Corey Booker and Kavanaugh Hearing

[Seriati]

I'm not getting to watch any of the day's proceedings, but I was struck by this article.  Corey Booker has apparently decided to deliberately violate the rules of the Senate (which means he could be subject to expulsion - though I presume, he already knows that it would take a majority that can't be reached).  He's doing it to release Kavanaugh emails on racial profiling.  Here's the Fox article http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/06/kavanaugh-questioning-enters-final-stretch-as-dems-seem-to-lay-traps.html

Now what struck me, is he claims he can't see any national security reason for these to have been excluded.

Booker on Thursday drew attention to one 2002 email in particular from Kavanaugh that had the subject line “racial profiling.”

In the email, Kavanaugh, who was working as a lawyer in the Bush White House, said he “generally” favored race-neutral security measures, but said they need to “grapple” with the “interim question of what to do before a truly effective and comprehensive race-neutral system is developed and implemented.”

Kavanaugh wrote that the “interim question” is of “critical importance to the security of the airlines and American people in the next 6 months or so, especially given Al Qaeda’s track record of timing between terrorist incidents.”

This was a discussion in the six months after September 11th about how to maintain plane security until a race neutral system could be implemented.  How exactly does a US Senator not see a national security basis for exclusion?

If anything that email makes Kavanaugh look better.  And while I've always had a soft spot for Corey, this makes him look like a crazy person.

[D.W.]

How exactly does a US Senator not see a national security basis for exclusion?

The timing is important.  What was obviously a legitimate national security issue then, may obviously NOT be legitimate any longer.

[Seriati]

Executive thought on protecting the country from an emergency threat by a racial group is still a national security matter.  That's not going to change. 

Do you believe that your government should engage in racial profiling if it has actionable intel of such a threat attributable to a specific minority group?

[D.W.]

Nope

[Mynnion]

Considering an email released by an anonymous source where Kavanaugh claimed Roe V Wade was not settled law calls into question what has been deemed as classified.

[TheDrake]

Do you believe that your government should engage in racial profiling if it has actionable intel of such a threat attributable to a specific minority group?

If you have actionable intel, you should have more information than the race of the dude you think is about to do something.

"A muslim wants to hijack a plane" is NOT actionable intel.

[Seriati]

Actually, we knew quite a bit more about Al Queda, even at the time, than a "a muslim wants to hijack a plane."  That's not actionable intel, which makes it a strawman response.

[Seriati]

Here's a pretty good opinion piece from the WSJ on why Congress is at fault for the SC becoming so politicized.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/blame-congress-for-politicizing-the-court-1536189015

The real key is not so much the moralizing, as just the acknowledgement that dumping so much authority into administrative agencies is behind much of what is wrong with our system.

[TheDrake]

Racial profiling isn't pulling aside people suspected of being Al Queda operatives, it's pulling aside random people belonging to that race for screening. It is a burden on those people, and a distraction from more effective law enforcement. Pulling aside people travelling from certain countries is not racial profiling, or any other actionable intel.

In the emails, they describe an "interim response" that is not race neutral, but it never gets into much detail about how race would be "a factor" without it being the only factor.

[Seriati]

So, if we were able to identify a specific terrorist threat coming from a racial group of 4 million people, of which less than 500 travel into the US annually, you would not support targeted searches of people in that group?  If 100 people from the group more than is typical purchased tickets in the window of the known threat, it would be perfectly okay with you to ignore that statistical blip?

There was no question that post 9/11 airline screening had to improve.  There is no question that - at that time - we did not have in place systems or capacity to go from zero to complete race neutral screening.  Kavanaugh literally said we need to get to a race neutral system (by the way, it wasn't - and isn't clear - that consideration of race was not legal, which means he was advocating for the right answer where its arguable it was legal to argue for the "wrong" answer), and that while we go from zero to race neutral we need to consider if we should have a targeted system given the conflict between the need for security and the limited resources we had available.

Whether you agree or disagree with any final position, it's hard to see how that isn't a reasonable position to take.

[TheDrake]

Now who's got a straw man? What racial group has 2 people per day in it travelling to a country the size of the united states? And could thousands of airport screeners correctly identify members of that group, or would it just generically be anybody vaguely arab looking?

Anyway, nothing Kavanaugh said was particularly bothersome to me, he clearly describes wrestling with the moral implications.

[Seriati]

Now who's got a straw man? What racial group has 2 people per day in it travelling to a country the size of the united states?

Plenty.  Do you have any idea how many identifiable ethnic groups there are?  How many with less than 5 million people in them.

I agree intelligence about a threat from someone of Han background is worthless.  But that wouldn't be actionable for that exact reason.

And could thousands of airport screeners correctly identify members of that group, or would it just generically be anybody vaguely arab looking?

How many thousands of University administrators correctly apply such labels?  Airport screeners have the advantage of advance information on most passengers, as well as, lots of experience. 

It could be that it would be poorly applied.

So, just to confirm, you would rather ignore the known threat than apply additional screening to those 100 passengers.

What if it was a non-racial metric?  Say the proverbial one-armed man?  Or how about someone from a specific region of the world?  What about in the event of an infectious disease?

Anyway, nothing Kavanaugh said was particularly bothersome to me, he clearly describes wrestling with the moral implications.

Yes, which makes Booker's questions on the first day little more than blatant fear mongering and an attempt at a smear.

[TheDrake]

So, just to confirm, you would rather ignore the known threat than apply additional screening to those 100 passengers.

What if it was a non-racial metric?  Say the proverbial one-armed man?  Or how about someone from a specific region of the world?  What about in the event of an infectious disease?

"We're looking for a Sikh with a Sri-Lankan passport who is travelling to Los Angeles." Okay, yeah, now maybe some extra screening makes sense, even if you don't know much more than that. But that's no longer racial or religious profiling.

"Let's screen more arab looking people than european looking people" - that's profiling, and I am fully against it. To use such a metric, you have to be clueless about any details concerning the "known threat", don't you?

[Seriati]

TheDrake, my specific hypo was for "actionable intel" yet your responses are completely related to generic racial metrics.  That's why I'm saying you're talking strawman.  Nothing you put forward would be actionable.  Not anymore than a report that a group of men were going to be the terrorists.  Does that mean that considering gender is off the table?

What about FBI profiling?  If virtually all terrorists are men between the ages of 14 and 34 (made up), is that something that has to be excluded from the screening list just because the vast majority of people in that group are not terrorists?

Here's a list from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_ethnic_groups.  Not that I think this is necessarily correct.  You may note "Arab" represents 450 million people.  That's not going to be useful to identify a particular person.  There are other groups that are so small that you probably could identify the specific person by including that as a factor. 

You seem to be advocating that we have to ignore known facts, rather than include them as part of the puzzle.  I think you're conflating the concept with the idea that it would be the ONLY fact we use.

[TheDrake]

I agree. In your cases, racial profiling is not in play. Just because a description of a man you're looking for includes race, you still have a race-neutral system as described in the emails.

I can't cut and paste, but Helgard Walkers mail on 1/17/2002 describes a view that a race-neutral system is preferable, and uses criteria like passport, travel, criminal history, etc.

To kick the whole discussion off, Kavanaugh writes:

"The fundamental problem in this case is that these DOT regulations use a lot of legalisms and disguises to mask what in reality is a naked racial set-aside."

He is not discussing actionable intelligence. He is describing a system that, all other factors being equal, what they really want to do is just screen a bunch of random Muslims. Am I missing something? It was talked about a lot at the time, that broadly speaking we should be screening more Muslims because they are the bad guys.

We generally don't treat age discrimination the same way, but I'll note that much snickering has been done over a grandma that gets pulled out for random extra screening - but that's what an age-neutral system looks like. It says, if we're going to hassle people, then everybody has to feel the pain equally. And we're going to spend some resources in order to maintain that equality.

[Ronald Lambert]

It has been reported on FNC that Corey Booker was informed over five hours before he made his comments in the senate hearing that the documents he requested have been released for his and public viewing. So his "Spartacus" claims about nobly defying senate rules was just grandstanding. He did not, in fact, violate any senate rules, and was therefore in no danger of being expelled from the senate. And he knew it!

Likely this was just another case of Democrats trying to screech and moan and do all they can to obstruct and delay the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.

By the way, the documents in question showed that Kavanaugh many times explicitly opposed using racial profiling, according to people who have read them.

[TheDrake]

Ha ha.

Warned he was breaking the rules, Booker released them anyway. It turned out the Kavanaugh emails had been cleared for release hours before. He wasn’t defying anything. It was a stunt.

And Kavanaugh’s views on racial profiling?

The emails showed Kavanaugh to be opposed to racial profiling of all kinds.

Chicago Tribune

Even CNN can't find anything to extract from the email to make Kavanaugh look bad. Make no mistake though, the approval was sneaky late (4am) after previous denial. In this boxing match, Booker lunged and got caught with a right cross.

The larger battle is making it look like the White House is trying to hide things about Kavanaugh, even though they have everything from his time as a White House lawyer. Democrats want to dig through his time as staff secretary, probably hoping that one of millions of pieces of correspondence can be used to make him look horrible - as opposed to looking at all the material and weighing it appropriately to get an accurate picture.

Even that in itself shouldn't be necessary, he's been a circuit judge for 12 years, I think his opinions and rulings in public record should be more than adequate to determine if he is a good judge or not.

[Seriati]

"The fundamental problem in this case is that these DOT regulations use a lot of legalisms and disguises to mask what in reality is a naked racial set-aside."

I think you're confusing email chains.  That's from August 2001 (before Sept 11).  That's referring to a practice whereby the DOT gave preference to hiring minority owned firms even when they were not the low bidder, notwithstanding the requirement to favor the low bidder.

His analysis was that the Justices would view the actual reg as window dressing on an illegal form of racial preference.  Not sure why Corey thought this was controversial either.  It's almost like, he thinks Kavanaugh's legal conclusions about the state of the law are his personal opinion (or more likely he just needs a key word to match so he can say whatever he wants).

He is not discussing actionable intelligence. He is describing a system that, all other factors being equal, what they really want to do is just screen a bunch of random Muslims. Am I missing something? It was talked about a lot at the time, that broadly speaking we should be screening more Muslims because they are the bad guys.

I think you should re-look at this, as I don't think this accurately describes what was disclosed (on either email chain).

[Greg Davidson]

The legal process is not being followed for release of Kavanaugh's records - according to the law, it is the National Archives that should go through the documents to determine what is to be released. For the Kavanaugh documents, they have a former co-worker of his in the Bush White House making those determinations. 
 

[Seriati]

Based on what the National Archives says about Presidential libraries (I looked in the Obama context to avoid contamination), the plans of release are in fact coordinated with the Presidents themselves, they're also subject to additional overlays related to other release restrictions.

Where do you see something showing this is not in accordance with the law? 

[Greg Davidson]

The Archives said Wednesday that the decision for Bush's representatives to provide documents directly to the Judiciary Committee, bypassing the agency, "is something that has never happened before."

"This effort by former President Bush does not represent the National Archives or the George W. Bush Presidential Library. The Senate Judiciary Committee is publicly releasing some of these documents on its website, which also do not represent the National Archives," the agency said in a statement.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/402061-national-archives-distances-itself-from-bush-team-on-kavanaugh-documents

Notably, the guy performing the screening (Bill Burck) is the lawyer for multiple Senior Trump White House officials, including Reince Preibus, Steve Bannon, and is also the lawyer for the primary White House official responsible for getting Kavanaugh confirmed (Don McGahn).
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17819062/bill-burck-kavanaugh-explained

So Kavanaugh is the nominee with the most extreme position anyone has ever heard regarding Presidential immunity from criminal charges or even criminal investigations. Just this week, Kavanaugh refused to say that he found anything illegal or improper about a President offering a pardon in exchange for silence. And Burck represents multiple people from an Administration that has already had multiple criminal convictions.

Remind me again why you flipped out when a former President spoke for 20 minutes on a tarmac with the Attorney General, but somehow this is okay?

[velcro]

This was a discussion in the six months after September 11th about how to maintain plane security until a race neutral system could be implemented.  How exactly does a US Senator not see a national security basis for exclusion?

Because the email did not discuss any actual security?  It just discussed whether racial profiling should occur.  Kavanaugh strongly implied it should occur in the short term, while saying he would "generally favor" a race-neutral system in the long term.

Absolutely no national security risk in releasing it.
This is clearly something that the American public has a right to know about someone sitting on the Supreme Court for decades. 

Why was this hidden until the day of the hearing?
Why was the hearing not delayed until the documents could be processed?  Republicans were fine being one justice short for what, a year? 

[Seriati]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/402061-national-archives-distances-itself-from-bush-team-on-kavanaugh-documents

So let me get this straight, your complaint is that Bush's lawyers are intervening to speed up the process by which President Bush's records are released (while the archives does it's own review of the records)? 

Seriously, you are complaining because the records are being released faster than they otherwise would be.

So Kavanaugh is the nominee with the most extreme position anyone has ever heard regarding Presidential immunity from criminal charges or even criminal investigations.

Is he?  Are you able to substantiate this in any real way?  Or are you just going on paraphrases of what you've been told?

Just this week, Kavanaugh refused to say that he found anything illegal or improper about a President offering a pardon in exchange for silence.

I think we generally agree that such conduct would lead to an impeachment.

I think it's interesting though that you seem to find it terrible that President (who has the Constitutional authority to pardon) would pardon some one in their own interests, but that a prosecutor can effectively pardon someone if that person agrees to testify how they want them to do so.  I think we all know that prosecutors sometimes trade pardons for specific testimony that may not be accurate.  Not to mention, how say in investigating Hillary the prosecutors not only avoided giving plea deals, they actual gave immunity deals for which they got zip, zilch and less we are confused, absolutely no testimony.

So are you uniformly against manipulating prosecutions, pardons, please and immunity?  Or only when it's against "bad" guys, or heck let's be honest, only when it helps a certain political party?

And Burck represents multiple people from an Administration that has already had multiple criminal convictions.

Personally I think Dems engage in far more political prosecutions so that's not surprising.  We also have, as noted above, many times where Dems were given immunity - in exchange for nothing - which completely hampered any ability to prosecute them and many of the people they worked for, as well as - so far, the convictions being pretty nonsensical. 

Remind me again why you flipped out when a former President spoke for 20 minutes on a tarmac with the Attorney General, but somehow this is okay?

The fact that you still don't understand why that was a real issue tells me everything I need to know about why you take the positions you do.  There's no justifying that meeting.  There's no federal or state prosecutor that is unaware that meeting should never take place.

[Greg Davidson]

I think it's interesting though that you seem to find it terrible that President (who has the Constitutional authority to pardon) would pardon some one in their own interests, but that a prosecutor can effectively pardon someone if that person agrees to testify how they want them to do so.

You are really climbing into the fortress of criminality now...

[TheDeamon]

I think it's interesting though that you seem to find it terrible that President (who has the Constitutional authority to pardon) would pardon some one in their own interests, but that a prosecutor can effectively pardon someone if that person agrees to testify how they want them to do so.

You are really climbing into the fortress of criminality now...

Well, that would certainly start to clear the bar for "high crimes" as basis for impeachment.

There is a world of difference between having both the executive and legal authority to issue pardons, and having the political ability to "get away with it."

So strictly speaking, from a legal perspective, as there doesn't appear to be any language under the Constitution which restricts Trump from behaving in such a manner, it is logical to conclude that he does, in fact have the legal authority to do so.

And Congress would subsequently be justified in impeaching him.

[Seriati]

That and I flat out acknowledged it would lead to an impeachment.

But I see you dodged the question.  You don't have an issue with a prosecutor cutting a deal where they hold over you say a 50-life sentence, but will give you 2 years suspended if you say want they want on the stand?  I mean that's a literal bribe, but we somehow give it a pass because we believe prosecutors are doing the "right thing."  Manafort got put in solitary pre-trial because the prosecution said he was trying to get a witness to say what he wants, now he's going to get a deal to say what Mueller wants and that's a "totally different thing."

[Wayward Son]

There is one major difference between a prosecutor's deal and a Presidential pardon.

The prosecutor's deal includes a clause that requires the dealee to tell the truth.  If it is discovered that he lied for whatever reason--even if the prosecutor directed him to--he would be subject to the full sentence.

While this does not guarantee truthfulness from a criminal, it is an incentive.  Not the mention the incentive of a prosecutor losing his career if it is discovered that he told a defendant to lie.

So the prosecutor should not be getting the dealee to "say what he wants."  He should be getting the dealee to say the truth that he wants.

[Seriati]

Avoiding 50 to life buys a lot of "truth."  What you said is really just an appeal to prosecutors being good guys and ignoring the massive incentives they bring to bear.

Let me ask you, do you want to go on the record and saying that everyone who takes a plea deal, whereby they are required to plead guilty to a "lesser" crime to avoid trial on a greater one, is actually guilty?  Here's a random link, stating more than 90% of criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas (looks like 97%).  https://theoutline.com/post/2066/most-criminal-cases-end-in-plea-bargains-not-trials?zd=1&zi=brinznuk

Easy to find bunches more.  These are the same prosecutors that you're relying on in making your case that they are getting to the truth.

[TheDrake]

Easy to find bunches more.  These are the same prosecutors that you're relying on in making your case that they are getting to the truth.

I'm not so sure about rampant encouragement of perjury. Among other things, if witnesses get caught out in contradictory statements it tends to ruin the case.

There's tons of pressure to dispose of cases and up the win record, but I'm not convinced that large numbers regularly lie - or even testify for that matter.

The other thing is, you can't make a case solely on the testimony of the proverbial "jail house snitch". Manafort wasn't gonna get convicted solely on his number-2 slimeball. It also took a ton of other evidence.

I'm not saying there aren't serious problems with plea bargaining, but it has a lot more to do with subverting the intent of the 5th amendment than HUA name names type pressure.

[Seriati]

I don't know TheDrake, I tend to think that people who are caught in a crime, where they were the mastermind, have a lot of incentive to say that someone else was behind it in exchange for a deal.  There's really not a lot of chance that you could credibly prove they perjured themselves.   If party one did every action in the crime and the government can prove party one's involvement and the crime, but they are after party 2, they can get a deal with party one to implicate party 2 by claiming party one was operating at their direction.  Party one very credibly explains every detail of the crime and the only evidence of party 2 is this now "credible witness" saying that party 2 did it.  Virtually impossible to catch and party one's incentive is massive.

Have you ever watched a tv show about a mafia trial, where a "boss" is caught but they pin it on a flunky?

Not to mention this doesn't even begin to touch how using immunity deals in other cases prevented any possibility of flipping people or pressuring people and in exchange the government received absolutely no testimony in any trial.

[TheDeamon]

Avoiding 50 to life buys a lot of "truth."  What you said is really just an appeal to prosecutors being good guys and ignoring the massive incentives they bring to bear.

Let me ask you, do you want to go on the record and saying that everyone who takes a plea deal, whereby they are required to plead guilty to a "lesser" crime to avoid trial on a greater one, is actually guilty?  Here's a random link, stating more than 90% of criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas (looks like 97%).  https://theoutline.com/post/2066/most-criminal-cases-end-in-plea-bargains-not-trials?zd=1&zi=brinznuk

Easy to find bunches more.  These are the same prosecutors that you're relying on in making your case that they are getting to the truth.

In a lot of cases, that is either the prosecutor deciding "there wasn't enough to convict" on a higher charge, so they "talked" the person in question into taking a lesser charge.

There actually are a few instances where people actually sought to be charged under particular laws so that they could challenge them on Constitutional grounds, only the prosecutors subsequently changed the charge to a lesser offense, often a misdemeanor, which left the person incapable of making their desired legal challenge. (Meanwhile, others took the lesser charge in order to simply "make it go away" Larry Craig style.)

[TheDrake]

If party one did every action in the crime and the government can prove party one's involvement and the crime, but they are after party 2, they can get a deal with party one to implicate party 2 by claiming party one was operating at their direction.  Party one very credibly explains every detail of the crime and the only evidence of party 2 is this now "credible witness" saying that party 2 did it.  Virtually impossible to catch and party one's incentive is massive.

In the case of co-conspirators I don't disagree. The first to turn gets the lighter sentence. In some cases, really really light. That's a far cry from picking somebody at random and pinning something on them, which is how I was reading the discussion. Is it possible that someone might embellish to please the prosecutor? That's not so unlikely. But neither is somebody embellishing (or omitting) for a variety of other reasons from revenge to shielding friends. It's the jury's job to determine credibility at all times - in all the cases where perjury really isn't in play. As you point out, proving perjury is difficult.

So you get Rick Gates, super sleazy guy, testifying against Manafort. The defense battered him. Including pointing out that he was getting a sweetheart deal. One of the Manafort jurors, Paula Duncan, described him to Fox News as nervous and doing whatever he could to save himself.

“So we agreed to throw out his testimony and look at the paperwork, which his name was all over,” she said, adding that they did not find him credible. “I think he would have done anything that he could to preserve himself. That's just obvious in the fact that he flipped on Manafort.”

[TheDrake]

Back to the confirmation hearings...

I demand that the FBI investigate before I tell my story? I'm sorry, I find that baffling. You've decided that you're going to come forward with an avoided painful memory out of a crisis of conscience, then you don't want to tell that story publicly? And instead ask for an investigation of... what exactly? Scouring back again across everything that previous background checks didn't turn up?

It seems clear from her account that there are only three people on the planet that really know if the incident happened. Unless he bragged about it on tape to Billy Bush. I don't know how any investigation resolves that 30 years after the fact. But it could create a delay of several weeks.

[Wayward Son]

So what's the big deal about a delay of a few weeks?  The last Supreme Court nominee was delayed well over 300 days before a nomination was even accepted.  For something as important as a life-time appointment, a few weeks here or there doesn't make much of a difference, does it?

[TheDrake]

I think it does. Particularly when it is pointless.

[Seriati]

I think if she was confident in her story she'd be willing to testify, I take wanting an investigation to occur - and be publicaly revealed in advance - as her way of avoiding perjury charges.  She'll see anything that could conflict with her current story, or any pieces she "remembers" at convenient times before she has to take an oath on what she says.

I mean if she picks a date and it turns out Kavanaugh was in Europe the gig is up.

Grassley is correct, she doesn't need any investigation to tell the truth about what she remembers.

[TheDrake]

Grassley is correct, she doesn't need any investigation to tell the truth about what she remembers.

Tell that to Guiliani. Telling the truth about what you remember isn't hard.

[DonaldD]

I think it does. Particularly when it is pointless.

So, what is the important difference that the delay makes?  To the substantial number of SC cases being heard over that two week period?  To the integrity of the process? 

Personally, I doubt very much that the claim being made by Ms Ford will have a decisive effect on the confirmation - and I don't think, from what I know know and what is likely to come out, that it should.

[Wayward Son]

I think it does. Particularly when it is pointless.

Why is it pointless?  Is the accusation trivial?  Is there no chance it is true?  If someone thinks it is neither trivial or unbelievable, shouldn't they have the chance to thoroughly investigate it?  What's the point of hearings and a vote if not to vet the nominee?  Or is it because, in this hyper-partisan atmosphere we live in now, that regardless of what is discovered or heard, it will not change the vote, because no party member will break ranks?

Why is it pointless?

[Seriati]

We all know why the Dems want to delay, they've demanded delay at every turn.  Pretending you don't understand why a delay is material is absurd.

Why should there be a delay in receiving her testimony?  She's asking that we not confirm a SC Justice, who happens to be a current Circuit Court judge, based on a claim that she never voiced to anyone for 30 years, apparently mistated when she did raise it in therapy, and has not one single detail to corroborate?

What would the FBI be investigating?  The house - she doesn't know where it was.  The people?  She doesn't know who else was there.  Her clothing?  Would have been washed 35 years ago, and given the description wouldn't have been likely to have had any material evidence on it even then.

No this is just a request for a deep dive with the presumption of innocence flipped on its head.  Can Kavanaugh prove there is no way that on some "day" during the "80's" he wasn't alone in a room at an unspecified location with this person.  If not, he must be a rapist and shouldn't be on the court.

This would be endorsement of a standard that would derail any future appointment with or without merit.  In our high stakes world that's all this about.

Or do you think any Democrat is honestly going to vote on the nomination based on Kavanaugh's qualifications (which should result in a 95+ favorable vote)?

[TheDrake]

The delay makes more of a political impact than one on the substance of Supreme Court decisions. It fuels those who have the opinion that democrats will stop at nothing to make it difficult to govern while they are in the minority. It encourages last minute showmanship on what should be a very serious accusation that needed to come to light earlier once someone in government knew about it. An investigation could have been done back in July. We don't need the FBI to know that she never confided in anyone until 2012, when she told her therapist that there were four people involved (which Ford says was an error in notetaking).

Perhaps most importantly, it enhances the level of chaos coming out of Washington. The only possible benefit I can imagine is buying time for other accusers to emerge, as we've seen happen in a number of other cases.

[Wayward Son]

We all know why the Dems want to delay, they've demanded delay at every turn.  Pretending you don't understand why a delay is material is absurd.

Of course we know why Dems want to delay. 

We also know why Repubs want to push this through as quickly as possible. 

The best part is that it has hobbled one of the Republican reasons to push it through--to put Democratic Senators in Red States in a bind.  The idea was to have the vote before the midterms to get those Senators on record as either supporting Trump's nominee (which would anger the Democratic base) or opposing Trump's nominee for no good reason (which could anger Independents or Republicans).  Either way, they lose votes.

But now, with a plausible reason to vote against Kavanaugh, they can do so without alienating Independents and persuadable Republicans.  They simply need to say that they find Ford credible.

Sure, you may have already decided that Ford is lying.  But (as you've told me before in other cases), there is no proof that she is lying, so you don't know if she is or isn't.  And certainly no proof can be found until this is investigated.  So it comes down to how credible people find her.  And her credibility won't be diminished if she isn't heard and the charges aren't investigated.  In fact, it will make it look like Republicans are trying to protect an attempted rapist by pushing through the nomination before it can be properly ascertained.

And, because of the delay of Garland's nomination, there is no plausible reason why Republicans cannot wait until an investigation is done.  I mean, it's been only a few months since he was nominated.  Nothing near 300-plus days.

It would be a pity if the Republicans lost control of the Senate before the nomination came to a vote, but that's just another reason McConnell wants to jam this through as quickly as possible, isn't it?

The bottom line is that now it doesn't matter why Democrats want to delay.  Now there is a legitimate reason to delay the confirmation.

Now the ball is in the Republican's court.  You gotta tell us a solid, legitimate reason not to delay the confirmation a little while and at the risk of putting a rapist on the Supreme Court. 

It fuels those who have the opinion that democrats will stop at nothing to make it difficult to govern while they are in the minority.

Well, it has been obvious to even the most disinterested person that Republicans were doing that the entire time they controlled Congress during the Obama Administration.  So why should anyone worry about it now?

[Seriati]

But now, with a plausible reason to vote against Kavanaugh, they can do so without alienating Independents and persuadable Republicans.  They simply need to say that they find Ford credible.

Which very likely is the point.  Ford doesn't have to perjure herself to achieve that goal, if she avoids testifying she can drop the claim later.

Sure, you may have already decided that Ford is lying.  But (as you've told me before in other cases), there is no proof that she is lying, so you don't know if she is or isn't.

I don't know if she's lying or not.  She could even believe it and be wrong.

What I do know, is that calling for an investigation is nonsense.  There is literally nothing to investigate.  35 years after the crime there is no forensic evidence, nor is there any possibility to acquire any.  Without any dates or locations, there's no way to prove anyone was in the vicinity (and more likely the reason, no way for Kavanaugh to provide an alibi).  She's name two people as present, along with hers' their testimony is the only evidence that we'll ever have. 

I do know that by refusing to testify under oath until she can be sure that nothing will come up that shows she perjured yourself is highly suspect and should cause an inference that she is not credible.  Even in the best case, it doesn't look as if she can actually prove the claim.

And certainly no proof can be found until this is investigated.

What proof can be found after an investigation?  There's no possible forensics here.  Without a date or location there's no way to establish whether there are actual witnesses.  Anything in the rumor mill is just hearsay.

It's also interesting that she deleting her social media prior to making the claim.  That's a lawyer advised move designed to wipe out any basis upon which to question her veracity.  Is that as consistent with the implication that she has nothing to hide as implied?  Not really.  She's demanding the FBI invade Kavanaugh's privacy on her say so without evidence and doesn't want scrutiny herself?  He's just  as entitled to be believed as her.

So it comes down to how credible people find her.  And her credibility won't be diminished if she isn't heard and the charges aren't investigated.

That's why this is pure politics.  You just articulated a standard that a believable liar could meet.  This should come down to proof, and there isn't any.

In fact, it will make it look like Republicans are trying to protect an attempted rapist by pushing through the nomination before it can be properly ascertained.

They'd be fools to let the idea that the truth can be "properly ascertained" here go.  it literally can not.  Claiming otherwise is just playing on people being too dumb to understand what can be proven in a 35 year old groping claim with no forensic evidence.

This is literally lowering the bar to accusation = fact.

The bottom line is that now it doesn't matter why Democrats want to delay.  Now there is a legitimate reason to delay the confirmation.

No there's not.  There's just a claim that there is that doesn't actually survive analysis.

Now the ball is in the Republican's court.  You gotta tell us a solid, legitimate reason not to delay the confirmation a little while and at the risk of putting a rapist on the Supreme Court. 

You understand that she alleged she was groped.  Interesting how you jumped to rapist from that.

[NobleHunter]

Or she's hoping the FBI will uncover enough corroborating details that Kavanaugh's nomination will be finished before she has to testify. If the FBI is responsible for sinking Kavanaugh's chances rather than her testimony, it'll be a lot easier for her to get back to her life.

[Wayward Son]

Forensics are not the only type of evidence.

There could be something written about it from the time, such as a diary entry or a letter to someone.  That would still be a "he said, she said" situation, but it would prove that Ford did not make up the accusation now just because Kavanaugh was being nominated.

Other people could have heard rumors of the situation at the time.  Once again, not "proof," but it again show that it wasn't something made up recently.

If he actually is a rapist, there could be other instances with other people, as with the President and his, ahem, "genital-grabbing."  Some of them, if they exist, may now come forward.

And do you know for certain that the reason she does not want to testify before an investigation is because she does not want to perjure herself?  What is the basis of this claim?  Are there not other reasonable reasons for her not to want to go in front of a hostile inquisition board, with members who will lie and try to tear her story and reputation apart, without further proof to back her up?  Can't you think of any other reason?

So it comes down to how credible people find her.  And her credibility won't be diminished if she isn't heard and the charges aren't investigated.

That's why this is pure politics.  You just articulated a standard that a believable liar could meet.  This should come down to proof, and there isn't any.

Except that you already stated that there is no longer proof.  So if Kavanaugh actually tried to rape her, are you suggesting that we should ignore it, because there no longer is proof?

That's a standard any rapist would love. 

Now the ball is in the Republican's court.  You gotta tell us a solid, legitimate reason not to delay the confirmation a little while and at the risk of putting a rapist on the Supreme Court. 

You understand that she alleged she was groped.  Interesting how you jumped to rapist from that.

I understand he tried to pull off her clothes and panties.  Since she happened to be wearing a one-piece bathing suit under her clothes (having come to the party after swimming), he was unsuccessful.  That sounds like attempted rape to me, not just groping.  If the story is true, that would mean he was a frustrated rapist.

Now I'm not saying that he did try to rape Ms. Ford.  Right now, we just have these two stories.  Frankly, Kavanaugh does not look like the type of person to do such a thing to me.  But these are serious charges and should be investigated thoroughly, even if there probably is no evidence any more, just in case there is somewhere.  Rushing the confirmation through doesn't help anyone.

Except for Republicans.

So tell me again why we should rush the confirmation through, and possibly put a rapist on the Supreme Court, when it just benefits Republicans?

[Lloyd Perna]

So, What I'm hearing is that any accusation of wrongdoing now disqualifies anyone from public office?  Are we going to hold everybody to that standard?

[TheDrake]

If local law enforcement brings up some evidence against all rational argument, they can impeach Kavanaugh later. As a rapist.

[NobleHunter]

Do you seriously think that would happen?

That's like saying we should stop worrying about Trump because if he does something wrong he'll just be impeached.

[yossarian22c]

Basically if Kavanaugh’s friend doesn’t corroborate her story there certainly is no proof. However if it comes out that they routinely went to parties and got drunk, potentially to the point of blacking or passing out then the accusation could be true and both men could be perfectly honest in saying they have no recollection of it. Failing to interview the friend under oath or having a sworn statement taken from him is a willfully negligent investigation.

[cherrypoptart]

How did she get to the party? If she was 15 did she drive herself? Walk? Bicycle? Even if you knew nothing else you would definitely remember how you got there so not having that information is very damaging to her credibility. I suppose she could have had a license and drove herself or it could have been within walking or bicycling distance but that hasn't been mentioned and if that's not the case there would be another witness that might have more information. That there is no mention of any of this is very suspect. Or is there something I'm missing?