Dr. or Judge? Who Do YOU Believe?

Yea when I see Yoda quoted you I go "Oh ohhh" in my head, what have I done now.

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I mean the question itself is a clear indication/admission that I haven't read the testimony. The question was actually can someone answer what happened next. I will however go and read it now.

Should any of us be judged on teenage drunken antics, bearing in mind nothing serious(up for debate) actually happened? Should something like this that potentially happened at 17 years old be any kind of indication of what kind of person you are at 50+ years?

Is it known why she came forward?

Update: googled it.

I do think these kinds of things are usually an indicator of what type of person you are, yeah. Maybe we're all capable of getting drunk and being pushy or insistent or something, but I think most of us still have a line we wouldn't cross, intoxicated or not. And it's not my belief or experience that people capable of that stuff just magically stop without any explicit indication of reform or a life-changing event. Which, interestingly, is part of the argument for Kavanaugh, since he's apparently led a very clean and exemplary life as an adult and lots of other predators we've seen exposed seem shockingly unable to stop themselves even as their behavior becomes harder and harder to cover up.

I don't think this can be described as drunken antics, either. Holding someone down with you on top of them and covering their mouth to stop them from screaming can't really be described as anything other than attempted rape.The fact that it didn't happen is good, but doesn't excuse it much. You could try to shoot someone and miss, but you're not less morally culpable because you were a crap shot. Best-case scenario, even if he was never going to go through with it, he did things that look identical to attempted rape from the perspective of the victim.

And again, the question is about being appointed to the Supreme Court. This isn't about whether he needs to go to jail forever, or even be a social pariah the rest of his life. I'll grant that it's very difficult to say how long and harshly someone should be punished for doing awful things while drunk at 17. But this is an important position, and we can afford to be picky. We can afford to say "well, maybe he changed, but maybe he didn't, so let's go with someone who doesn't force us to guess."

For me the idea that anyone can come to a 100 percent conclusion on guilt or innocence here is remarkable. I think that is what many are asking or even demanding others to do or, at least it appears that way. I am speaking in broad terms when I say "others" and not just the forum here. There is NO WAY that anyone but those involved or allegedly involved know what happened or did not happen and they may not even have the facts straight.

I am literally 50/50 on this and can find little things that sway me a little either way here and there, but certainly nothing concrete.

I mentioned Fords testimony so I will say a little about the judge's. The thing that bothered me the most was his avoiding quite a few questions. Such as a direct answer if he wanted an FBI investigation or not. Sure it is obvious he does not want one, but just say that and not list the reasons why there shouldn't be one. He also avoided a direct answer on Mark Judge testifying. He mentioned written testimony, but we all know without cross examination it holds little weight. Also he was a bit cryptic on the"ralphing" comment on his calendar among other things.

Now just as I said for Dr, Ford it could be chalked up to emotions or memory or any number of things and does not mean he was lying or hiding things. I personally think he understands that how he answers things mean quite a bit. Such as if he straight up says yes he opens the door to deeper questioning which does not mean guilt it just means he is smart.

Again I have no idea and none of us do and may never know.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Yea its very difficult or impossible even for anyone to have a 100% locked on opinion on this.

As others have pointed out can you even trust the memory of those involved, given how memory of an event can distort over time, especially if alcohol is involved. 36 years is a lifetime. Ignoring any of the possible lying angle how trustworthy is memory?

I agree that we can't be 100% certain due to time and alcohol factors, yet the only alcohol factor of the incident we have is that we know she was drinking. The deal breaker for me with her is the changing of the story. If you think she is being honest and mistake free now, you must think she was either lying or making a mistake in 2012. Either then or now she told a story that didn't happen. That automatically takes her credibility away in my eyes.

Yes you should, Gandalf.

And if we follow the Senate Democrats' lead, then those 2 girls should be asked repeatedly why they REFUSE to DEMAND an FBI investigation if they have nothing to hide and to clear their own names.

And if they respond they are willing to cooperate with any type of investigation, it should be assumed that they are rapists because they REFUSED to DEMAND an FBI investigation be conducted on themselves (and repeat it about 17 times despite they're saying they'd welcome any type of investigation the Judiciary Committee sees fit to impose)!

I sympathize with the reductios ad absurdum that are being thrown around here. That's why I also repped Nostromo's post. It's definitely true that minors are generally way more awkward when it comes to sexual activities than adults and it would be weird to let all those childhood moments surface again when people are applying for important public jobs.
Many boys have been forced to kiss a girl in primary school while being held by their mates and many girls suddenly feel a guy holding their hips from their back during dances in high school because most teenage guys don't know how to talk to girls and just "go for it". Those early experiences are often awkward, weird and tense, but it's very unlikely that people actually get traumatized by them.

However, as Yoda already pointed out, the allegations against Kavanaugh are of a different kind. The story that Dr. Ford described really implicates that the two 17(!) year old guys planned to force or were consciously forcing a 15 year old girl into a deeply sexual and intimate situation, even making sure nobody can hear her scream (by turning up the music and holding a hand in front of her mouth). It's not at all comparable to a common "awkward" sexual approach, at least not during the years I was young. I assume this was also not the case during the '80s. The fact that someone would do something like that at the age of 17 definitely says something about that person's character.

Also, I think agressive sexual approaches by men towards women are inherently more dangerous and violent than the other way around.

I also sympathize with Cricket's warnings against naivety. That's why I repped him as well. I know PLENTY of girls that seem respectable but who indeed would or have tried to destroy a guy's reputation because he left/cheated on/was rude to/used to bully her. Friends of mine have been accused of rape (not in court, but through gossip) while I know for a fact that it can't be true, girls have told friends of mine that they were pregnant by them when they weren't just to get into their heads and there are many other mean lies which girls use to ruin the reputation of guys they don't like. Just like men, women can also be manipulative, mendacious and sociopathic.

However, apart from the fact that this case is on a totally different scale, there are, as I've already mentioned, a couple of elements to this particular story that steer me towards believing her instead of him, or at least make me believe that something out of the ordinary happened: the 2012 mention of Kavanaugh (and the incident) to her therapist, the weird unhelpful details to her story that she wouldn't add when she was rationally lying and her overall credibility as a person.


This doen't mean Kavanaugh is guilty or that the accusation an sich is enough to deny him the seat on the Supreme Court, but I do think the accusation is believable and grave enough to incite further investigation. After such investigation, if no indications are found that Dr. Ford's story is true, he should then always be given the benefit of the doubt and get a yes-vote from all the senators who think he's fit to serve based on all the other elements.

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

Great post Cob, but I'm pretty sure she didn't name him to her therapist. And as I said before, she gave the therapist a different timeline for the incident then what she is saying now. The therapist notes also have Ford claiming a different amount of people present, although Ford has dismissed that last part as a mistake by her therapist.

Wait, why is the White House all of a sudden intervening with an FBI investigation??
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...se-report.html

Why bother having one?

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“There's no place to hide, When you're lit from the inside” Roisin Murphy

My guess is to not draw out the process with accusations that are not credible when the whole process looks like a democratic stall tactic anyway.

Rep this post if you are waiting until the delay is over before voting.

I don't think you read the whole thing. It seems like your comment is solely in regards to the third accuser.

"...NBC also reported that certain other areas of investigation would also be off limits. For instance, the agency cannot request employment records from a supermarket where key witness Mark Judge worked, which might help corroborate Ford’s account of running into him after her alleged assault.

And it cannot look into discrepancies between Kavanaugh’s account of only drinking moderately in college and that of at least one classmate, who has said he was lying."

In any case, it should be up to FBI to discern what is credible and what is not. I trust them more than I trust the White House. Or the judiciary committee for that matter.

Yea you're right, I only looked at the first part. It certainly appears like something that should be questioned and I'll be curious as to what comes out about it.

Just a question, but isn't it already known when he worked at the supermarket due to the book he wrote many years ago? Or maybe that's what Trump is thinking but they'd like more specific dates so they could try to match it up with the calendar? Who knows, but I would want as detailed an investigation as possible as a citizen.

I am not familiar exactly what he wrote in his book, but I would venture to guess he did not mention exact dates. The exact dates will be important for a whole bunch of reasons.

I wonder if they are going to talk to her therapist?

Probably. I am pretty sure they will want to see those notes too.
Was Mark Judge ever in a rehab? Did he have a therapist? I'd want those notes as well if so.

Definitely because if he was the only other person in the room, he's the key to the whole case. If there's a record of him talking about the incident, the judge is done. On the other hand, that's why I'm so strong in my opinion the other way, her therapist's notes. Finding out exactly when he worked at the supermarket is fine, but it's ultimately not going to prove anything. I would look for old friends and acquaintances of Judge. Young drinkers have loose lips, although i think if the average person knew for a fact one of these people were lying, they'd be infuriated enough to come forward on their own. The problem now for me is that I'm extra skeptical of anything that comes out of the democratic side. I don't trust the republican side either, but at least they've been able to hide any shadiness a little better, if there is any. I've heard what others believed or didn't believe in the testimony. There was actually one thing from the judge that I thought sounded contrived and a little too perfect, his little daughter praying. Fortunately for him, it really doesn't have anything to do with the case, but anyway that's what he said that I'm most skeptical of. I just thought I'd try to be fair and point that out since I question just about everything Ford had to say.