Renzatic on 28/9/2018 at 04:30
Quote Posted by jkcerda
All males grilling Ford would have been bad optics. And she took it easy on her
The female prosecutor didn't tear into her, but she did ask some good, pertinent questions. Kavanaugh was given a string of easy, underhanded pitches in comparison, and he still tried to worm his way out of half of those.
If there's one thing we've learned from all this, it's that Kavanaugh knows how to dodge a good question. He's been doing it since day one of the confirmation hearing.
Starker on 28/9/2018 at 04:33
Also, even if nobody can exactly define what judicial temperament is, it definitely wasn't the hysteria Kavanaugh put on display at the hearing.
SubJeff on 28/9/2018 at 06:34
I just happened to see a few minutes of Ford speaking and being asked questions.
Holy High School Debate Batman!
What are these dumb af questions?!
And these answers! Hippocampus? Epinephrine?
The science isn't even right but she might as well just say "Evolution!" to every question. What a cringeshow. In the UK they might actually excuse her on suspicion of being drunk or something. But then the questioners are no better.
"How can you be sure your eyes saw what your brain, in retrospect, remembers or misremembers what it thinks it saw?"
"Nerve tracks. Transmitters.... Evolution your honour. Evolution."
"Are you sure?"
"Millions of years."
"What?"
"Big bang."
"Errr?"
"God your honour. God."
Judith on 28/9/2018 at 08:04
(
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-ford-kavanaugh-hearings-will-be-remembered-for-their-grotesque-display-of-patriarchal-resentment)
Quote:
Going on about his harmless love of beer, spinning unbelievably chaste interpretations of what was, by all other accounts, his youthful habit of blatant debauchery, he was as Trumpian as Trump himself, louder than the loudest on Fox News. He evaded questions; he said that the allegations brought against him were “revenge” on behalf of the Clintons; he said, menacingly, that “what goes around comes around.” When Senator Amy Klobuchar calmly asked if he had ever gotten blackout drunk, he retorted, “Have you?” (He later apologized to her.)
There was, in this performance, not even a hint of the sagacity one expects from a potential Supreme Court Justice. More than presenting a convincing rebuttal to Ford’s extremely credible account, Kavanaugh—and Hatch, and Lindsey Graham—seemed to be exterminating, live, for an American audience, the faint notion that a massively successful white man could have his birthright questioned or his character held to the most basic type of scrutiny.
Lovely. What a great man to have on such responsible post.
uncadonego on 28/9/2018 at 08:30
Have you boofed yet?
ffox on 28/9/2018 at 10:25
36 years ago maybe he did, maybe he didn't, and does it really matter now? He was a teenager in high school and many of us did stupid and hurtful things at that age, but hopefully he's matured.
However, in view of his hysterical and emotional behaviour at the hearing it's amazing that anyone could consider such a person suitable for a really important post; his decision might be the casting vote on a matter that could affect hundreds of millions of people.
But what do I know? I still can't understand why any educated person voted for Trump.
Dia on 28/9/2018 at 11:32
Quote Posted by ffox
36 years ago maybe he did, maybe he didn't, and does it really matter now? He was a teenager in high school and many of us did stupid and hurtful things at that age, but hopefully he's matured.
Yes, it
does really matter now. Rape is an act of violence and I, for one, don't consider it to be nothing more than a 'stupid and hurtful thing'. Rape is more than a stupid highschool prank. It takes rape victims YEARS to work through their ordeal (some of them never fully recover) while their rapists continue moving forward in their lives as though they never did anything wrong. You can't change a person's basic nature and, afaic, if he committed rape when he was younger, I doubt his basic nature has changed much. You hope he's matured?? Maturity has
nothing to do with being a rapist; it's all about control. Usually, rapists are misogynists who want to force their imagined superiority on a woman; show her that they have the power and the right to exercise absolute control over her. That kind of attitude isn't something that goes away with age; once a misogynistic pig, always a misogynistic pig.
I do, however, agree with the rest of your post.
demagogue on 28/9/2018 at 13:14
A lot of my GOP contacts from home are running the conspiracy line. This blurb I found summarizes why the conspiracy narrative doesn't really fly (edit: Stalker already made this point above): Ford began her protest well before Kavanaugh was even appointed, only when he was shortlisted, and in fact to avoid his appointment in the first place. She didn't wait to know whether he would be appointed or not, which is to say she's fine with a raging conservative justice; just not one that attempted to rape her. This is also aside from the fact that Gorsuch didn't face anything like this, and Ford knew from the start she was going to be so harassed she'd have to move and hide her location, etc., which is hard to argue is anywhere remotely worth a crap shoot like this that likely won't work anyway.
Here's the whole text:
Quote:
Kavanaugh: “This whole two week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election,” Judge Kavanaugh claimed during the hearing.
But as a matter of objectively verifiable fact, this claim is false. Blasey Ford wasn't trying to stop Trump from nominating someone, she was trying to get Trump to pick someone who didn't try to rape her. “We now know — attested to by both sides — that Christine Blasey Ford came forward about Brett Kavanaugh when she found out Brett Kavanaugh was on the short list for the call,” Rachel Maddow reported. “She made her calls, she started trying to to alert the Congress about this alleged assault by Kavanaugh before he was picked for the Supreme Court.” “She was trying to get them to not pick him for the Supreme Court. She proved today — with evidence cited by the Republicans' hired prosecutor — that she emphatically did not wait to find out who the nominee was for the Supreme Court seat.”
