Kavanaugh Hearing

To provide an actual procedural news update:

Judiciary Committee has put an Executive Business meeting on the calendar for 9:30 AM Friday, which would be the meeting where the committee vote on the nomination would occur. Senators have been told that they should expect to be in DC over the weekend for floor votes relating to the nomination.

 

Good

 

I wonder if that was put on the schedule to put pressure on Dr. Ford’s team to fully commit to appearing on Thursday. I could see it as a warning saying if you do not appear Thursday, we are voting Friday. I believe Grassley did something similar last week, saying if you don’t respond by Friday 1000 am, we are voting.

 

Honestly, I don’t know what goes into an FBI vetting of a SC candidate, but I’d imagine it wouldn’t be the exact same protocol if they had known about a 36 year old allegation of assault. And some people are throwing out that the FBI did six background checks, so if true, that would suggest that there is some variation.

The timing is totally suspect, but that appears to be Feinstein’s deal, so as I wrote above, I don’t think that we should be taking that out on Ford and others. If there is nothing more to the allegations, then I agree we shouldn’t be stopping a confirmation, but I’d just like to be sure.

 

I've seen a lot of Republicans doubting that she'll testify under oath. What'll be interesting to me is what they'll say if she does testify. Right now, they're acting as if testifying under oath is a big deal and that she won't do it if she's making it up. But I have a feeling even if she does testify, those same people will reverse course and say that they still don't believe her because it's no big deal to make an "unprovable allegation" under oath. It'll certainly be intriguing to see what happens.

 

Judiciary Committee rules normally require at least three days notice of Executive Business meetings, so they had to calendar today to hold it on Friday. Grassley tweeted a bit ago that they are taking this one step at a time, are following the regular order of the Committee so they had to notice the potential meeting today for it to be held on Friday if they want to, and that if after hearing the testimony they are ready to vote they will, if they aren't ready to vote they won't.

Full Senate seems to be planning around a potential Friday committee vote with respect to where that would make other procedural points in the floor process fall. They don't want to delay further, so they have told Senators to plan to be in town over the weekend so that they can start the procedural clocks moving towards a confirmation vote if the Committee votes and reports a recommendation on Friday.

 

I will agree with that, but what about the other witnesses who said they disagreed with her story completely.

 

Looks like somebody is lying. I've seen a lot of people claiming that the second accuser refuses to work with the Committee. Her lawyer disagrees (for the record, I can't stand Clown . . . sorry, Clune):

 

Which witnesses? Kavanaugh is the only witness who actually disagreed with her story. The others all took the "I have no memory/recollection" angle. That's quite different than what you're portraying.

 

Committee also laid out the schedule for and details of Thursday's hearing to Ford's lawyers this afternoon.

Grassley and Feinstein will make opening remarks, Ford may then make a statement with no time limit, after which there will be one round of questioning with each senator receiving 5 minutes with the ability to yield their time to either another senator or staff counsel. Then there would be the same process (statement, one round of questioning with 5 minutes per senator and the ability to yield time to either another senator or staff counsel) for Kavanaugh.

 

Good article:
Brett Kavanaugh is hard to believe

It brings up something I forgot about that makes me distrust Kavanaugh more. That's Alex Kozinski. I can't say what they knew in the 1990s about Kozinski, but I can say that his antics were an open secret when I was applying to clerkships. It does feel odd to me that Kavanaugh is disclaiming knowledge of that. Just another thing that he said that doesn't feel forthright.

 

There is no lying. I'm posting this in the context of how it would be viewed in the court of law. Ford needs someone to at least agree that there was a party and that she and Kavanaugh were there together. Otherwise, it's just her word versus his and he's got four people saying they never remember being at a party with the two of them together. And yes, I realize this is not a trial, but I'm not going to bar someone from any office or judicial appointment based on a he said - she said that nobody else can corroborate. That is a slippery slope and it doesn't take long to figure out the Pandora's Box that would open. It's going to get to the point where nobody worth their weight in gold is going to want to serve in these positions anymore.

 

No way a background check catches that. Also I suspect he’s not a serial harasser or it would be out. Just a guess though.

 

Laughable. You think nobody is going to want to be on SCOTUS? That preposterous slippery slope argument gets funnier every time I read it.

 

First, we aren’t getting the best in politics today so I’m not worried about scaring off good people.

Second, in no way, shape, or form have the witnesses corroborated anything Kavanaugh said contrary to your claim. They said “I don’t remember”. I don’t remember seeing Bill Cosby spike young girls drinks. I guess I’m corroborating.

 

When Joe was on the other side of the trade the FBI,lol.
Biden in 1991: The FBI ‘Do Not Reach Conclusions’ When Investigating Sexual Misconduct

 

The honorable Joe Biden

 

What’s the point? I can’t get it from your one liner.

 

So I highly doubt the Twitter noise that Avenatti’s supposed accuser was just him being trolled by 4Chan, but that Twitter noise in and of itself managed to troll Avenatti.

Because here’s one of the things he said in response to it:

“This is just crazy that somebody can just tweet something out like this, or post it, and people just take it as truth,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

 

The FBI were not the answer then, but they are now.