And it looks like Whelan figured this out a day late and (despite the apology) at least a few hundred thousand dollars short:
https://twitter.com/EdWhelanEPPC/status/1043117304152817664
I haven’t seen a link directly to Kavanaugh yet, but Orrin Hatch’s office knew about this garbage in advance:
And here’s Whitlock frantically backpeddling:
https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1042983141617491970
So-called “lookalikes” do not look alike to the people who know them. Hell, identical twins can usually be correctly identified by their classmates. When I was in high school I was told I looked like a kid named Paul. We didn’t see the resemblance. We both had fair skin and freckles, that was about it.
You know, now that we have a credible accusation of attempted rape, strong denials followed by loss of memory by the accused, online threats, doxxing and hacking of the victim, people coming forward to say this sort of thing was known to happen, and now veiled accusations against another person, it may be time for the damn FBI to get involved. Before things get crazy.
I’m still reeling from seeing a woman on CNN say something like, “This is a 17 year old with testosterone running high. Tell me, what high school boy hasn’t done something like this?” Uh, almost NONE of them have ever dragged a girl into a room, held her down while trying to get her clothes off and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. As a former 17 year old boy and current parent of two high school boys (including a 17 year old) with zero rape attempts between us, I’m insulted. Another panelist ignored Dr. Ford’s story and claimed she simply hadn’t gotten over an unwanted touch. So in that one panel we had women who claimed it didn’t happen at all, one that ignored the victim’s story and made up her own, and another claimed that violent rape attempts are normal behavior for high school boys. These people are N-U-T-S, NUTS.
Why did BoingBoing decide to republish this theory? It’s nonsense, and I get it’s amusing to point out the nonsense and make fun of Whelan. But republishing this stuff just contributes to the smokescreen of confusion. It is harmful.
What are you talking about? He found the one that has a bathroom opposite the bedrooms! Case closed!
Man, that is just so despicable. I don’t see how it isn’t defamation or libel.
These people are not primarily nuts. They are primarily evil. They are dangerous to civil society. They really do not understand how uncivil their vision of society would be, even for them. That’s what makes them evil (as well as nuts).
AND he got pics! So it must have happened.
(It would be really interesting to know how he got those pics, when he got them, where they were actually taken, and by whom.)
No, but can we have the other guy as Supreme Court Justice instead?
I’m not seeing a lot of people that are amused here in the comments. Outraged. Flabbergasted. Incensed. Pissed off. Perplexed. But amused? I’m not seeing that so far. There’s a distinct lack of rollicking comments.
This is where I first heard about “this stuff,” so for me it was informative. YMMV.
I could see your point if the article were advancing this theory as fact. It’s not, beyond documenting the fact that it happened…
Lastly, welcome to boingboing, shiny new member. I hope you don’t find your time here full of disappointment.
I’ll bet if your friend had tried to rape her, it would have remained clearer in her memory “many years later”. I think it has something to do with the adrenaline, and the almost being raped that helps it stick. You are correct; memory can be tricky. But important things, like being almost raped when you are a 15-year-old by a person you think may accidentally kill you, are certainly yearbook moments in a young woman’s life. Perhaps your life is so full of excitement that a moment like that could have been five years ago or last Tuesday, and are easy to confuse which was which. I don’t know.
Welcome to you as well. I see you’ve only read two Kavanaugh articles so far. Try to expand your horizons a bit; there’s so much more that makes up bb.
This article is really drumming up new membership. I can’t wait for the Peterson thread to reopen… ah. Speak of the devil.
Now that actual journalists are breaking this down, it’s becoming clear that someone provided previously-undisclosed information about the party’s attendees to Whelan as part of this smoke screen:
(Note that because it only includes the thumbnail of the photo in Whelan’s tweet, this screenshot crops out the location of the female classmate’s house on the map; the image is reproduced in full in the BB article, though.)
The best case scenario is “someone on the Judiciary Committee leaked non-public information to someone building a disinformation campaign to discredit a sexual assault allegation”. Anything less than that best case scenario pretty much implicates Kavanaugh by default. That person’s identity had to come from somewhere, and the committee obviously hasn’t gotten it from Ford. Which means that if the person didn’t privately come forward to the committee herself (prompted by press inquiries), it either came from Kavanaugh or Judge, which betrays their protestations that they knew nothing about the party in question.
Based on the Tweet captured above from his communications director it’s probably Hatch. Which isn’t to say that the worse scenario you describe didn’t play out simultaneously.
Oh, I think it’s pretty clear that someone (almost certainly Hatch) on the Judiciary Committee was involved in concocting this pile of garbage. That’s already extremely terrible, but doesn’t necessarily implicate Kavanaugh if the person in question identified themselves directly to the committee. But since committee Republicans aren’t saying anything, it seems equally possible they got the name from somewhere else, and there’s only so many people they could talk to clandestinely for that information, most of whom have denied ever having been involved.
I also love that this whole “it totally wasn’t him” conspiracy theory nonsense does nothing to eliminate Mark Judge’s culpability for allowing not-Kavanaugh to sexually assault someone. They’ve all but consigned themselves at this point to the reality that it happened, they’re just casting about wildly to find someone else they can pin it on for the next week or two.
Presidential Medal of Freedom?
It gets worse (as we suspected).
So the GOP is ‘okay’ with railroading an innocent private citizen (who is male and White) along with the woman who accused Kavanaugh, and I hear they’re all now getting death threats.
Way to stay classy, and professional.
This would probably be hilarious if it wasn’t all so god. damn. stupid.
The woman, natch. The white male is a bit of a surprise. Who did he vote for?
I don’t believe I’ve seen evidence of them ever having really been either of those things, much less both.
Their spirit animals are probably something with way too many teeth, a very tiny brain, and a tendency to bite anything that gets near… even if it’s their own species or appendages.
Well, it starts with this and continues with Hatch’s staffer jumping the gun talking about Whelan’s tweet-spiracy before he had tweeted it (also… Whelan and Kavanaugh are friends):
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kavanaugh-tells-hatch-accusation-may-201746510.html
In today’s edition of “No, this is somehow not an Onion headline”…
Trump HUD Secretary Ben Carson claims Kavanaugh allegations are part of a centuries old socialist plot
I just… I can’t.
You seem Disappointed.
