Ragnarok

Yeah, no, witnesses don't get to decide who they give evidence to. Text of Grassley letter: I’m writing in response to your response to my letter dated October 2. You said that Dr. Ford is willing to turn her documents over to the FBI, but my request of you was not for documents to be turned over to the FBI. I asked you to provide the documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Your response on behalf of your client is a non-sequitur. The Constitution charges the Senate with advising the President on his nomination. Senators have a constitutional obligation to investigate and evaluate independently the President’s nominees. Our obligation is unrelated to anything the FBI does. That’s why we don’t just vote on nominees after the President loans us the FBI background investigation. We have to make our own assessment. The U.S. Senate doesn’t control the FBI. If you have an objection to how the FBI conducts its investigations, take it up with Director Wray. But don’t raise that objection as a reason not to respond to this Committee’s demand for relevant evidence. The FBI’s investigative decisions aren’t our concern. Even if the FBI never interviews Dr. Ford, or interviews her ten times, this Committee has a constitutional obligation to investigate Dr. Ford’s allegations, and that’s what we’ve been doing since we became aware of her allegations. It’s not even clear to me what purpose turning over these materials to the FBI would accomplish. The FBI would simply turn over that evidence to the Senate. That is precisely the outcome I seek with this request. You have claimed repeatedly that the evidence I have requested supports Dr. Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. She even provided some of this evidence to national news. Indeed, if the evidence supported your client’s allegations, you surely would produce it as quickly as you could. But you have repeatedly refused to produce this evidence to the Senate. In doing so, you are preventing the Senate from considering the evidence most crucial to Dr. Ford’s allegations. I don’t know what other inference we should draw from your refusal but that the withheld evidence does not support Dr. Ford’s allegations in quite the way you have claimed. I urge you once again, now for the third time in writing, to turn over the therapy notes, polygraph materials, and communications with The Washington Post that Dr. Ford has relied upon as evidence. In addition to the evidence I requested in my October 2 letter, in light of recently uncovered information, please turn over records and descriptions of direct or indirect communications between Dr. Ford or her representatives and any of the following: (1) U.S. Senators or their staffs, particularly the offices of Senators Feinstein and Hirono, other than your communications with me and my staff in preparation for the September 27 hearing; (2) the alleged witnesses identified by Dr. Ford (Leland Keyser, Mark Judge, and Patrick “P.J.” Smyth); and (3) Debbie Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, or their representatives.

Yeah, no.....3 letters from Grassley, and they did not turn them over.

Andrew McCarthy sums it up, a left-wing smear job so egregious that it does the impossible---inspires Senate Republicans to grow a pair and fight back. By contrast, when the Left criminalizes political opposition, no crime is required; just gossamer-thin, incoherent, uncorroborated, often unverifiable allegations: perhaps multiple-hearsay innuendo against a Republican presidential candidate, passed on by anonymous foreigners to a hyper-partisan, left-wing foreign spy working for the opposition Democratic political campaign. Or maybe a 36-year-old claim of sexual assault by an alleged victim who cannot remember basic details or keep straight the details she claims to remember; whose named witnesses do not back her account; who declines to address whether her accusation has been influenced by the controversial psychotherapeutic process of “recovered memory”; who refuses to disclose highly relevant therapy notes and polygraph information; and who is a Democrat advised by a prominent Democratic strategist and represented for free by Democratic activist lawyers, who were recommended to her by a senior Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat even as that Democratic senator concealed the sexual-assault claim from her Republican counterparts. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/leftists-weaponize-investigations-for-political-gain/

Why won't she turn over the notes from her therapist? Answer: Clearly, they don't say what she and her lawyers say they say.

Well, they asked Ford's lawyers to give them the notes from the therapist, which the lawyers claimed supported Ford's story. The lawyers declined to turn over this evidence to the Senate. You are free to draw your own conclusions about whether or not the notes supported Ford's story. The Senate concluded the notes did not support Ford.

FIFY

And the bottom's nowhere in sight:

Ford's lawyers: We have a polygraph and notes from Ford's therapist supporting her story: Senate: Say, can we see those? Ford's lawyers: No. Letter from Grassley: I guess we are free to assume they don't actually support her position then. LOL. I hope there are some repercussions for those lawyers for their unprofessional conduct.

It's not like she's going somewhere. Trump's saving her for the Ginsberg replacement. Of course, we'll find out she's not nearly as clean as you think. She used to babysit when she was 12. I'm sure some of those kids will be remembering the porn videos she showed them, along with the satanic rituals and kitten sacrifices.

Now, if only there were some sort of federal investigative agency that people could trust that had a history of investigations free from political bias...

Yet another twist and turn in this saga. I thought we were going to be done. I think there is a presumption that the FBI investigation will not turn up anything useful. I'm not so sure that is true. Ford did not run in the same social circles as Kavanaugh. She told Congress that she was linked by a friend (who she declined to name publicly) who also was friends with members of Kavanaugh's social circle. I think the FBI should be able to verify whether or not this story is true. Even after all this time, this investigation should be able to provide the link between Ford and Kavanaugh, if one exists. I'd like to know if Ford's story of how she knew Kavanaugh is true. If it is, it is powerful circumstantial evidence that she is telling the truth. If it is not, she should be prosecuted for perjury.

Ah well, this thread had it's moments. Still have to stop by every now and then to remind myself why it's best to leave this forum full of poo-flinging chimps alone. It's everything that is wrong with the internet, with all of the vitriol of the Palestine-Israeli conflict condensed into a few dozen people, and none of the charm. Breaking.. With the Senate Judiciary Committee holding a vote at 9:30 A.M. tomorrow, a Senate insider has told Townhall that Kavanaugh has the votes to make it out of committee and the votes to be confirmed on the floor for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sens. Flake (R-AZ), Collins (R-ME), Murkowski (R-AK), and Manchin (D-WV) are expected to vote in favor of Kavanaugh. All the Republicans are voting yes. Also, in the rumor mill, several Democrats may break ranks and back Kavanaugh. That’s the ball game, folks.

I don't know, haven't tried one; it was just a joke. I actually admire Brisket; at least the one before TDS. He's one of the better writers around.

There is. Women feel are much more comfortable confiding in people when they can smell estrogen on them.

Yeah, and a lot of Trump supporters are letting her know they won't support her if she votes no. I don't think she is going to alienate 45% of her voters. But really, who knows?

Feinstein didn’t believe her. Had she, she would have used the procedure for a confidential investigation. Not sat on it. This is really hard to argue against. I'm not convinced yet the Republicans win. Never underestimate their general cowardice. Flake's got nothing to lose, and will have a nice gig waiting for him at CNN or elsewhere as the Republican criticizing Republicans if he votes no. Murkowski can forget getting re-elected if she votes no. But her or Collins could still defect. And I'm sure there will be 42 new allegations tomorrow alleging Satan worship and baby sacrifice, or God knows what. I found Ford to be credible, which surprised me. I found Kavenaugh's denials credible as well. At the end of the day, if these tactics win, we all lose. Finestein should have brought this up during the hearing. Most of the Senators have a past, and I doubt if they want to be held responsible for whatever happened at every party they attended 30 years ago, or try to defend themselves against such old allegations that can't possibly be conclusively disproven. If Kavenaugh is confirmed, it will be a vote against such tactics as much as anything else.

The 2nd and the 4th accuser's stories are a joke, and the media should never have reported either. In the sum total, they add negative weight. It's going to be an interesting day. They are going to have to destroy Ford's story for Kavanaugh to survive. Wish I could watch live, but work, dammit.

I'm surprised Ford is actually testifying. If she across as credibly and sympathetically as say, Juanita Broderick, Kavanaugh is done. Her written testimony is believable. I don't know if it's true, but she doesn't come across as a crazy person. I think that is all it will take. I don't like that as our new standard, but it's political reality. What has been lacking until the last day or so was people telling their story under penalty of perjury. We now have 2 people who have sworn statements before the Senate. The 3rd accuser's story is sensationalized, but there appear to be at least some elements being corroborated. She stated, for example, that at these parties the punch was spiked with grain alcohol and/or drugs. Who didn't go to a college party where the punch had everclear added to it? It was expected. Qualudes is a whole different thing, however. Nevertheless, Mark Judges' girlfriend at the time appears to be ready to confirm that he told her about a time where a drunk girl pulled a train at a party. Not exactly the same as gang-rape parties, and I think 98% of her story is bs, but 2% is enough to sink Kavanaugh, even if he was not directly involved. We'll have the testimony today, but I expect we will be moving on to a new candidate afterwards.

Latest rumor on Powerline: 2 men saying they had encounter with Ford, not Kavenaugh. What a roller coaster. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/a-case-of-mistaken-identity-2.php

I think if she comes across as credibly in person as her statement, it will be enough to destroy him. I don't like anything about this process, and I think we will all be worse off when a 35 year old uncorroborated story like this can ruin a person. But the reality is if she is credible, they'll pull the nomination. He almost has to somehow prove her story false, unless she comes across as a flake. That's not a fair standard. No male would like to be in that position, but that's how it is. Pence doesn't look so crazy now with his never meet with a young woman alone shtick.

You do realize he is from a wealthy family. He has been vilified for it for oh, 135 pages now.

From Coyote blog: It is not even necessary to opine on the veracity of this accusation, because it almost does not matter. Because the fact of its being made has, no matter what the outcome, proved America to be a far worse place than we woke up believing this morning. If the accuser is being truthful, then gang rape is a fact of life in our high schools, and everyone is powerless or no one cares to lift a hand to prevent it or stop it -- made all the worse by the leadership of boys who would become future leaders of this country. And if she is lying, then we see someone shamelessly lying to destroy a man in the name of politics, aided and abetted and enabled by many of the top politicians in this country and perhaps a third of its citizenry. We are either living in a brutal post-apocalyptic misogynist free-for-all or in a political system corrupted to its very foundation. Actually, from what I read on Twitter, we are actually living in a superposition of these two, a Schrodinger's nightmare where both are considered true simultaneously by half the population.

Keep giving money to Beto. Really, if you can just reach enough Texans with his message of more gun control, he can win. You are not flushing your money down a toilet. Really. And who cares if he lied about trying to flee the scene of a DWI. Because he admits to his white privilege, he has integrity.

So the 2nd accuser refuses to appear or give a statement under penalty of perjury. But her lawyer is out there lying about it and telling people she wants to testify. The 3rd accuser appears to be a figment of her lawyer's imagination. That leaves Ford, who thinks she was 15, but maybe she was in her late teens. She originally said 4 boys assaulted her, but now it's 2. Then she stuck her best friend in the tale; I guess hoping for some corroboration that didn't happen. What a farce, and an awful precedent. This is ten times slimier than what happened to Clarence Thomas.

Yeah, surprising. Stage 5 TDS took him down. Sad.