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THE BLASEY-FORD, KAVANAUGH HEARING DISCUSSION

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flyangler

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I still think the odds of Ford testifying at the hearing on Thursday is 50/50%. That said, there are some things worth reviewing before the hearing. The article below, from the NY Post, brings up commonly known items but two things that are noteworthy and were news to me before today. 

 

Number 5 suggests that like Ramirez, Ford sought out friends to help here with her memories, without anyone being able to do so. If he memories are so reliable and steady, why would she need help remembering?

 

Number 4 is the more interesting of the two - Dr Ford’s family, not her husband’s has been silent in any way supportive of Ford’s claims. Parents and siblings, the people who would know her best, from her earliest years, are not even publicly supporting her in this. The family can’t possibly support the claim itself, but they could come out with an endorsement of their loved one’s honesty, stability or temperament. And yet it is crickets. Why? Desire for privacy? Well, OK, but their daughter just made herself the focus of the nation’s interest. I don’t know, but if her husband’s family, the Fords, are not shy about the publicity, why would the Blaseys demure?

 

Not mentioned below but I also just heard, neither Ford nor her attorney have made documents mentioned in the letter to Feinstein available to the Senate committee for review. Those would be the psychiatrist’s report where she mentions the attack for the first time and the results of the polygraph. Why? If these were offered to DiFi as evidence of her claim, and she is confident in them, why have they not been provided to the committee?

 

Last point, there have been four letters sent to the Committee from people who attest that Ford told them of the attack, all after 2012. These letters, from friends and acquaintances, do not corroborate the details of the alleged 1980s attack, just that Ford mentioned something about it, possible with Kavanaugh’s name. Note that these are all after 2012, when Kavanaugh was first mentioned as a possible SC nominee under Romney. 

 

Again, i think the odds are 1 in 2 that she offers real testimony tomorrow. 

 

Eight big problems for Christine Blasey Ford’s story

By Paul Sperry 

Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are serious. She is accusing him of violent attempted rape. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me. He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing,” she told The Washington Post, recounting the alleged incident at a high school party “one summer in the early 1980s.”
 

But her story is also growing less believable by the day. Here are eight reasons why it’s hardly “anti-woman” for senators to question her account at Thursday’s hearing:

 

1) For starters, Ford still can’t recall basic details of what she says was the most traumatic event in her life. Not where the “assault” took place — she’s not sure whose house it was, or even what street it was on. Nor when — she’s not even sure of the year, let alone the day and month. Ford’s not certain how old she was or what grade she was in when she says an older student violently molested her. (But she doesn’t plead inebriation: She described having just “one beer” at the party.)

 

2) Ford concedes she told no one what happened to her at the time, not even her best friend or mother. That means she can rely on no contemporaneous witness to corroborate her story.

 

3) Worse, the four other people she identified as attending the party, including Kavanaugh, all deny knowledge of the gathering in question, including Leland Ingham Keyser, who she calls a “lifelong friend.”

 

Keyser’s lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with or without Dr. Ford.”

 

The other two potential witnesses — Mark Judge and Patrick “P.J.” Smyth — also deny any recollection of attending such a party. The committee took their sworn statements “under penalty of perjury.” “These witnesses directly contradict Professor Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley advised Ford’s attorneys last week.

 

In her original letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Ford claimed that Kavanaugh talked to Keyser and Smyth right after he assaulted her. Yet neither shares her memory.

 

This is, to say the least, highly problematic for her case. No witness corroborates any part of her story.

 

4) Her own immediate family doesn’t appear to be backing her up, either. Her mother, father and two siblings are all conspicuously absent from a letter of support released by a dozen relatives, mostly on her husband’s side of the family. The letter attests to her honesty and integrity. “Why didn’t her parents and brothers sign the letter?” a congressional source familiar with the investigation wondered.

 

5) This summer, Ford tried to reach out to old friends from high school and college to jog her memory. They couldn’t help her. “I’ve been trying to forget this all my life, and now I’m supposed to remember every little detail,” Ford complained to one friend in July, according to an account in The San Jose Mercury News.

 

6) Yet she still pushed forward with her bombshell charge, contacting The Washington Post tip line and Democratic lawmakers, while hiring a Democratic activist lawyer. Ford is also a Democrat, as well as an anti-Trump marcher, raising questions about the motive and timing of the allegations along with their veracity.

 

7) Ford contends that notes her therapist took in 2012 corroborate her account. But they don’t mention Kavanaugh.

 

They also point up inconsistencies in her story. For instance, her shrink noted that Ford told her there were “four boys” in the bedroom, not two as she now says. The notes also indicate Ford said she was in her “late teens” when she was assaulted. But Ford now says she may have been only 15.

 

8) In another inconsistency, Ford told The Washington Post she was upset when Trump won in 2016, because Kavanaugh was mentioned as a Supreme Court pick. But Kavanaugh wasn’t added to Trump’s list of possibles until November 2017, a full year later.

 

On top of all that, Kavanaugh “unequivocally denied Dr. Ford’s allegations . . . under penalty of perjury” during a Sept. 17 interview with committee lawyers, Grassley said, adding he was “forthright and emphatic in his testimony” and “fully answered all questions.”

 

The sworn interview will no doubt be used to test the consistency and veracity of his public statements Thursday.

 

Yet Democrats have already tried and convicted Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Without hard evidence, without substantiation, some even go beyond Ford’s claims to call him an out-and-out “rapist,” “sexual predator,” even a “child predator.”

 

As a result, Kavanaugh and his family, “including his two young daughters, have faced serious death threats and vicious assaults,” Grassley said. “And they’re getting worse each day.”

 

Ford, who also has received threats, is by all accounts a respected scientific researcher in the field of psychology with an impressive pedigree. While that makes her credible, the same can’t be said for her story. Unless she can fill in the many holes, Kavanaugh still deserves the presumption of innocence.

 

“No nation in history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.”

- Victor Davis Hanson 

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I'll tell you what they are... disgusting liars that have hurt every woman that has really been assaulted by men. Looks like another Democratic lynching... just like the ones they had when black men were accused of raping or assaulting white women!!! Now Republicans can be their victims...

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1 min ago, DoOver said:

I'm in for the under.

Which is what? She testifies or not?

“No nation in history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.”

- Victor Davis Hanson 

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The sworn testimony will be key.  If they both come across as telling the truth it will then become a question of public opinion as whether Kavanaugh is lying or the theory that Dems are just trying to smear/destroy his reputation.   

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11 mins ago, DoOver said:

I do not think she will show/testify.

Got it

“No nation in history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.”

- Victor Davis Hanson 

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Senator Flake just spoke from the Senate well. Listening to him, he sounds like he will, reluctantly, vote in favor of confirmation, but with a heavy heart. He laid blame on both sides, which is his MO, and indicated that he does not expect any definitive answer after the testimonies. Thus, one can conclude, knowing the Flake does not question Kavanaugh’s qualifications, that Flake will vote in favor. 

 

My $0.02

“No nation in history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.”

- Victor Davis Hanson 

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Flake is being a snake with a forked tongue.

 

How can there be blame on both sides? 

 

If Kavanaugh is innocent, then he is blameless, and Ford is to blame.

 

If Kavanaugh is guilty and takes the blame, then Ford is the innocent here and is without blame.

 

 

Politicians and diapers should be changed often and regularly,  invariably for the same reason.

______________________________________________________________

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

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42 mins ago, Cayotica said:

So  Quick to condemn without one iota of evidence, yet with tons of damning evidence they have given  Bill & Hillary free passes.  Weird?

And Keith Ellison

"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." 

 

 

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