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US Politics: Donnie and the Mystery of the Anonymous Op-Ed


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Mark Judge Must Be Called to the Stand
Senate Republicans are refusing to call Christine Blasey Ford’s second alleged attacker, perhaps because he’s a terrible character witness for Brett Kavanaugh.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/mark-judge-brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-testify.html

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold hearings starting Monday with Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school. Both Ford and Kavanaugh appear likely to testify, but they are not the only witnesses who should be called to the stand. As a number of legal pundits noted, there is a third person who must be questioned by the committee: Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmate, Mark Judge, who Ford said was allegedly involved in the attack.

 

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46 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yes - I was more saying if his eventual response is that he doesn't remember anything, he probably doesn't.  

Look I'm biased towards believing her. Because I know that is my bias, I am approaching the whole situation with healthy skepticism.  

I do think it's completely possible that he does not remember it and that it did actually happen. All accounts indicate that he liked to get smashed, and I believe it was you that has joked around about lawyers and alcoholism. :P

One thing I haven't seen discussed that much his her career. She's a college professor, and she has to know this could ruin her career if it's discovered that she made it all up. That makes me believe that she is telling the truth, at least to the best of her memory. 

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41 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

Every single Democrat should hammer McConnell (as well as every Republican who supported his stance on Garland) with the following: "Senator McConnell, when Justice Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court became available you insisted that the American people have a say on his successor by way of the upcoming election. Especially given the controversy surrounding the current nominee to replace Justice Kennedy, and with an election mere weeks away, shouldn't the American people once again get to have the same say"? 

This message should get hammered home over and over and over again. As you, @SpaceForce Tywin et al. say yourself, the Republicans (and their hardcore base) might not care about the hypocrisy, but the average voter might, and Democrats should make McConnell and the rest of those motherf*ckers squirm as much as possible. They have no credible response, and that needs to be hammered home to voters as much as possible!

It's high time that the Democrats take the gloves off, Republican-style!

I completely agree, though individual politicians don't even need to do the heavy lifting. PACs should be flooding the airwaves with ads, highlighting what you said and strongly driving home the message that Republican Senators are liars, fakes and frauds. 

One thing that really confused me about the 2016 election was the people who voted for Trump because he was not a politician. It's true that he had never held office, but his traits and tendencies are that of the worst kind of politician in the world, the one that everyone hates.

Liar? Check

Using public office for personal enrichment? Check

Appearance of corruption? Check

Idiot? Check

Lazy? Check

Constantly vacationing? Check

I could go on and on. Trump is some how an amalgamation of the worst traits of a politician, and yet he gets a complete pass from his base who claim to hate all of those things.

:dunno:

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-supporters_us_5ba12864e4b04d32ebfd446d

 

All those people, all those women, who supported Kavanaugh initially?  Now that they've heard the story, they mostly are not supporting him.

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After Ford went public with her allegations, hundreds of women who went to her high school ― including actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus ― signed a letter supporting her.

And those who say they still are supporting him, they don't want their names out there, they want to be anonymous.

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49 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Do you work? If you don't, you might not get this.

Lets say that you have the option to hire someone. There are a LOT of viable, good candidates, far more than you could ever fill positions in, and you have your pick of the litter. One of the candidates has gone through your vetting process with some questions. Now this accusation comes up.

Why would you bother hiring them when you could hire someone else? Why would you want the drama? You're not ruining their career, you're simply choosing another way. Same thing applies here. 

 

Because they are running out of time, and Trump is not the type to understand strategic retreat. 

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4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-supporters_us_5ba12864e4b04d32ebfd446d

 

All those people, all those women, who supported Kavanaugh initially?  Now that they've heard the story, they mostly are not supporting him.

And those who say they still are supporting him, they don't want their names out there, they want to be anonymous.

And VEEP finally connects itself to the VEEEPiest Administration ever. 

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

But in the US they seem to get brought up regularly when rating the probability of this incident or trustworthiness of that figure and it utterly baffles me.

No not really, or at least entirely.  The US media will report lie detector results as if they have credibility.

1 hour ago, SweetPea said:

No, it's the other way around. To me, accusations without evidence are not enough reason to deny someone from the highest court in land.

Well that seems to be an ass-backwards way for any responsible citizen to evaluate an office seeker.  One would think standards - which would necessarily entail a thorough investigation instead of this bullshit they're setting up on Monday - would precede acceptance.  What you're saying is acceptance without verification.  Tsk, very un-Reagan-like.

46 minutes ago, Kalbear said:
  • 2012 notes from therapist about the incident, well before Kavanaugh was a glimmer on the SCOTUS view

To be fair, the bolded just is not true, he was on the radar as a potential Romney nominee.

23 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Mark Judge Must Be Called to the Stand

Random thought, but does anyone else feel bad for Mike Judge right now?

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5 minutes ago, DMC said:

To be fair, the bolded just is not true, he was on the radar as a potential Romney nominee.

That's fine - but there was barely any news about it at the time, and he certainly wasn't the defacto choice by most. Heck, he wasn't on Trump's shortlist until recently - and a lot of that had to do (I suspect) with Kennedy wanting some say in the matter based on his retirement. 

 

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49 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Well, the other rapey drunk frat-boy is hiding.

Key witness tells senators he won't testify at Kavanaugh hearing
Mark Judge says he won't go before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/18/grassley-kavanaugh-accuser-hearing-827921

Exactly the kind of courage we'd expect from the Manly Man who called Obama the "first female President" and wrote that George W. Bush patting his wife on the ass in public showed that "he knew who was boss." 

Ye fucking gods, is there not a single right-wing male with a spine or guts? Are they all just cringing little twerps trying to fake it till they make it?

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4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Heck, he wasn't on Trump's shortlist until recently - and a lot of that had to do (I suspect) with Kennedy wanting some say in the matter based on his retirement. 

Well, I don't really agree with that.  He's always been on at least Trump's top 20 list (or I guess mid-list, if you will), albeit I don't recall the Gorsuch-nomination short-list, so maybe.  Point is he was on the national radar among politically interested parties in 2012, specifically as a potential SC justice.  And, well, I'd think she's an interested party.  In fact it would make sense for why that came up in therapy - not in a bad way, just as a good time to address it.

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Why would anyone feel sorry for Judge, who lurves posting soft core photos of young women online? (He took down his photobucket with all those young women in soap bubbles etc. when the Ford information broke.)  Plus he believes a whole lot of ugly shyte about women, people of color, you name it.

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/09/17/brett-kavanaugh-s-character-witness-mark-judge-has-extremely-disturbing-views-about-women-and-black/221339

The person we need to admire and protect is Ford, not these posses of guys? Rape and murder seems quite typical behavior for their ilks, and it tends to indeed begin in high school.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-skakel-was-convicted-of-murdering-martha-moxley-so-why-is-he-free

Or as Kavanaugh stated in 2015, "It's a good thing for all of us that what happens at Georgetown Prep stays in Georgetown Prep:

The thing is these guys cannot resist bragging about doing this stuff, from assault in chief all the way down.  They love doing it and the brag.  Locker room talk, yah?

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6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Why would anyone feel sorry for Judge, who lurves posting soft core photos of young women online? (He took down his photobucket with all those young women in soap bubbles etc. when the Ford information broke.)  Plus he believes a whole lot of ugly shyte about women, people of color, you name it.

Mike Judge.

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Supreme Court Lets Stand a Decision Requiring ‘Dark Money’ Disclosure
Advocates for greater campaign finance disclosure said the high court’s move would enable voters to find out who’s paying for the campaign ads they’re seeing on television.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/supreme-court-lets-stand-a-decision-requiring-dark-money-disclosure/570670/

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Secret money in politics will soon be a lot less secret.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court ruling forcing politically active nonprofit groups to disclose the identities of any donor giving more than $200 when those groups advertise for or against political candidates.

Until now, such nonprofit organizations—generally, those of the 501(c)(4) “social welfare” and 501(c)(6) “business league” varieties—could keep secret their donors under most circumstances.

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It  wasn’t immediately clear whether nonprofit groups that advocate for and against political candidates must retroactively disclose their funders or only do so going forward, contingent on their future political spending.

Nevertheless, disclosure advocates hailed the Supreme Court’s “dark money” decision.

 

 

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3 hours ago, S John said:

I should know better than to wade into this, but I have to agree.  

I am a liberal.  I don't want Kavanaugh on the court, but I can't say I believe or do not believe the accuser until evidence is presented because I don't know any of these people personally or what they are like as human beings.  To be completely honest, I am having a hard time getting over the timing on this one. 

I believe that the victim of a crime should have the space to come forward whenever they are comfortable doing so, but 38 years later at a key moment in the life of the accused that is also of monumental political importance?  How can that not beg the question - Is this about justice or is this about stalling this appointment long enough to see if the Dems can retake congress?  I don't see how it could not raise some suspicions.  Not that the R's don't deserve that after sabotaging Garland, but damn.

SJ, do you think if when you were 15, two shit-faced slightly older guys grabbed you, pulled you into a bedroom, locked the door and tried to pull your pants down to while piling on top of you and putting hands over your mouth preventing you from breathing, you'd remember that for years?

eta: And that you might be just a bit traumatized about a near-rape?

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25 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, I don't really agree with that.  He's always been on at least Trump's top 20 list (or I guess mid-list, if you will), albeit I don't recall the Gorsuch-nomination short-list, so maybe.  Point is he was on the national radar among politically interested parties in 2012, specifically as a potential SC justice.  And, well, I'd think she's an interested party.  In fact it would make sense for why that came up in therapy - not in a bad way, just as a good time to address it.

He wasn't on the list that Gorsuch got supplied on. 

In any case, he certainly wasn't day to day national news in 2012; one had to go reasonably far to seek it out. On the other hand, I could see her reading that in that case and wanting to talk about it. Not that this discredits her particularly. 

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3 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Higher standard than what? Being accused of something without proof? Give me a break...

It's cute that all the Sweet Pea types pretend to care about "due process" as it relates to people like Kavanaugh and Roy Moore. It's not that they excuse sexual violence see, they just want to wait for a full trial that they know will never take place so that they can conveniently ignore these claims.

Look dude, the point being if someone is running for public office or up for this type of nomination they are held to a higher standard. People can look at the veracity of the accusations, how the individual responds/what their history is with lying and then decide if if the claims are disqualifying. Once again this isn't some criminal case where due process would apply. 

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2 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

That's something you stick to when attempting to put people in prison, it's not something you should stick to when trying to appoint someone to one of the most powerful positions in your country.

I should know better... But I'll beg to differ. The problem about lowering the burden of proof in this case means it's then lowered for good, for all cases even remotely similar. That's a very powerful weapon to grant to whoever is in the opposition.

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