialized officers called in specifically for the event.

I found this quote somewhere:


There is a certain critique of the police which says that most of what police does is protect business interests and property owners, while criminalizing poverty. That they had their start in the slave patrol, that the war on drugs was intended as a method of oppressing black people, and that in black neighborhoods police serve as an occupying force. And that fascism already exists in the US in the police departments, because they're not functionally that different from brown shirts. And that the police, and law enforcement in general, is infiltrated by white nationalist movements and largely attracts recruits who have authoritarian personalities.

Make of that what you will, I agree with it myself but I'm not well versed enough in it to provide compelling arguments. Hence #abolishthepolice, which is what you might see occasionally.

On October 05 2018 10:39 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

Ginsberg wasn’t Sober during the SOTU a few years back and even appeared to be sleeping through part of it! But because she votes “the right way” noone gives a damn?

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ruth-bader-ginsburg-napping-alcohol-sotu-115172

Tick Tock Ginsberg!.....

On October 05 2018 16:55 On_Slaught wrote:
God forbid we expect him to be upfront and honest about EVERYTHING.

Implicit in this discussion is the idea of remembering what you did while drunk. You admit yourself that you dont remember everything despite getting "blacked out" but once. [...] However, even without regards for that literally noone who drinks as much as he did remembers everything they did while off their asses drunk. It's insulting to thinking minds that he would even insinuate that he has no memory lapses. It doesn't pass the laugh test.

On October 05 2018 17:32 Grumbels wrote:
"Alcohol-induced blackouts are defined as amnesia, or memory loss, for all or part of a drinking episode."

That's the clinical definition of blackout, if there's any part of an evening that you can't remember.

On October 05 2018 17:38 iamthedave wrote:
Somewhat less snarkily, any Conservatives seen the footage and want to comment?

On October 05 2018 19:35 ReditusSum wrote:
I don't think he was lying under oath, but honestly, there is really never going to be an agreement here. It is too political. From the very beginning this whole thing was political. It is impossible to have a fair reading of any of it. It looks like he did enough to secure the confirmation. Without any evidence it is just he-said-she-said and unless something else comes out, it will probably go down as one of those "two sides of history" moments that tend to pop up once in a while.

On October 05 2018 19:09 Gorsameth wrote:
No, that is not fitting behavior.
But neither is sitting/sleeping bored at a State of the Union that no one really gives a shit about comparable to flying off the rails at a hearing about your SC nomination.

The two are radically different situations.
But sure, feel free to message your representative and call on him/her to begin impeachment proceedings.

On October 05 2018 20:31 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

It literally went from ‘He is a gang rapist’ to ‘He is an angry white man who threw ice cubes at someone in the mid 80’s’.In the space of three days!

Can people see how maybe this whole thing has scared the shit out of some moderate democrat voters, especially ones with younger sons? This thing has backfired spectacularly on the Democrats.

On October 05 2018 20:31 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

It literally went from ‘He is a gang rapist’ to ‘He is an angry white man who threw ice cubes at someone in the mid 80’s’.In the space of three days!

Can people see how maybe this whole thing has scared the shit out of some moderate democrat voters, especially ones with younger sons? This thing has backfired spectacularly on the Democrats.