So, he'll not be confirmed, because he behaved so inappropriately at his "job interview" today, right?
Still wondering why the senators hadn’t looked up the terms “Devil’s Triangle” and “Boof” mean...he may or may not have been lying about Dr Ford, but he clearly was lying about his sexual behavior during that time... I don’t believe that type of behavior as a teenager should disqualify him, but would have been nice to see even an ounce of remorseful self-reflection...but I suspect he had been coached not to give an inch given the stakes...
It appears they want to confirm him regardless of how he behaved. But his behavior was inappropriate for any job interview. He lied several times and they know he did. He lost control of himself, yelled, and interrupted his interviewers. You tell me who hires people that behave like that. For any position, let alone a Supreme Court Justice.
I hear her getting trashed on TV, but I don't really agree with it. She was trying to shoot holes in Ford's story by giving the Republicans inconsistencies in her story to work with. On Kavanaugh's side she was getting his statements on the record under oath so they can say he said X under penalty of perjury. The expectation from the public seemed to be that she was going to wrap this up in some summation that made sense in terms of what she was asking, but the format didn't lend itself to something akin to a closing statement. So basically that would have to be argued in the media by the senators themselves. The alternative was to have the senators ask the questions, but Ford wouldn't agree to that and the optics would have potentially been bad if they attacked her. She was walking a line with trying to show sympathy to Ford while trying to extract information that might discredit her. Also I would be very surprised if she came up with the questions herself without the involvement of the senate staff, so she was heading in the direction they wanted her to go. The change seemed to me to be more about responding to the charges the Democrats were putting forward about how the process was conducted and the types of questions they were putting to Kavanaugh. As far as the investigation, I said it like 100 pages ago and Grassley I think repeated it as well as Kavanaugh. The congress does investigate through testimony and having their staff talk to the people involved. The senate has nothing to do with the FBI as only Trump can compel them to investigate. They said the Democrats didn't want to participate in that process when the charges were first made public and DiFi countered that she didn't know about it. I don't know about that. I know she sat on the letter until a moment when it was most useful politically for her to bring it out. She says she was trying to honor Ford's anonymity, but she also didn't do anything to investigate at that point. She didn't bring it to the committee nor send her staffers out to try to verify the story. The lawyers never had Ford submit to a forensic interview but chose to send her to a polygraph test instead. Nobody was looking for the truth in this thing as all the Democrats wanted was to hold up the process and all the GOP wants is to get it done. They also had the statements of all the people they wanted to interview, so it's unlikely that the FBI or congress itself would have got a significantly different story out of those people if they even agreed to testify. Overall it was an ugly and highly partisan process on both sides and if it foreshadows what we have to look forward to in the future, then things might get very bad for this country.
If you get interviewed by a group of people in which one half hates the other half and you trash the half that the other half with more votes hates then you might get the job. He played into the narrative the GOP is pushing that this thing was a political "con job" and showed outrage over it.
Feinstein screwed up by sitting on this if she believed it was a credible charge. If she didn't think it was a credible charge, it was a way to try to get the Senate vote delayed until after the election so the Senators could vote against him.
I really have no opinion on the matter until there is proof. All anyone knows is that one person is accusing another person of something. Right now, I’m hoping, for the sake of America, that something comes out one way or the other and this isn’t the weaponization of sexual assault claims for political purposes.
Kavanaugh lied repeatedly about something that is easily disproven. It floored me that he did it because he's under oath. But then again, he can just claim he was mistaken or misspoke.
It was also a bit shocking to hear Ford say Feinstein’s staff helped her retain a lawyer. That’s not normal, and I can’t think of another example off the top of my head that I know of where it happened. At most I would think you sort of steer them to an outside group that could help - but a Senate office helping someone who clearly will be a witness before their own Committee hire counsel for those Committee proceedings is rather irregular.
I was a bit of a party douche in my college years, and I had a band of Brothers who were just as bad as me. One almost was unable to be admitted to the bar due to a drunken incident at Emory. I'd like to think that me and my friends are no longer those kids, but looking back I can understand why some people think people who acted the way we did should be precluded from a position like suprem eCourt justice.
Do you actually believe that Nana ? That's an incredible statement. I could not disagree with you more. Those allegations would never stand up in a court of law.
Feinstein is getting off easy. I really don't think I would be able to keep the C word out of my responses to her.
I never heard these terms before this week. But I had found out what "Boof" meant the other day. I just about choked to death when he said it had to do with "flatulence". It would have been comedy gold if someone challenged him on the real meaning. Leahy was like the worst possible guy to ask that question.