US Politics: Red, Red Whine

[Altherion]

28 minutes ago, felice said:

The accusations are corroborating evidence for each other, for a start. And Kavanaugh's own calendar confirmed he attended a party with the people Ford claimed were present in the time period she claimed it happened.

As far as I can tell, the accusations are completely independent of each other. And your last sentence amounts to "He went to a party with people widely known to be his friends at some point in the summer." This is true of nearly every high school student in America and it's not evidence of anything.

33 minutes ago, felice said:

It was a job interview, not a criminal trial, so presumption of innocence isn't relevant.

This is the real bone of contention: should the presumption of evidence be restricted to the courtroom or does it apply more generally? For example, should a completely uncorroborated accusation be sufficient to prevent somebody from being promoted? Should people be fired from their jobs for such things? Kicked out of various organizations they belong to? In fact, Senator Collins explicitly addressed this:

Quote

Some argue that because this is a lifetime appointment to our highest court, the public interest requires that doubts be resolved against the nominee. Others see the public interest as embodied in our long-established tradition of affording to those accused of misconduct a presumption of innocence. In cases in which the facts are unclear, they would argue that the question should be resolved in favor of the nominee.

Mr. President, I understand both viewpoints. This debate is complicated further by the fact that the Senate confirmation process is not a trial. But certain fundamental legal principles—about due process, the presumption of innocence, and fairness—do bear on my thinking, and I cannot abandon them.

In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be. We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.

The presumption of innocence is relevant to the advice and consent function when an accusation departs from a nominee’s otherwise exemplary record. I worry that departing from this presumption could lead to a lack of public faith in the judiciary and would be hugely damaging to the confirmation process moving forward.

 

[felice]

26 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

If that were true, then anyone can be successfully ruined as long as multiple accusations are lined up, even if none are corroborated by any other evidence, as is the case here.

Anyone with multiple past acquaintances who don't know each other but are willing to perjure themselves and put themselves in the line of fire for extreme retaliation in order to ruin an innocent man. And an enemy capable of finding and coordinating these potential perjurers in total secrecy. Yeah, I bet that happens all the time.

26 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

And I believe Ford's legal team already said that July 1 was not a viable date for the party in question.

Sourcing on that claim looks pretty dubious, and the reasoning of the "member of the legal team" doesn't hold up. Ford allegedly thinks she would have remembered if specific people named on the calendar had been present - but the calendar appears to describe a planned event, so those people might not have shown up after all. Or they might have arrived late. Or Ford might have seen them there at the time, but not remembered that minor detail - she obviously had other things on her mind. And even if that specific date wasn't the one, it's still evidence that Kavanaugh attended parties of the type Ford recalls with the people she recalls.

[TrueMetis]

It's funny, in the most depressing way imaginable, that people suddenly care so much about the reliability of eyewitnesses when it comes to this guys fucking job interview, but people have actually been executed or imprisoned based on eyewitness testimony.

Now conservatives might claim in response that that shouldn't have happen, but given the general push among conservatives for more execution which would increase the number of people killed on little evidence that seems like a pretty fucking hollow point to me.

But yeah, witness testimony with evidence disputing the claim, enough to execute people, witness testimony without evidence disputing the claim, not enough to deny a guy a job.

[Ran]

The real sticking point with Kavanaugh was his testimony, which is evidence to his credibility and his character. His evasions about the Miranda stolen documents (these may well be outright lies, in fact, but we don't know yet since the Republicans deliberately hid large swaths of documents that would be responsive to questions about this) and his role in prepping Bush-era nominees, and his obvious lying about his drinking habits in the past, plus his partisan rant and disrespect towards senators (especially Klobuchar, who moments before he claimed to respect), revealed flaws in his character and a lack of judicial temperament.

The fact that he may or may not have sexually assaulted Dr. Ford, and the fact that he may have waved his dick in the face of Ms. Ramirez, led to most of the stuff that made people think he was not suited to the job. Murkowski explicitly decided to not vote for him because of his temperament. His past colleague, Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institute, after strongly supporting him admitted he was wrong after his performance. Justice John Paul Stevens, who had been appointed by the Republican Gerald Ford, also had supported his nomination until these hearings and his conduct in them revealed his partisanship.

Susan Collins completely ignored his behavior and his lying to get him across the line. Her 45 minute speech never once touched on it. She didn't care, whereas many sober legal scholars do.

I don't think someone looking for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be derailed by accusations that cannot be proven and which are disputed by people cited as contemporary witnesses. However, a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be derailed by a failure of candor before the commitee. Not going to even get into the fact that, if we want to use the criminal "presumption of innocence" standard, there's substantial evidence that Kavanaugh lied about when he knew about the Ramirez allegation because there's clear evidence that he had been in contact with friends of the era urging them to defend him. We do not know the full extent of what this urging entailed, but if he asked former drinking buddies to lie, that'd be witness tampering.

[Altherion]

44 minutes ago, Ran said:

The real sticking point with Kavanaugh was his testimony, which is evidence to his credibility and his character. His evasions about the Miranda stolen documents (these may well be outright lies, in fact, but we don't know yet since the Republicans deliberately hid large swaths of documents that would be responsive to questions about this) and his role in prepping Bush-era nominees, and his obvious lying about his drinking habits in the past, plus his partisan rant and disrespect towards senators (especially Klobuchar, who moments before he claimed to respect), revealed flaws in his character and a lack of judicial temperament.

The point about Bush-era behavior is valid, but it did not appear to convince the Senators and, ironically, this line of reasoning was mostly drowned out by the accusations. On the other hand, the statement about his temperament is debatable. Time Magazine has an interesting article about this:

Quote

Kavanaugh’s testimony was effective for a parallel reason. To many Americans, and especially Republican politicians — the group that will determine his fate — he came off as a a good, old-school American man standing up for himself in the way that any man would. He evoked football repeatedly. He talked about lifting weights. He rattled off Red Sox players by name. He joked about drinking beer with his pals. He was furious and offended at how he’d been treated and the subtext was, unflinchingly, that he had the right to be. Kavanaugh seized his cultural mantle: unapologetic, loud, the most powerful man in the room.

As you say, there were some people who disagreed... but it worked, did it not?

[Ran]

Yeah, playing partisan politics and lobbying for your position on FOX news and WSJ op-eds is not how it is supposed to work. In fact, a dozen ethics complaints have been forwarded for adjudication due to his unbecoming conduct.

The "but it worked" argument is easy cynicism. It means he broke important norms to get where he is, as if winning his place matters more than insuring faith in the court. Kavanaugh and the GOP put the former over the latter, and the country will suffer the impact of that in the years to come.

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Dopey because the relevant question is whether Trump is governing like an autocrat in the way Trump and Erdogan are, and the answer to that is no. Trump likely does fancy himself a Putin/Xi sort of figure but this seems to be fancy in a pretty idle sense, as he's made no attempts to actually get autocratic powers - he backed down when the courts initially struck down the muslim ban, for instance.

Erdogan has conducted mass purges of the civil service/judiciary and army and altered the constitution to accord himself more power. Putin's political opponents live in fear of arrest or worse. We haven't had anything like this from Trump and the Republicans and we are a good way into the first term. 

So you're saying that because of the judicial system trump has been curbed. 

The same judicial system which has now had one of the justices who voted against trump replaced with someone who literally threatened Democrats. 

[DMC]

5 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Maybe it's my pro-union, blue collar western PA upbringing, but I don't see him as particularly liberal at all. He's a centrist which plays well. Getting the unions behind him (especially the teachers, good job there) will definitely help him. I hope he wins.

It's very hard to argue that Ojeda isn't resolutely pro-union.

4 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Maybe that's just because it's much easier to get people to agree to oppose something than it is to get people to agree on how something should change, or maybe it's because The Average Voter^(TM) is ignorant, ill-informed, uses magical/childish thinking, and refuses to think out further than the next step they're going to take. Pick your poison as to which of those you believe in, or if it's both (or other choices not listed) all at the same time.

There are a plethora of sources that describe in detail the current uninformed "swing" voter.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Seems to me that all the appeals to ethics, morality and principles (on both sides) are obviously just tools in what has become a war for the future of America, and perhaps the world.

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Trump himself are merely weapons deployed in this war. As an analogy, America was no doubt saddened by the civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was an acceptable price to its leaders in achieving its broader strategic objectives, which was to defeat a tenacious, resolute enemy.

Similarly, the brutal truth is that even if Kavanaugh is guilty of what his accusers claim, it is a price worth paying to get a majority conservative Supreme court, which could achieve conservative objectives for 20 years to come.

The same goes for Trump, who is a terrible person, but has delivered a  conservative Supreme court with perhaps only weeks to spare.

At stake is the very way of life conservatives hold dear, for which people have died in wars to defend. A little bit of dirty politics is a minimal price to pay to hold back the worldwide assault on that way of life for another few decades.

The issues at stake go far beyond one person.

[mormont]

15 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

Now that we're staring at a Kavanaugh approval, bracketing for a moment the sexual assault element...is it just fine to lie to the Senate now?

It's fine if you're a white Republican man, for whom this is a minor and understandable slip. If you're a minority, a woman or a Democrat, on the other hand, don't ever be any less than wholly truthful with a mountain of evidence to back you up. Some people get the presumption of innocence: others never have, and never will. Where was the high-minded 'presumption of innocence' advocacy when Clinton had to testify? Not coming from the people preaching about it now, that's for sure.

11 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

The larger question, beyond how one side or the other ekes out a victory, is how to move forward when the two sides no longer have different ideas on how reach the same goals, different priorities, even different interest groups as the base, but where each sees the other side as destructive, immoral and unhinged, where there is almost nothing left in common, not even a belief in civility.  Historically, this level of a rift ends in bloodshed.  We have the two sides literally seeing the same events, hearing the same words, reviewing the same material and coming to diametrically opposite conclusions. 

This is a misdiagnosis, because on any objective assessment one side actually is destructive, immoral and unhinged. The other side is trying to figure out how to react to that.

Just because there are two sides to a story, that does not make both equally valid. Where there are two sides and two diametrically opposite conclusions, sometimes one of those sides is the truth and the other is a self-serving lie.

 

[Serious Callers Only]

Georgia is suppressing 10% of the vote, or 500.000 (black) people. Another fine example of 'fine people'. Texas is anemically following this example with 'thousands' (if that is not yet another coverup of something 'much' more serious instead of a cool calculation they don't need more).

[DMC]

46 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As an analogy, America was no doubt saddened by the civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was an acceptable price to its leaders in achieving its broader strategic objectives, which was to defeat a tenacious, resolute enemy.

Similarly, the brutal truth is that even if Kavanaugh is guilty of what his accusers claim, it is a price worth paying to get a majority conservative Supreme court, which could achieve conservative objectives for 20 years to come.

I've read a lot of analogies over the years.  And there are worse, but not many.  Although this one is fascinating.  Are you asserting confirming Kavanaugh is as morally iniquitous and destructive as dropping the bomb?

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Seems to me that all the appeals to ethics, morality and principles (on both sides) are obviously just tools in what has become a war for the future of America, and perhaps the world.

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Trump himself are merely weapons deployed in this war. As an analogy, America was no doubt saddened by the civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was an acceptable price to its leaders in achieving its broader strategic objectives, which was to defeat a tenacious, resolute enemy.

Similarly, the brutal truth is that even if Kavanaugh is guilty of what his accusers claim, it is a price worth paying to get a majority conservative Supreme court, which could achieve conservative objectives for 20 years to come.

The same goes for Trump, who is a terrible person, but has delivered a  conservative Supreme court with perhaps only weeks to spare.

At stake is the very way of life conservatives hold dear, for which people have died in wars to defend. A little bit of dirty politics is a minimal price to pay to hold back the worldwide assault on that way of life for another few decades.

The issues at stake go far beyond one person.

Would really love to hear what this consists of.

[butterbumps!]

Hey, to the “no evidence” people—

how much physical, multiply coorborated, beyond a reasonable doubt standards of evidence would you insist on to make sure that a woman rumored to have made false accusations of harassment in the workplace doesn’t get unfairly tossed out in her interview process to your firm?   Do you look for similar levels of substantiation in those circumstances, or is the mere suggestion enough to pass her over for another equally suitable candidate?   If asked about those claims during the interview, and if she behaved like Kavanaugh, would you want her at your firm, even if innocent of committing false accusations?

 

Also, what do you guys think about the extremely opaque way Republicans have handled Kavanuagh’s history?   All of the previously hidden and inaccessible docs, the lack of a real investigation for the sexual assault claims, the absurd one hour limit to reading the findings, all of which suggest there’s a lot more to see here, much of it probably not great (or else just make this public and do a real investigation).  You guys think that’s cool?   

[OldGimletEye]

8 hours ago, mcbigski said:

This thread title was prophetic, really.

To paraphrase Pat Benatar, hit me with you best shot, fire away.

I'm not really all that interested in whining, as I'm taking the Kavanaugh nomination and jamming it up the conservativism's butt. And then laughing and snickering when conservatives say, "golly, can't we be more civil!"

I know damn well that whining won't do a damn bit of good. But, playin' hardball with the conservatism, just might. I'd hope my fellow lefties would come to the same conclusion. And I think they are.

[Chaircat Meow]

1 hour ago, butterbumps! said:

Hey, to the “no evidence” people—

how much physical, multiply coorborated, beyond a reasonable doubt standards of evidence would you insist on to make sure that a woman rumored to have made false accusations of harassment in the workplace doesn’t get unfairly tossed out in her interview process to your firm?   Do you look for similar levels of substantiation in those circumstances, or is the mere suggestion enough to pass her over for another equally suitable candidate?   If asked about those claims during the interview, and if she behaved like Kavanaugh, would you want her at your firm, even if innocent of committing false accusations?

 

Also, what do you guys think about the extremely opaque way Republicans have handled Kavanuagh’s history?   All of the previously hidden and inaccessible docs, the lack of a real investigation for the sexual assault claims, the absurd one hour limit to reading the findings, all of which suggest there’s a lot more to see here, much of it probably not great (or else just make this public and do a real investigation).  You guys think that’s cool?   

I think you’ve got an unstated assumption here that if a reason for someone objecting to an appointment is valid and conclusive for them it is ipso facto compulsive for everyone to object to the appointment on the same grounds. As this is not true the argument fails.

To take your example, let’s say you’re a candidate for a job and you have an excellent curriculum vitae and are very talented but there is an accusation of making false claims of harassment. Now, I think it would be reasonable for some members of the hiring committee, let’s say they’re men, to say let’s not hire butterbumps! as we can get equally good candidates without running the risk they have a disposition to make false claims, or that they have made false claims in the past.

Now, while these men may have a valid and conclusive reason to turn you down for the job their reasoning is not of such a nature that it is compulsive for anyone else to accept it. Let’s say there is one very enlightened kitty chairing the hiring committee, called Chaircat. Chaircat says, hold the phone here guys, we don’t know, to any reasonable standard of proof that butterbumps! makes false accusations. For all we know she was harassed and if we turn her down she will be losing out on a job she is well qualified for because of wrongs that were committed against her. Let’s stick to our guns and hire butterbumps!

Chaircat’s reasoning is plainly valid and reasonable, even if we agree the rest of the committee are also within their rights.

Therefore the reasoning of the hiring committee, although reasonable enough, would not be of such a nature that Chaircat would have to accept it on pain of doing the wrong thing. It would only become morally compulsive for Chaircat to turn down butterbumps! for the job if the accusations against butterbumps! of making false accusations passed a relevant standard of proof, let’s say the standard of being more likely than not (so not criminal standard).

So, while the accusations against Kavanaugh may be perfectly sufficient for you to reasonably oppose his nomination this does not mean everyone else ought to oppose the nomination on the same grounds. All that follows is that they can if they want to.

In conclusion we can say that the presumption of innocence is relevant here if we’re saying how people ought to behave in a case like this. If you want to claim people should turn someone down because of an accusation you need to show the accusation meets the relevant standard of proof. Of course, they can reasonably turn them down anyway, regardless of whether the accusation meets the standard but they don’t have to.

[OldGimletEye]

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Seems to me that all the appeals to ethics, morality and principles (on both sides) are obviously just tools in what has become a war for the future of America, and perhaps the world.

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Trump himself are merely weapons deployed in this war. As an analogy, America was no doubt saddened by the civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was an acceptable price to its leaders in achieving its broader strategic objectives, which was to defeat a tenacious, resolute enemy.

Similarly, the brutal truth is that even if Kavanaugh is guilty of what his accusers claim, it is a price worth paying to get a majority conservative Supreme court, which could achieve conservative objectives for 20 years to come.

Thank you for clarifying the nature of things. This I think describes how the conservatism is going to roll and the left and centrist should understand that.

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

At stake is the very way of life conservatives hold dear, for which people have died in wars to defend. 

Wait, I thought alt right guys watch old WW2 movies and root for the Nazis.

I grew up around quite a few WW2 vets, and while perhaps being a bit sexist and racists, being men of their generation, I think they would have been pretty fuckin' appalled by the idiots at Charlottesville .

I don't think all these old guys fought in places like North Africa and Europe just so conservatives could bust up their unions later.

I don't think Isaac Woodward enlisted  in the army only to get beaten by a couple of racists cops later.

Tell me about how Dick Cheney went off to Vietnam to fight for his "conservative values" rather than taking 5 deferments?

Or how about John Bolton, why didn't he take the opportunity to fight for the conservatism, rather than going to law school, and then blaming liberals for his chickenhawkery? Was he afraid his cheesey 1970s porn stache might get singed a little by napalm?

Or how about Mr Poopy pants Ted Nugent? What was the problem? That people might shoot back?

And I think your understanding of American political history is quite limited. Fact is the there was strong strain of isolationism within the old right. Think Robert Taft for instance. And I'm actually a bit sympathetic to that school of thought to some extent. Too bad, it's mostly gone now.

[butterbumps!]

32 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I think you’ve got an unstated assumption here that if a reason for someone objecting to an appointment is valid and conclusive for them it is ipso facto compulsive for everyone to object to the appointment on the same grounds. As this is not true the argument fails.

To take your example, let’s say you’re a candidate for a job and you have an excellent curriculum vitae and are very talented but there is an accusation of making false claims of harassment. Now, I think it would be reasonable for some members of the hiring committee, let’s say they’re men, to say let’s not hire butterbumps! as we can get equally good candidates without running the risk they have a disposition to make false claims, or that they have made false claims in the past.

Now, while these men may have a valid and conclusive reason to turn you down for the job their reasoning is not of such a nature that it is compulsive for anyone else to accept it. Let’s say there is one very enlightened kitty chairing the hiring committee, called Chaircat. Chaircat says, hold the phone here guys, we don’t know, to any reasonable standard of proof that butterbumps! makes false accusations. For all we know she was harassed and if we turn her down she will be losing out on a job she is well qualified for because of wrongs that were committed against her. Let’s stick to our guns and hire butterbumps!

Chaircat’s reasoning is plainly valid and reasonable, even if we agree the rest of the committee is also within their rights.

Therefore the reasoning of the hiring committee, although reasonable enough, would not be of such a nature that Chaircat would have to accept it on pain of doing the wrong thing. It would only become morally compulsive for Chaircat to turn down butterbumps! for the job if the accusations against butterbumps! of making false accusations passed a relevant standard of proof, let’s say the standard of being more likely than not (so not criminal standard).

So, while the accusations against Kavanaugh may be perfectly sufficient for you to reasonably oppose his nomination this does not mean everyone else ought to oppose the nomination on the same grounds. All that follows is that they can if they want to.

In conclusion we can say that the presumption of innocence is relevant here if we’re saying how people ought to behave in a case like this. If you want to claim people should turn someone down because of an accusation you need to show the accusation meets the relevant standard of proof. Of course, they can reasonably turn them down anyway, regardless of whether the accusation meets the standard but they don’t have to.

Yea, this wall of superfluous text argues against something I didn’t posit.   I’m asking if all of these people claiming that the accusations against Kavanaugh are baseless and not reason to not hire him would hold the same standard in an alternate scenario.  Specifically, if those who are stating that they subscribe to a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for one scenario would continue to hold that standard in an other context.  

Your post responds to an argument about whether if it’s reasonable for one to believe something, then it’s compulsory for all to believe the same thing.   Which I did not argue.  I’m asking specifically about consistency in the individuals purporting to hold certain standards of evaluation.