[POLITICS] If Trump is Innocent, he should prove it

[Saelune]

You should think Kavanaugh is innocent. I believe Dr. Ford in her most credible claims. As illustrated by Micheal Avenatti inventing a rape victim, claims go down in credibility once they can be influenced by the political and media circus. I ask you to believe Ford in her first documented recounting of the incident, when she was speaking to just her husband and a therapist. At that time, she said she was assaulted at a party by boys should could not name in the mid-80s, and I believe that. The only issue with this story is that Kavanaugh graduated before the mid-80s, but other than that it answers all the outlying questions: why did none of the possible witnesses corroborate her claim? Because they weren't there, because they had also graduated. Why can't she explain how she got home? Because she drove herself home, but she can't have driven herself home without a license, and she didn't have a license until the mid-80s. The way to believe her with the least contradictions is to say "she was assaulted by boys at a high school party near the end of her high school career and then accidentally misidentified who the assailant was 30 years later." To believe that Kavanaugh assaulted her, you have to believe that she misremembered when telling the therapist, that she can't remember what extraordinary means got her home, and that everyone else involved with the night of the incident is lying.

Kavanaugh doesn't remember, why believe him?

Read my paragraph again. I never asked you to believe a word Kavanaugh said. I asked you to believe what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford told her therapist rather than what she told to her Congresswoman.

Citation needed then.

 

[tstorm823]

Citation needed then.

I will admit, I misremembered minorly on the specifics

The Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.fe17ab5b6648] reported on September 16th that "Notes from an individual therapy session the following year, when she was being treated for what she says have been long-term effects of the incident, show Ford described a ?rape attempt? in her late teens." The same story mentions that Kavanaugh's name is not mentioned in those therapy notes.

Almost 2 weeks after that in the hearing [https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408692-live-coverage-kavanaugh-ford-testify-to-senate-with-supreme-court-in-balance] (the section at 12:06 pm), this came up. She was asked if she provided those notes to the Washington Post, and she did not remember, but she did at least summarize them for the Post. So the description "late teens" came from either her or the actual therapy notes, and the report makes it sound as though they saw the notes, for what it's worth.

Additionally, in that hearing around the same time, she was asked about the text message she had sent to the Washington Post to initiate that exchange, where she said that he had assaulted her "in the mid-1980's", a description consistent with "late teens". But by the time the story was released by the Post, it had been narrowed down to 1982. She was asked how she got from "mid-1980s" to "1982", and she said she must have been 15 (which isn't "late teens") or she would have been old enough to drive herself home, and she didn't drive home from that party. The question became: how did she get home from the party? She apparently can't remember.

She doesn't know how she got to and from the party. But she knows it must have happened in 1982 when she was 15, rather than in the mid 80s when she was in her late teens, entirely because she believes she did not drive to and from the party. That is a shaky thing to base the claim of a specific year on. But if I my put my conspiracy hat on for a moment, in the month or so between the message that said "mid-1980s" and the interview where she insisted 1982, Ford had been advised by Senator Diane Feinstein to not talk to law enforcement and instead was offered pro bono legal counsel to prepare for a public battle that Ford explicitly wanted to avoid.

There's a contradiction between her oldest telling of the events and the one that led to the hearing. She consistently remembered it happening in the mid 80s through the earliest records, but that would mean Kavanaugh wasn't the assailant. She was not convinced the event happened in a timeline that fit with Kavanaugh as the assailant until after she had been provided counsel by someone with a vested political interest in Kavanaugh having committed a sex crime.

It may sound mean of me to suggest that Feinstein and her lawyers convinced Ford that the event happened in 1982 to bolster their case against Kavanaugh even if it went against what Dr Ford believed, but it fits their pattern of behavior. A women, saying she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, came to that Senator saying she didn't want a big public controversy, but she couldn't stand by and let a rapist be on the Supreme Court. She didn't want to come forward. What did Feinstein do with that information? She didn't tell the Senate of the anonymous allegations, nor the FBI. She advised Ford not to tell the Senate or the FBI. She gave Ford pro bono legal counsel to guide her through the events. And then that legal counsel advised her to take a lie detector test (useless and possibly traumatic) and demand a public hearing (exactly what she didn't want and also certainly traumatic).

I believe she misidentified Brett Kavanaugh as her assailant, I believe she was assaulted by one of the countless other yuppy private school boys who lived in that part of the country, in her late teens in the mid-80s just like she told the therapist. And then having made that mistake, through no malice or political motivations of her own, she was abused by those who would rather see Kavanaugh fail.

 

[Asita]

Except that's not actually what happened, and what you did was closer to quote mining than anything else. Let's review, shall we? I say that the infographic "is a heat map of how Mueller characterized his findings". Approximate meaning being that it is reflective of what is seen in Mueller's report. You attempt to rebut that with the simple quote from the page saying that the image is the writer's "interpretation of the evidence as Mueller seems to provide it-others may have different readings", and leave it at that as if it actually contradicts the intended point. About the only way that that makes sense as an attempted rebuttal is if you either mistook me to mean that it was a heat map provided by the report, or if you were trying to claim that the infographic's illustration was wildly different from what was indicated in the report, or otherwise not soundly based in it. I then go on to explain how it is reflective, using the report's analysis of Comey's firing for illustrative purposes.

Excuse me? No thank you. You said this:

No, the problem is that you're being obtuse and more than a little disingenuous. You've repeatedly implied that this conversation is about my own (and now "lawfareblog"'s) original research, rather than what we are summarizing from the Mueller report. This is not amateur sleuthing made by people with a questionable understanding of the law. They are summarizations of the official investigation led by a former FBI Director. That image above? That's a heat map of how Mueller characterized his findings.

If you managed to explain anything the way you think you did, we'd be in a different position. You didn't do that. You appealed to the authority of a heat map and are now mad at me that the heat map came with a "my opinion has no authority" disclaimer.

Except that is once again inaccurate. What you are quoting there was itself a repudiation of your implication that the heat map was itself original research ("It's not that I think you're exceptionally amateur, or that I doubt the firm credibility of "lawfareblog.com""). You might note that even the very quotation you invoke there hits the same point, referring to it as a summary. "You've repeatedly implied that this conversation is about my own (and now "lawfareblog"'s) original research, rather than what we are summarizing from the Mueller report." Similarly my immediately preceding post had characterized the heat map as summarizing the report's findings visually, and had taken umbrage at your apparent implication that I'd given you nothing to work with. To quote:

Mind you, that rings more than a little hollow considering that I've linked the report itself twice now in addition to two summaries of its findings, in video and article form, and gave cliff notes of their summaries myself. This included - notably - the significance of the framework of the report and an infographic illustrating Mueller's findings on 14 counts of possible obstruction (as quoted again by Lil devils x on page 8 of this thread).

My first linking of the graphic even did so in tandem with an analysis video, so it should have been fairly clear to a reasonable third party that it was being used as an easy reference point rather than a distinct authority. It's also worth noting that "You appealed to the authority of a heat map and are now mad at me that the heat map came with a "my opinion has no authority" disclaimer." is a two in one case of spin. The first case is that the statement implicitly exaggerates the margin of error from "generally reflective of the reports findings" to "practically unreliable". The second is that it tries to paint the picture that I had done nothing more substantial than saying "well according to the infographic" or "well lawfare blog said", neither of which I have so much as implied in the course of this discussion. Indeed, when asked for specifics, I've tended very strongly to either quote or otherwise directly reference the report itself.

Regarding the "did you tell Trump you were quitting bit" that's actually irrelevant, as the meat of the story is that Trump wanted McGahn to "correct" was that Trump wanted Mueller removed.

So you're saying Donald Trump, who by this point had made official motions to have Robert Mueller removed as special counsel due to perceived personal conflicts of interest, was trying to have McGahn correct the record to hide that he wanted Mueller removed as special counsel? The man who tweeted publicly untold times about how the investigation itself was a witch hunt was trying to pretend he wanted Mueller to be the special counsel. That's your theory?That's supposed to be more plausible than "Trump thought the stories were untrue and worthy of correction."

No, I'm saying that Donald Trump was trying to have McGahn go on the record as saying that Donald Trump hadn't told him to get rid of Mueller, when McGahn felt that to be a false statement and Trump understood that McGahn believed such a statement would be a lie. Not to pretend that he wanted Mueller to be the Special Counsel. There's a severe difference between the two.

I'm honestly at a loss as to how you could have validly interpreted that as railing against the use of analogy rather than against challenging an argument by calling into question the motives of the person arguing the point.

Because you ignored an analogy meant to illustrate that asking someone to correct a news story isn't inherently obstruction of justice with a paragraph about removing the argument from the facts of the debate and making it a personal attack. If you have no problem with the analogy, you should probably acknowledge it.

I don't have to address the analogy itself, as you laid the conclusion you wanted to communicate from it quite bare. "Is your first assumption that Abraham Lincoln is telling him to do that to obstruct the investigation into his pizzeria sex ring? Probably not, because you don't hate Abraham Lincoln." You very overtly laid out that the purpose of the analogy was to present the argument that petty hatred was the true reason for my arguments against Trump. Consequentially, it was that implication that mattered, not the analogy you were using to try and convey it. This is especially true considering that this marked the second time you'd leveled that accusation at me, with the first being as follows:

The problem here isn't that your conclusions are amateur. The problem is that your conclusions are based on the underlying assumption that Trump's intentions were corrupt because you hate him. [original emphasis]

Regardless, that you're doubling down on the idea that I objected to the use of analogy here rather than the use of the appeal to motive fallacy even after I explicitly clarified that is no less perplexing than it was before.

This is getting quite ridiculous, tstorm, and the blame is at least partially my own. This last exchange has focused almost entirely on you and me and rather than the actual topic, and I believe we're both getting quite frustrated with each other. In truth, I expect this is increasingly looking like a schoolyard brawl and neither of us is coming off particularly well. I retain the above to defend myself, and I've tried to prune back accusations or implications that might cause offence (though I naturally cannot guarantee my success in doing so).

While I won't begrudge you responding to anything in the above that you might find objectionable (Considering this very post, I'd be a hypocrite to do so), I think it's clear that the conversation has long since run its course and I suggest we both take a deep breath and bow out of the conversation shortly.

For what it's worth, I feel I did lose my cool and vented some of my frustrations[footnote]Long story short, friend's dealing with depression and been calling me almost daily about the source of their depression for months now[/footnote] onto you, and I do apologize for that.

 

[Agema]

There's a contradiction between her oldest telling of the events and the one that led to the hearing.

I don't think "contradiction" is the right word.

Memory just isn't that precise, especially 30 years down the road. Ask anyone about incidents in their lives, unless there's a particularly salient reason otherwise, they're likely remember things happened in approximate areas of their lives, not highly specific times. Times could be narrowed down or clarified with additional thought and concentration, but most people wouldn't bother unless it were important and relevant at the time. With this in mind, "mid-80s" and 1982, or 15 and "late teens" I would call not inconsistent rather than a contradiction. The article also suggests Kavanaugh's name was mentioned in the therapy session in 2012, long before Feinstein was ever contacted.

This means nothing in terms of the argument against Kavanaugh - her testimony without further corroboration is insufficient no matter how positive or negative a spin we put on it. Just that there's no reason to assume conspiracy or trickery if not necessary.

 

[tstorm823]

No, I'm saying that Donald Trump was trying to have McGahn go on the record as saying that Donald Trump hadn't told him to get rid of Mueller, when McGahn felt that to be a false statement and Trump understood that McGahn believed such a statement would be a lie. Not to pretend that he wanted Mueller to be the Special Counsel. There's a severe difference between the two.

But Trump was trying to get rid of Mueller. That's not a secret Trump was keeping, he had made appeals in official channels to have Mueller disqualified as special counsel. I know "I didn't say Fire" sounds like the Moops defense [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0uYJjDHeDU], but there is a substantive difference between saying to get rid of someone and saying to fire. Hell, saying "get rid of him" is just as likely to be an assassination order as it is an order to fire someone. It takes a level of interpretation for McGahn to understand Trump's words in that way. Trump wanted Mueller gone, he wasn't hiding his desire to have Mueller gone, but there's a difference between that and ordering him fired, which he didn't do.

The critical issue isn't whether McGahn thought it was a lie, it's whether Trump thought it was a lie. Let's say, for arguments sake, McGahn is a crazy person who told the press that Donald Trump is a lizard person. If the press than published articles that Donald Trump is a lizard person, would Trump be wrong to demand a correction? Even if McGahn thought it to be true that Trump is a lizard person, it wouldn't be wrong to ask him to take back that factually incorrect statement.

Consequentially, it was that implication that mattered, not the analogy you were using to try and convey it.

Yes, the idea was to take your opinion of the person out of the equation because I think your opinion of Trump has clouded your judgment, but you never actually acknowledged the point once the character of the person is accounted for. I don't think that if a person you liked (I picked Lincoln) asked for a public correction to a story you believed to be false (I made up Lincoln pizzagate) you would find that demand to be legally or ethically questionable. Someone believing a story to be a lie is motive enough to want it corrected. If someone demands a correction to a story they believe is false, there intent is likely to have the truth displayed publicly. You have to believe that Donald Trump was ordering McGahn to say something that Trump thought was a lie before you get to criminal intent. Trump told him to correct the story with what he believed to be true. McGahn refused because he didn't believe the same thing. Neither committed a crime.

This is getting quite ridiculous, tstorm, and the blame is at least partially my own. This last exchange has focused almost entirely on you and me and rather than the actual topic, and I believe we're both getting quite frustrated with each other. In truth, I expect this is increasingly looking like a schoolyard brawl and neither of us is coming off particularly well. I retain the above to defend myself, and I've tried to prune back accusations or implications that might cause offence (though I naturally cannot guarantee my success in doing so).

While I won't begrudge you responding to anything in the above that you might find objectionable (Considering this very post, I'd be a hypocrite to do so), I think it's clear that the conversation has long since run its course and I suggest we both take a deep breath and bow out of the conversation shortly.

For what it's worth, I feel I did lose my cool and vented some of my frustrations onto you, and I do apologize for that.

Well, it's better than getting triplicate accusations of gaslighting people in the other thread.

I confess, I have no excuse for questionable things said. I just genuinely enjoy the back-and-forth of an argument. Not to say I'm defending positions I don't believe, but I'm in it for the intellectual tennis match, and I may have gone a bit overboard matching intensity at the "you haven't even read it" part of the argument.

To give a sort of closing statement here, I feel we can say firmly that none of the potentially obstructive acts have shielded Trump from investigation, and I don't personally believe for any of them that Trump did those things with the intent to shield himself from investigation. I think Trump very publicly hated the Mueller investigation and wanted it over but said he wouldn't interfere, and I think that perspective of hating the investigation/wanting it over/not interfering is a much more straightforward explanation for the things Trump said that could be taken as attempted obstruction. And if you tried to make a criminal case of this, in the absence of successful obstruction, your case would depend entirely on proving to a court that he intended to interfere in the investigation, and I don't think you could possibly win that case.

I don't think "contradiction" is the right word.

Memory just isn't that precise, especially 30 years down the road. Ask anyone about incidents in their lives, unless there's a particularly salient reason otherwise, they're likely remember things happened in approximate areas of their lives, not highly specific times. Times could be narrowed down or clarified with additional thought and concentration, but most people wouldn't bother unless it were important and relevant at the time. With this in mind, "mid-80s" and 1982, or 15 and "late teens" I would call not inconsistent rather than a contradiction. The article also suggests Kavanaugh's name was mentioned in the therapy session in 2012, long before Feinstein was ever contacted.

Well I'm not suggesting Feinstein planted the idea that it was Kavanaugh. Feinstein was contacted because Ford already thought it was Kavanaugh. I think Feinstein or the lawyers she recommended noticed that mid-80s was the wrong timeline for Kavanaugh to be the assailant and convinced her to change the timeline. To invent an imaginary dialogue:

Lawyer: Are you sure this didn't happen in the early 80s?
Ford: I'm not sure what year it happened in exactly.
L: Did you remember driving to and from the party?
F: No, I don't remember that.
L: Then you must not have had a license yet.
F: I guess I was less than 16 then.
L: Exactly, so it would have been in the early 80s. But after you reached high school, so it would be 1982.
F: I guess that makes sense.

And bam! They've reconciled the problem of the timeline in the direction that they needed it to go, in a way that she thinks she's remembering it. It wasn't for no reason that the sex crimes prosecutor the Republicans brought in ended her questions the way she did. (note, she prosecutes sex crimes, that means her career is defending sex crime victims. I don't mean to assume people here don't understand that, but I've had some very intelligent friends of mine gut react "they brought a prosecutor to interrogate her!") The last bit she said to Ford was about how the correct way to handle this would be one on one with someone like that prosecutor in a private setting where Ford did most of the talking, to establish the most accurate understanding of events and not have the pressure of opposition or let people implant ideas in her memory.

As far as why Ford would identify Kavanaugh as her rapist if it wasn't really him, it could very well be that she didn't really identify him as her attacker until he became a public figure later. By her own account, she only interacted with Kavanaugh at a few summer parties. Perhaps she accidentally associated him directly with the assault when he became a successful public figure from a social group she'd reasonably rather forget about entirely. It's certainly all conjecture on my part at this point.

 

[Agema]

Well I'm not suggesting Feinstein planted the idea that it was Kavanaugh. Feinstein was contacted because Ford already thought it was Kavanaugh. I think Feinstein or the lawyers she recommended noticed that mid-80s was the wrong timeline for Kavanaugh to be the assailant and convinced her to change the timeline.

Ford might have got the identity of her assailant wrong - with a pack of pre-frat boozehounds she didn't know that well, she might misidentify which one, and memory can be unreliable anyway. But on balance that's less likely that her getting the year wrong.

You think about your memory, you have a load of images, sounds, feelings, etc. tucked away that your brain recalls: but they don't come with an inbuilt clock and a calendar, because that's just not how memory works. You often remember the date of things through associations and relationships with other events, and in practice you're often going to come to an approximation.

We all surely have experienced this sort of thing. Get together with old friends: "Hey remember the time when we went to Barcelona? We were what, 22?" and a friend might interject "No, more like 25, it was after GWB was elected". Or someone at work asks whether you sent that report to your boss, and you say "Yeah, three weeks ago", and then you check through your email outbox and it was actually two weeks. You'd just shrug and accept the corrections, you wouldn't start doubting whether you saw Sagrada Familia or what the report summarised.

 

[Saelune]

I believe she misidentified Brett Kavanaugh as her assailant, I believe she was assaulted by one of the countless other yuppy private school boys who lived in that part of the country, in her late teens in the mid-80s just like she told the therapist. And then having made that mistake, through no malice or political motivations of her own, she was abused by those who would rather see Kavanaugh fail.

People like to tell me not to jump to conclusions while in the same post jump to their own conclusions.

 

[tstorm823]

People like to tell me not to jump to conclusions while in the same post jump to their own conclusions.

I didn't tell you not to jump to conclusions, I just stated my case. If you don't find the case credible, that's your prerogative. But there are a few outstanding questions left unanswered from that hearing, and a simple case of mistaken identity answers basically all of them.

Ford might have got the identity of her assailant wrong - with a pack of pre-frat boozehounds she didn't know that well, she might misidentify which one, and memory can be unreliable anyway. But on balance that's less likely that her getting the year wrong.

You think about your memory, you have a load of images, sounds, feelings, etc. tucked away that your brain recalls: but they don't come with an inbuilt clock and a calendar, because that's just not how memory works. You often remember the date of things through associations and relationships with other events, and in practice you're often going to come to an approximation.

We all surely have experienced this sort of thing. Get together with old friends: "Hey remember the time when we went to Barcelona? We were what, 22?" and a friend might interject "No, more like 25, it was after GWB was elected". Or someone at work asks whether you sent that report to your boss, and you say "Yeah, three weeks ago", and then you check through your email outbox and it was actually two weeks. You'd just shrug and accept the corrections, you wouldn't start doubting whether you saw Sagrada Familia or what the report summarised.

That's sort of what they did, except their relative events was being old enough to drive home, and her memory of how she got home is blank. If it was "I think I was like 17 when it happened" "well did you drive there or did yo need a ride" "no, I had to spend like 2 hours walking home, I must have been younger" then it would be a perfect example of what you're saying. And this is part of why I'm confident Ford isn't just a liar. If she was just making up lies to incriminate Kavanaugh, she could have really easily said "I walked all the way home and told my parents I had gotten a ride so they wouldn't worry." That would have been a bulletproof lie. When she says she doesn't remember how she got home, I'm positive it's because she genuinely doesn't remember how she got home. Not being sure of a date and honing it in using tangential details is understandable and relatable. But honing in the date based on what you don't remember doesn't really make sense. And something way more relatable than that is driving somewhere you drive to regularly while something weighs heavily on your mind and having no recollection of the details of that drive, because you were stuck in your own mind while muscle memory got you home. If the justification for saying 1982 rests on "I don't remember driving home", that doesn't necessarily mean she didn't drive home.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I don't compare her to the SA. I used it as an example for organized political violence. I don't know her, I only read some of her posts here, and her incessant use of the derogatory term 'Nazi' combined with Trump-hysteria.

EDIT: It was a bad decision to include that in the post. I am tired of the flippant use of the term 'Nazi' because it's reducing it to a slur... which it was, a derogatory term to refer to the members of National-Socialist party of Germany, and the people from Germany when it was ruled by it... not too different from the term 'Jap' the Americans used in the Pacific...

Yet it seems I've done it myself, even without realizing it, because it was the easiest comparison to make... I still think it was a valid comparison, but truthfully, this was in poor taste.

I disagree that to refer to one as being a "Nazi" has to mean that they were from WW2 Germany, If someones ideology, actions, align with Nazi Beliefs, they too would be considered a "Nazi". Simply because those who agree with Hitler's views have not yet started sending people to gas chambers does not somehow mean that everything Hitler did prior to that point was okay. People were socially conditioned to accept hatred for it to get to that point and that is exactly what we are experiencing now in the US due to the promotion of hatred against "them". "Them" can be Jewish people, Muslims, Latino's, Blacks.. anyone who is " different" than "us". That is what we are currently experiencing here and it matters not who "them" actually is, what matters is the irrational promotion of hatred and promotion of misinformation to demonize a group. That is not okay, nor should it be tolerated. It has to be corrected before it ever gets to the point that people are okay with murdering people to "keep them away" from " us".

As for " Trump Hysteria", what exactly do you think that is? People having genuine issues with the very bad practices and policies is not "hysteria". When we had public officials saying Obama was a "gay prostitute" and a "Muslim terrorist", that was " Hysteria" claiming Trump sexually assaulted women is not, he was recorded admitting such and women included everyone from former business partners to aids and contestants. Saying Trump is a conman is not "Hysteria", he has had thousands of people sue him for that reason. He had a fake scam school That if he had not paid off people to drop the suit, he would have been charged with fraud and could face 10 years in prison. The man literally stole from charity and had to shut down his charity due to it being fake.

https://apnews.com/43033e7cb9974faf879b51251c3a0d07
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/donald-trump-lawsuits-legal-battles/84995854/
https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/ny-ag-underwood-trump-foundation.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/

None of this is " Trump Hysteria" It is just Trump has actually done so very many bad things and is continuing to do so many more bad things that just to attempt to discuss them all makes it look like no one person could seriously have done this much bad shat that it cannot possibly be real. The reality is it is actually real and people put this scum bag into the highest office in the US.

 

[Saelune]

Trump keeps doing all the guilty things.

Also calling people who call themselves Nazis 'Nazis' is a totally reasonable thing, and it is absurd to argue otherwise.

Also Trump is a conspiracy theorist nutjob.

 

[Schadrach]

If the default position is 'innocent until proven guilty', that applies to both sides. If I have to believe Kavanaugh is not a rapist until proven he is one, I also have to believe Ford is not a liar until proven one. Same goes for you.

You'd do well to note that I've never accused her of perjury. Because I don't think there's enough proof to back that up either. That everyone she claimed was at this party doesn't recall the party or the conduct in question (including her friend who didn't know Kavanaugh and claimed to have never been at any party with him at all) suggests that her testimony is probably not accurate. 30 years is a long time, and memory is tricky (there's a reason witness testimony is considered the least reliable form of evidence).

The world all agreed he was a sexist gropey pig until suddenly he was representing Republicans.

I won't argue about "sexist gropey pig" or "narcissist" or anything else negative you might call him that isn't a direct accusation of a crime that there is insufficient evidence of at this time. He's a shitty president, but he's a lawfully elected shitty president that there is some measure of evidence may have committed a crime, but nothing thorough or solid enough to impeach on without further investigation. Which is happening.

There's also the possibility that they won't impeach, and just arrest him when he leaves office. I half suspect his odds of impeachment depend a lot on his odds of winning a second term.

If it makes you feel any better, Facebook started purging far right influencers from all their platforms before election season gets rolling too hard. Deeming them "dangerous."

And men constantly get away with rape. ... and the fact that men, especially men with power get away with tons of horrible things,

Ah, OK, he's male, and his maleness is itself proof (or even the slightest evidence) towards his being a rapist? Weird, if I were to say something like that implicating the other approximate half of humanity in a similar fashion for something far less serious, it would violate COC.

You want to pretend this all happens in a vacuum without all the surrounding contextual evidence.

OK, what's the contextual evidence that Kavanaugh committed rape? How does it get around the other people named as allegedly being there not recalling the event at all, including her own friend saying she's never been at any party with Kavanaugh and had never met him?

You throw 'innocent until proven guilty' at me while ignoring it yourself for Ford and while ignoring all the rest of the guilt already proven.

What was it proven Kavanaugh was guilty of, again? Not keeping the meanings of slang terms he used as a teen straight in his 50s? Being kind of a skeezy drunken party boy at the end of his teens?

All you have is misguided sound bytes and a blind faith in a corrupt and ineffectual legal system.

Misguided sound bytes? You make it sound like I'm quote mining, or avoiding the relevant context. But there's not some context in their statements that changes the meaning.

As for a corrupt and ineffectual legal system, as far as I can tell, you want one where people are investigated based on second hand accounts (and yes a media recording of testimony is exactly that), and are automatically guilty unless they can conclusively prove their innocence, well, at least for straight white men. I suspect you'd apply different standards to some other groups.

You don't need to stick your hand personally into lava to know its going to melt your hand.

Right, but you're arguing that you shouldn't touch red things because someone told you red things are like lava, and promptly disappeared the moment selling green paint was no longer worthwhile. Because that's what happened here - the moment it was no longer politically valuable to accuse Kavanaugh, everyone dropped it. It will get brought back publicly in the future if, and only if attacking Kavanaugh becomes a useful political tool.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

If the default position is 'innocent until proven guilty', that applies to both sides. If I have to believe Kavanaugh is not a rapist until proven he is one, I also have to believe Ford is not a liar until proven one. Same goes for you.

You'd do well to note that I've never accused her of perjury. Because I don't think there's enough proof to back that up either. That everyone she claimed was at this party doesn't recall the party or the conduct in question (including her friend who didn't know Kavanaugh and claimed to have never been at any party with him at all) suggests that her testimony is probably not accurate. 30 years is a long time, and memory is tricky (there's a reason witness testimony is considered the least reliable form of evidence).

The world all agreed he was a sexist gropey pig until suddenly he was representing Republicans.

I won't argue about "sexist gropey pig" or "narcissist" or anything else negative you might call him that isn't a direct accusation of a crime that there is insufficient evidence of at this time. He's a shitty president, but he's a lawfully elected shitty president that there is some measure of evidence may have committed a crime, but nothing thorough or solid enough to impeach on without further investigation. Which is happening.

There's also the possibility that they won't impeach, and just arrest him when he leaves office. I half suspect his odds of impeachment depend a lot on his odds of winning a second term.

If it makes you feel any better, Facebook started purging far right influencers from all their platforms before election season gets rolling too hard. Deeming them "dangerous."

And men constantly get away with rape. ... and the fact that men, especially men with power get away with tons of horrible things,

Ah, OK, he's male, and his maleness is itself proof (or even the slightest evidence) towards his being a rapist? Weird, if I were to say something like that implicating the other approximate half of humanity in a similar fashion for something far less serious, it would violate COC.

You want to pretend this all happens in a vacuum without all the surrounding contextual evidence.

OK, what's the contextual evidence that Kavanaugh committed rape? How does it get around the other people named as allegedly being there not recalling the event at all, including her own friend saying she's never been at any party with Kavanaugh and had never met him?

You throw 'innocent until proven guilty' at me while ignoring it yourself for Ford and while ignoring all the rest of the guilt already proven.

What was it proven Kavanaugh was guilty of, again? Not keeping the meanings of slang terms he used as a teen straight in his 50s? Being kind of a skeezy drunken party boy at the end of his teens?

All you have is misguided sound bytes and a blind faith in a corrupt and ineffectual legal system.

Misguided sound bytes? You make it sound like I'm quote mining, or avoiding the relevant context. But there's not some context in their statements that changes the meaning.

As for a corrupt and ineffectual legal system, as far as I can tell, you want one where people are investigated based on second hand accounts (and yes a media recording of testimony is exactly that), and are automatically guilty unless they can conclusively prove their innocence, well, at least for straight white men. I suspect you'd apply different standards to some other groups.

You don't need to stick your hand personally into lava to know its going to melt your hand.

Right, but you're arguing that you shouldn't touch red things because someone told you red things are like lava, and promptly disappeared the moment selling green paint was no longer worthwhile. Because that's what happened here - the moment it was no longer politically valuable to accuse Kavanaugh, everyone dropped it. It will get brought back publicly in the future if, and only if attacking Kavanaugh becomes a useful political tool.

They have plenty of "solid evidence" of crimes to impeach Trump. at the tip of it, Fraud is a federal offense, so is lying under oath and he has done both. Trump agreeing to pay the money back to over 3000 people does not mean he did not commit fraud in the first place and should be charged criminally not just in civil court.

https://apnews.com/43033e7cb9974faf879b51251c3a0d07

https://www.newsweek.com/mr-speaker-stop-trump-let-gop-lose-election-489797

Sexual assault is a crime. Groping women without their consent is a crime. Kissing women without their consent is a crime. Many women have now accused him of this and Trump has admitted to grabbing women's genitals and kissing them without their consent. Yes, that is a crime and should be treated as such. Then of course we have his stealing from a charity and having a fraudulent charity that was shut down. Then we can get into him repeatedly ordering people to break the law while he is president. Any one of these things should be grounds for impeachment, however the combination of them should prove him to be the most "unfit" president we have ever seen.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mexico-border-asylum-seekers-el-paso-kirstjen-nielsen-a8860996.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/25/trump-isnt-just-violating-norms-hes-also-breaking-law/

EDIT: BTW Trump misrepresenting his wealth and the projects they were investing in to investors as he has done repeatedly is also a crime and a real estate mogul here in Dallas went to prison for that very thing a while back. Trump is a con man, and has managed top con his way to the highest office through blatant lies and misrepresentation.

 

[Saelune]

If the default position is 'innocent until proven guilty', that applies to both sides. If I have to believe Kavanaugh is not a rapist until proven he is one, I also have to believe Ford is not a liar until proven one. Same goes for you.

You'd do well to note that I've never accused her of perjury. Because I don't think there's enough proof to back that up either. That everyone she claimed was at this party doesn't recall the party or the conduct in question (including her friend who didn't know Kavanaugh and claimed to have never been at any party with him at all) suggests that her testimony is probably not accurate. 30 years is a long time, and memory is tricky (there's a reason witness testimony is considered the least reliable form of evidence).

The world all agreed he was a sexist gropey pig until suddenly he was representing Republicans.

I won't argue about "sexist gropey pig" or "narcissist" or anything else negative you might call him that isn't a direct accusation of a crime that there is insufficient evidence of at this time. He's a shitty president, but he's a lawfully elected shitty president that there is some measure of evidence may have committed a crime, but nothing thorough or solid enough to impeach on without further investigation. Which is happening.

There's also the possibility that they won't impeach, and just arrest him when he leaves office. I half suspect his odds of impeachment depend a lot on his odds of winning a second term.

If it makes you feel any better, Facebook started purging far right influencers from all their platforms before election season gets rolling too hard. Deeming them "dangerous."

And men constantly get away with rape. ... and the fact that men, especially men with power get away with tons of horrible things,

Ah, OK, he's male, and his maleness is itself proof (or even the slightest evidence) towards his being a rapist? Weird, if I were to say something like that implicating the other approximate half of humanity in a similar fashion for something far less serious, it would violate COC.

You want to pretend this all happens in a vacuum without all the surrounding contextual evidence.

OK, what's the contextual evidence that Kavanaugh committed rape? How does it get around the other people named as allegedly being there not recalling the event at all, including her own friend saying she's never been at any party with Kavanaugh and had never met him?

You throw 'innocent until proven guilty' at me while ignoring it yourself for Ford and while ignoring all the rest of the guilt already proven.

What was it proven Kavanaugh was guilty of, again? Not keeping the meanings of slang terms he used as a teen straight in his 50s? Being kind of a skeezy drunken party boy at the end of his teens?

All you have is misguided sound bytes and a blind faith in a corrupt and ineffectual legal system.

Misguided sound bytes? You make it sound like I'm quote mining, or avoiding the relevant context. But there's not some context in their statements that changes the meaning.

As for a corrupt and ineffectual legal system, as far as I can tell, you want one where people are investigated based on second hand accounts (and yes a media recording of testimony is exactly that), and are automatically guilty unless they can conclusively prove their innocence, well, at least for straight white men. I suspect you'd apply different standards to some other groups.

You don't need to stick your hand personally into lava to know its going to melt your hand.

Right, but you're arguing that you shouldn't touch red things because someone told you red things are like lava, and promptly disappeared the moment selling green paint was no longer worthwhile. Because that's what happened here - the moment it was no longer politically valuable to accuse Kavanaugh, everyone dropped it. It will get brought back publicly in the future if, and only if attacking Kavanaugh becomes a useful political tool.

Again, I remind you for someone who is 'not pro-Trump' you sure do break your back to defend him as much as possible.

So you think Ford was raped then?

He is not lawful anything. Seriously, you will admit he is all the bad things short of criminal? We KNOW he is a criminal. His first act as was to lie about his wealth so he could become wealthier. We all used to agree he was a criminal until he started appealing to bigots. Trump has done ALL THE WRONG THINGS, and it is just absurd to think he isnt guilty. I also think you do think he is guilty and just want to defend him. Or you never think anyone is guilty of anything. You dont make 400 page reports about how innocent someone is.

The world is too far gone for me to be happy with how fucked up it is.

He is a man with power who was accused of rape in a society where men who are accused of rape usually are guilty of it but get away with it. And women are constantly sexually assaulted and abused, and people think it is ok cause it is just 'boys being boys'.

That also answers the context. That he is a Republican and multiple republicans are rapists and get away with it, like Trump and Moore is also context.

Guilty of being a rapist and an incompetent pathetic sack of shit. Guilty or Innocent he has no place on the Supreme Court. (Or any court)

I want one where justice is sought evenly and for the sake of justice, and where accused rapists arent running the country. I want one where we dont say stupid shit like 'innocent until proven guilty (despite all the evidence of guilty)' and go 'We dont know and we should make sure we do'

I would apply equality. Equality means equal. It doesnt mean we treat rapists the same as people who stand up to rapists, it means we punish rapists fairly, and dont excuse rapists with an (R) next to their name. Trump, Kavanaugh and Moore deserve to rot with Cosby and Weinstein.

Kavanaugh is protected by a corrupt government. If we want to fix the government, we need to rethink the protections of evil people in government. Kavanaugh needs to be toppled along with Trump, McConnel, Pence, Graham and Putin.

 

[Saelune]

Anyone who thinks Trump is innocent is lying.

 

[Agema]

...combined with Trump-hysteria.

"Trump hysteria" (or "Trump derangement syndrome") doesn't really exist. It is just a term made up by Trump supporters - many of whom were acting in a similar fashion when Obama was in charge - to rhetorically delegitimise criticism of Trump and his policies.

It's also effectively just ad hominem abuse: a veiled way of calling other people stupid, ignorant or irrational.

 

[tstorm823]

"Trump hysteria" (or "Trump derangement syndrome") doesn't really exist. It is just a term made up by Trump supporters - many of whom were acting in a similar fashion when Obama was in charge - to rhetorically delegitimise criticism of Trump and his policies.

It's also effectively just ad hominem abuse: a veiled way of calling other people stupid, ignorant or irrational.

Only tangentially related, but I saw some silly article on the internet the other day where the author claimed they were afraid that Trump wouldn't relinquish power if he lost in 2020, and it was like deja vu. That was stupid when they said it about Obama and it's still stupid now. Just, on the topic of people acting like that when Obama was in charge, there's a fun little example of history repeating itself.

 

[Asita]

And we've got new legal opinions on the Mueller report. Several hundred former Justice Department officials released an open letter several hours ago, posted to Medium, wherein the signatures and credentials can also be viewed. The signatories vary in both administration and experience. In terms of their roles with the DoJ, the range goes from Senior Trial Counsel and Assistant US Attorney to the Assistant Director, to the Chief of Criminal Division Northern District of California, the Deputy Chief Public Corruption and Organized Crime, to the Chief of the Narcotics Division...there are even a few judges on there. In terms of when they served, collectively the signatories have had roles in every administration since Eisenhower.

The factor uniting them all is a shared sentiment, written as follows:

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming.

They go on to explain some select points, but which they note is not intended to be an exhaustive list. They conclude as follows, in what seems to be in part a repudiation of not only Trump and his base's claims of exoneration but also Barr's characterization of the report:

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government's burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice - the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution - runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction - which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished - puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.

The entire thing clocks in at a little over 900 words (minus the signatory names and credentials), so it's not an especially long read.

 

[Saelune]

"Trump hysteria" (or "Trump derangement syndrome") doesn't really exist. It is just a term made up by Trump supporters - many of whom were acting in a similar fashion when Obama was in charge - to rhetorically delegitimise criticism of Trump and his policies.

It's also effectively just ad hominem abuse: a veiled way of calling other people stupid, ignorant or irrational.

Only tangentially related, but I saw some silly article on the internet the other day where the author claimed they were afraid that Trump wouldn't relinquish power if he lost in 2020, and it was like deja vu. That was stupid when they said it about Obama and it's still stupid now. Just, on the topic of people acting like that when Obama was in charge, there's a fun little example of history repeating itself.

Except Trump has constantly broken laws and rules and often refuses to submit to proper authority.

Obama did not do those things.

Trump actively obstructs and attempts to obstruct justice and law.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Except Trump has constantly broken laws and rules and often refuses to submit to proper authority.

Obama did not do those things.

Trump actively obstructs and attempts to obstruct justice and law.

Putting that aside, Trump has also spoken about being PotUS for longer than his theoretical maximum 2 terms, and encourages violence from his supporters. Fight back, play rough, second amendment solution etc. Now, that's probably just in the hopes that some of his deplorables will commit terror acts for him against journalists and the like, though.

 

[Saelune]

Except Trump has constantly broken laws and rules and often refuses to submit to proper authority.

Obama did not do those things.

Trump actively obstructs and attempts to obstruct justice and law.

Putting that aside, Trump has also spoken about being PotUS for longer than his theoretical maximum 2 terms, and encourages violence from his supporters. Fight back, play rough, second amendment solution etc. Now, that's probably just in the hopes that some of his deplorables will commit terror acts for him against journalists and the like, though.

If Trump wants his '2 years back' he needs to give back all the years he stole from children who he took from their families. Going to be real difficult to give back the years from the kids Trump MURDERED by neglecting them in custody until they died.