@dfarrah
in a respectful discourse to place upon the other person the burden of defending a statement that the other person never made might also express surprise at the suggestion that the bizarre and ethically void adversarial formalisms of American jurisprudence are an epistemological joke -- but that's not my problem to solve.

#8.1.1 You believe that our whole judicial system never results in justice?

@Fishtroller 02

for what he has been put through since Ford made her accusation against him. You can read his opening statement that he made before he addressed the sexual assault charges and watch it as well as his fiery testimony. Asking Kobar if she had blackouts from drinking was childish.
He will arrive on the court with the biggest chip on his shoulder imaginable.

If he isn't confirmed Trump will appoint someone just as bad as him anyway. But without the baggage that is going to follow him regardless. The FBI is 'possibly' going to look into the other witness statements and if they find more women who say they were assaulted by him then it should be game over. This is if the FBI does their job properly.

#9.1

partisan, not me. The question here is whether this man has the resume to have a life time power over many peoples lives. His attitude towards women is clear in his past rulings and in his faux concern for Ford. That you and I don't share the same view on this issue and I can bring you to task for your view is what makes this site work. Or haven't you noticed?
I was told by Dkos when given an year off that I should find some other place to share my dissents from some of the diary writers and commenters. Are you telling me the same thing????

@CS in AZ

Did I miss a few years?

I think the poster is confused by K's claims that Dr Ford's allegations were "refuted" (he used the word every time he mentioned them) by the three people she said were there. You are correct. They have said they do not remember which is not a refutation.

#9.2

You keep saying this, but I am not aware of any witness that she “produced” nor of any witness who contradicted her. The only actual witness is Mark Judge, and he refused to testify to support Kavanaugh. He said he doesn’t remember. Dr Ford’s friend who she said was at the party also said she didn’t remember it. That’s not saying it didn’t happen, just that she doesn’t have memories of that specific gathering. She did say she believes Ford regardless of her lack of specific recall. There’s no witness that contradicted her, that I know of.

Anyway, it’s a bit odd how obsessed you are with attacking this woman, while you appear to have no issues or problems whatsoever with Kavanaugh’s many lies. Or his evasions, his obvious bias and partisanship, his odious positions like justifying torture and literally unlimited presidential power, and the many other problems with his legal mindset as well as his entitlement and spoiled frat-boy temperament.

And he’s still going to end up on the Supreme Court anyway ffs. So don’t worry, your idol will be in a position to ruin many more lives very soon.

@CS in AZ

Anyway, it’s a bit odd how obsessed you are with attacking this woman, while you appear to have no issues or problems whatsoever with Kavanaugh’s many lies.

It's standard operating procedure and always, as far as I have seen on this site, gender-related with that one. All males are perfect. Period. Any time light is shown on their behavior that might suggest otherwise, a dick-hungry, lying whore is to blame. Period. Have a look at comment history. (Dkos kicked him/her off, and not for being a Russian bot. Think 'hysterical woman' comment instead -- at least a complaint at the helpdesk pointed it out and linked to it.)

Nope, that one appears to hate women, and idolize men, apparently for nothing other than plumbing. Oddly enough, however, while men are supposed to have sex with women, women are untrustworthy whores if they have sex with men. Quite binary, albeit bizarre, and a comment history review shows such.

#9.2

You keep saying this, but I am not aware of any witness that she “produced” nor of any witness who contradicted her. The only actual witness is Mark Judge, and he refused to testify to support Kavanaugh. He said he doesn’t remember. Dr Ford’s friend who she said was at the party also said she didn’t remember it. That’s not saying it didn’t happen, just that she doesn’t have memories of that specific gathering. She did say she believes Ford regardless of her lack of specific recall. There’s no witness that contradicted her, that I know of.

Anyway, it’s a bit odd how obsessed you are with attacking this woman, while you appear to have no issues or problems whatsoever with Kavanaugh’s many lies. Or his evasions, his obvious bias and partisanship, his odious positions like justifying torture and literally unlimited presidential power, and the many other problems with his legal mindset as well as his entitlement and spoiled frat-boy temperament.

And he’s still going to end up on the Supreme Court anyway ffs. So don’t worry, your idol will be in a position to ruin many more lives very soon.

@CS in AZ You haven't heard of her?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/29/leland-keyser-to-tell-f...

#9.2

You keep saying this, but I am not aware of any witness that she “produced” nor of any witness who contradicted her. The only actual witness is Mark Judge, and he refused to testify to support Kavanaugh. He said he doesn’t remember. Dr Ford’s friend who she said was at the party also said she didn’t remember it. That’s not saying it didn’t happen, just that she doesn’t have memories of that specific gathering. She did say she believes Ford regardless of her lack of specific recall. There’s no witness that contradicted her, that I know of.

Anyway, it’s a bit odd how obsessed you are with attacking this woman, while you appear to have no issues or problems whatsoever with Kavanaugh’s many lies. Or his evasions, his obvious bias and partisanship, his odious positions like justifying torture and literally unlimited presidential power, and the many other problems with his legal mindset as well as his entitlement and spoiled frat-boy temperament.

And he’s still going to end up on the Supreme Court anyway ffs. So don’t worry, your idol will be in a position to ruin many more lives very soon.

@snoopydawg

Repeat the same falsehood often enough, and people start thinking it must be true. We ought to be wise to that one by now...but somehow we are not.

#9.2

The witnesses she produced contradict her story. That they contradicted her is actually worse than having no one to corroborate at all.

It remains remarkable that Kavanaugh has been allowed to repeat again and again that Christine Blasey Ford’s high school friend Leland Keyser had “refuted” her account of the party she was assaulted at. Viewers of this hearing would have no idea that Keyser had in fact told The Washington Post while she does not recall the event, she believes Ford’s allegation.

Not the same as saying that the witness contradicted her. Did you perchance read the article that I linked to? I didn't make it clear that it's a link not just part of my comment. There are many tweets that have videos of key parts of testimony.

ETA link

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/27/live-christine-blasey-ford-brett-kav...

@snoopydawg I should have used clearer language - that Keyser does not corroborate Ford's account.

My lack of carefulness has nothing to do with trying to promote a 'big lie.'

#9.2

The witnesses she produced contradict her story. That they contradicted her is actually worse than having no one to corroborate at all.

It remains remarkable that Kavanaugh has been allowed to repeat again and again that Christine Blasey Ford’s high school friend Leland Keyser had “refuted” her account of the party she was assaulted at. Viewers of this hearing would have no idea that Keyser had in fact told The Washington Post while she does not recall the event, she believes Ford’s allegation.

Not the same as saying that the witness contradicted her. Did you perchance read the article that I linked to? I didn't make it clear that it's a link not just part of my comment. There are many tweets that have videos of key parts of testimony.

ETA link

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/27/live-christine-blasey-ford-brett-kav...

@CS in AZ

with what you stated. I was simply trying to make a correction to Fishtroller's statement, since all of the newsprint accounts that I've read, have stated that in 2012, Ford identified Kavanaugh only by 'description.' (the excerpt I've quoted is represented as being the exact wording in the therapist's clinical notes)

And, yes, I'm aware of the inconsistency between her therapist's notes about the number of witnesses, which, I agree, isn't Dr Ford's fault.

Have a nice weekend!

Blue Onyx

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche

#9.3

during the session. The therapist didn’t write down the name. And got the number of attackers wrong. One might infer that the therapist didn’t take the best notes. I thought the point that Ford sought out the therapy records to find out whether the session had been documented or not, and shared them even though they were both incomplete and contained an error, showed a sincere effort on her part to provide truth and facts as best she could.

@dance you monster should be tested as much as his.

People don't get to run around accusing people without evidence.

How can you assert that she is in so much pain when her flying around clearly indicates that the claustrophobic stuff was hoakum?

She wants people to believe that she has been seriously traumatized and has debilitating claustrophobia hence her first plan to drive, but she doesn't have debilitating claustrophobia. Do you know what debilitating means?

Maybe she has other forms of trauma that she would like to cite as examples, but the airplane stuff was just hoakum.

#9.6

Of course, this whole thing has been politicized to death. But look back over this thread. The arguments are to discredit the testimony of a victim of sexual assault (she flew somewhere, so she's a liar) and the accounts of other witnesses to his drinking behavior (he passed his classes so he couldn't have stumbled anytime that week, could he?). Who else is doing that now? Republicans, of course, and right-wingers in general. Those 19 (now 22) thumbs up aren't a plea to get cozy with Dems who are using this opportunity to scuttle a nomination, but a recognition that this thread is doing a disservice to the victim of an assault that no one has said did not happen.

There's a point at which you drop the politics and regard the person. Ford was injured for a lifetime of hurt, and had to recount it before millions of people she'll still have to face every day hereafter, and the person who did that to her was likely testifying before that same committee and all too likely will be rewarded for his behavior with a cushy, prestigious job ruining other people's lives. And we are debating plane flights and stumbles. I'm sickened by this thread myself. I tipped Fishtroller's comment. And there was nothing Dem about it.

@dance you monster Something monstrous is going on in this country that didn't used to happen, or at least it happened only rarely. The powerful and unscrupulous have figured out that they can use the damage and pain suffered by oppressed people, the stories of those injustices, to advance their own rotten aims. That's pretty dreadful, and its aim is to defang criticism of the powerful by hiding the powerful behind various sympathetic characters, so that if you criticize the powerful, you end up criticizing the sympathetic character as well. At that point a character attack can be mounted against the critic as a bigot or cruel bastard. (This is not what I think you are doing, by the way--I'm just laying out the situation as I see it).

What this does is take the causes that the Left used to champion, and use those narratives to ends other than the empowerment of the oppressed and the transformation of their conditions. Meanwhile, part of the Left tries to fight for those traditional causes, while part of the Left tries to fight the entrenched powerful and their system, resulting in the Left being divided against itself in a most vehement way. This is what I meant when I said elsewhere that the Left had been efficiently deconstructed in this country. The Left, what's left of it, hasn't figured out a good counter to this terrible discursive move.

What I'm saying is, Ford's pain can be genuine, the injustice she suffered real, and the spectacle we're watching can still be a work, and probably is. Or she could be as false as the right thinks she is. I suspect that is not true, though I have no way of knowing what's in her heart. But what I do know is that a person of integrity drawn into a situation that wretchedly corrupt will end up becoming a pawn unless they are incredibly gifted in the use of power and language. If they are, they might be able to hold onto their personal integrity and power, with effort (I knew one or two people on the Hill who did). Most people will either be corrupted, or become pawns in a process beyond their control.

I almost hope she is false, because if she's for real, she's going to have to live with the aftermath of this once those in D.C. are done with her, the same way Lewinsky did, and that's not going to be fun, regardless of how much GoFundMe money she acquires. If she's false, at least she went into this hellish process on purpose, and knowing what she was in for. I can tell you as a rape victim, I sure as hell wouldn't go there and testify before those people--for my own sake.

Assuming she is what she appears to be and not what the right says she is...
then she is an innocent who has gotten swept up, pain and all, into a toxic political fight. In which case, you're right, the only ethical way to proceed is to separate her from the process. But how can that be done? And how do I know that she is what she seems? My best guess would be that she is. But in a world where the news circulated through mainstream sources tends to be so often false, indeed mendacious, how can I simply believe her the way I once would have, because she's a woman stating that she has been raped?

Yes, there was a time when I would have believed someone simply because they said that, unless I knew facts that definitely cast doubt on those assertions. How can I do that now about a story circulated through the corporate press, promoted by a national political party? It could be true, given how Kavanaugh seems and the type of person he is: a well-connected powerful man. Given the culture of non-accountability around people like him, it wouldn't be surprising to find many perpetrators among them.

But can I simply *assume* it is true? That's the issue here. At one time, any ethical person on the Left would have simply assumed it was true, else they would have been a horrendous misogynist bastard. But now? How can I #BelieveWomen when the woman in question is quite literally surrounded by mendacious scoundrels? This is a thorny problem for me. I don't know whether she's true or false. I'm sticking to what I'm sure of, which is that the powerful arrayed around her AND the powerful arrayed around Kavanaugh, are false, proven false, repeatedly. That's why I try to keep some discursive distance between myself and the spectacle unfolding on screen; I see unscrupulous people on both sides, and a woman in the midst of them who may be an innocent victim who's getting re-victimized in front of my eyes by the process, or may be false, in which case she's going to end up doing harm to those who have truly been hurt, like everybody who makes a false accusation.

I guess in the eyes of some, that makes me monstrous, sexist, cruel. But I can't simply turn off my knowledge of the political corruption and deceit that infects both our public institutions and our news media. The best I can do is back away, and I probably should.

One thing I will say; little good will come of the process unfolding up there, even if Kavanaugh is defeated. It's not like the next horrendous candidate is going to be a mensch.

#9.6

Of course, this whole thing has been politicized to death. But look back over this thread. The arguments are to discredit the testimony of a victim of sexual assault (she flew somewhere, so she's a liar) and the accounts of other witnesses to his drinking behavior (he passed his classes so he couldn't have stumbled anytime that week, could he?). Who else is doing that now? Republicans, of course, and right-wingers in general. Those 19 (now 22) thumbs up aren't a plea to get cozy with Dems who are using this opportunity to scuttle a nomination, but a recognition that this thread is doing a disservice to the victim of an assault that no one has said did not happen.

There's a point at which you drop the politics and regard the person. Ford was injured for a lifetime of hurt, and had to recount it before millions of people she'll still have to face every day hereafter, and the person who did that to her was likely testifying before that same committee and all too likely will be rewarded for his behavior with a cushy, prestigious job ruining other people's lives. And we are debating plane flights and stumbles. I'm sickened by this thread myself. I tipped Fishtroller's comment. And there was nothing Dem about it.

@Fishtroller 02 lefties agree on some issues, such as exploitation of a situation.

I don't believe that Ford is being exploited.

#9.6

I left the Democratic Party in 2017 and voted for Jill Stein in 2016. I am totally for independence in thinking and in opinions. I just happen to think and voice my opinion that the view expressed by the writer of this diary reflects the position of right wingers. That's IT... no invitation for him to leave the site and find others... nothing like that. But that is the first thing he suggested to me. And now you are doing it.
Cut it out.

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg Here's what it looks like to me:

"Bad website! Bad, bad website! You have comments on you that would be at home on a right-wing website! Bad commenters! Bad, bad caucusers! Aren't you ashamed to be talking like right-wingers? I'm so disappointed in you! Did I accidentally log on to Drudge? This place is just as corrupt as the corruption it criticizes!" This is a paraphrase of various comments.

The overarching theme seems to be that C99 is a bad place and the people on it are bad. Right-wing, sexist, misogynist, cruel. The reason for this seems to be that certain comments were made. Certain comments were made in this diary, which makes C99 a bad, corrupt, cruel, misogynist place.

Yet C99 is a place where any comment can be made if it exists within the bounds of civility. That's the only rule. We can change that and say that people here are not allowed to question the motives or integrity of people claiming to have been sexually abused. We can further say that people here are not allowed to question the motives and integrity of POC fighting racism, women fighting sexism, LGBT people fighting homophobia, etc. That would make it a different website, though it might, on occasion, be impossible to meet all those goals simultaneously, as in the case of Clarence Thomas, where one person claimed to be victimized as a woman, and, in response, the accused claimed to be victimized as a black man.

If we changed the website in that way, it would become appropriate and sensible to condemn the website for having right-wing, or putatively right-wing, comments on it; to say how disappointed one is in the ideology of commenters, their lack of unquestioning loyalty to oppressed groups, etc. Of course, such commenters wouldn't last long, as they'd get temporarily or permanently banned for breaking the rules of the site, and soon these arguments wouldn't even happen.

People got angry and offended, affronted even, by some of the comments here. I understand that. I, too, got angry and offended while reading some comments to this diary. Do any of my responses look like this?

"Did I accidentally log onto a David Brock website? Are all of you Hillbots? I'm very disappointed in all of you. This site is just as corrupt as the Democratic party."

I didn't say that in response to MsDidi. MsDidi had just said that people in disagreement with her couldn't possibly be survivors, and might even be perpetrators. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be a survivor who gets told something like that? I was told that people who held my views were likely to be sexual abusers. Yet the only reason I'm even mentioning it right now is to make the point that I haven't responded to people on the other side with the assumptions of bad character and bad behavior, the blame, and the attempts to shame, that I've seen here from some of the people on the other side of the argument. The closest I came was to express surprise, twice, at comments that had been uprated by many people, in a "do you *really* believe this?" kind of way.

Yes, that expresses disapproval. But politely, and with a focus on the ideas held, not on the moral character of the commenters, or of the website.

I don't assume that MsDidi and the 14 people who uprated her comment are cruel, horrible people, that they don't belong on this website, that their presence makes the website something alien and alienating to me. Even when I said I was horrified by her comment, I focused on the specific content that horrified me, rather than making generalized character attacks on commenters or--for God's sakes--on the website.

When I think of the amount of unpaid labor and pain that went into making this website a going concern...well, maybe that's why I tend to refrain from attacking C99 as an entity, which seems to be damned easy for other people to do.

We can make a website that disallows certain views. Or we can make a website that requires nothing from its commenters but civility, and allows them to hash things out according to the values of the site, which hopefully include a respect for logic, reason, and truth. But if we do that, it's no longer appropriate to suggest that people who disagree with one's position are bad people because they made certain comments, that the site is a bad site because certain comments are displayed on it, or other such blanket expressions of blame and shame.

#9.6

19 people think this site is RW partisan, or that it should be Democratic? (I refuse to dignify the Democratic party with the moniker "left-wing.")

People are well aware that this site is non partisan. If I understand him correctly he means that the accusations against Ford are something one would see on a right wing website.

@Amanda Matthews

What I want to know is what did Di-Fi hope to gain from this shit show? The way she handled this situation destroyed a lot of the ‘credibility’ of all involved in the left. She damn well should have made this an issue in July.

I would lean towards her trying to keep Ford's name out of the hearings as she asked if Feinstein hadn't apologized to him because of the protesters who didn't want him on the court. People are supposed to have a say in what government does right? But that ship has sailed and now people are arrested for protesting their reps to try to get them to listen to them..

Democrats have been helping Trump pack the courts with right wing justices. The republicans stalled hearings during Obama's tenure and that's why there were so many openings. Gee. Makes one wonder why democrats lost 900 seats because they saw no reason to vote for democrats when they weren't trying to pass legislation that would help them. This republican obstructionism during his presidency was just bullshit in my opinion. Democrats had many ways to make the republicans start governing. So did b
Barry.

#12.1
The right does have the House and the Senate. They wouldn’t pass up the chance to pack the SCOTUS no matter who the candidate was/is.

What I want to know is what did Di-Fi hope to gain from this shit show? The way she handled this situation destroyed a lot of the ‘credibility’ of all involved in the left. She damn well should have made this an issue in July.