Additionally…in the history of sexual assault cases. How many times has the guilty person come forward and confessed to said sexual assault in order to spare an innocent person from taking the blame?
Seriously. Has that EVER happened?
20 Likes
And - did they provide a notarized affidavit and state this to the FBI as they have legal liability should they be making false statements as these women have exposed themselves to prosecution if they’re lieing?
Warning dudes - the statute of limitations still apply to some of these crimes - you can go to prison if you’re now confessing to these assaults.
19 Likes
They wouldn’t bail at all. Trump would announce another pick from the same shitty list, with the same awful views as Bart, and they’d confirm that person easily. Just like they did with Gorsuch. The midterms don’t matter; despite all his talk about letting the people decide and rejecting Garland, McConnell would have zero qualms confirming a justice in the lame duck session if they lost the Senate.
2 Likes
We still adhere to basic principals of law. The right to defend oneself against accusations necessitates hearing those accusations before presenting a defense.
Those testifying today are doing so under oath, and could be found guilty of perjury, which carries potential criminal penalties.
3 Likes
gasp How dare you infringe on every rich white male’s Constitutional right to sit on the Supreme Court?!
14 Likes
10 Likes
19 Likes
Which brings up another important fact: Dr. Ford would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by perjuring herself in this forum.
Judge Kavanaugh cannot say the same.
23 Likes
And here I thought that all gentlemen came from Florida.
1 Like
This shit it ain’t funny, the TGOP is literally hanging themselves [thankfully] clear in the US & World eyes. The nasty stomach knot I’m experiencing, the white hot rage I feel, this is what it has come to, may it blaze through every American voter. November is almost here…
27 Likes
Its less that they don’t beleive the testimony. For a core group of the right its not a problem. A bunch of the Kavanaugh defense has already moved to “it was so long ago”.
Like with Roy Moore where there was the same excuse (plus Biblical ones). The disengenuous thing here is not in pushing for Kavanaugh despite these accusations. Its in gesturing towards doing the right thing when you don’t care. Either because you know its wrong and don’t think it matters. Or because you don’t think its wrong.
Maricopa county has a history with fucking up sexual assault, human trafficking, and child rape cases. To the point that the Sherrifs office had to publickly apologise. It wrapped in the DA’s office. That’s where Arpaio’s famous “I apologise to the victims, if there were victims but I don’t think there were victims” comment came from.
Mitchel doesn’t seem to have any association with that. But my thinking is that they picked a person with a clean record from a county/department on their side. And listening to the questioning right now. She’s going through standard processes for impeaching a witness. Picking apart details, asking about seemingly unrelated things. There was just a long train of questions about how much time she spent in planes to undermine PTSD claims.
6 Likes
The cold, clinical way she picks at the edges of the statement is smart and effective as hell. At the end of the process, the GOP will flap its wings about how Ford’s statement fell apart under scrutiny and the prosecutor identified sixteen discrepancies and the important points will remain unaddressed. If you can make the audience think that being unsure about what shirt you were wearing means your recollection of who assaulted you can’t be trusted, you’re more than half way home.
4 Likes
Every single time Grassley opens his mouth it is a him defending himself.
6 Likes
Grassley (regarding the possibility of interviewing Dr.Ford in California) : “We woulda done it anywhere at anytime…”
Translation:
“We would have done anything to avoid a public hearing like this.”
8 Likes
Exactly. She’s patiently and assiduously probing for any and all inconsistencies, imaginary and otherwise. All this bullshit about “her aversion to airflight” and maps describing the distance from her childhood house to the crime scene. You know she’s setting up a trap.
She doesnt need to set up a trap, big confrontational moves like that might back fire. She just needs to keep creating plausible inconsistencies, or probing areas where Blasey Ford’s memory fails her. Enough of those just makes a witness seem not credible. I’ve been assuming this is why the GOP wanted a prosecutor specifically, because is a stabdard approach. I don’t see it working much here, because it also tejds to rely on feeding into other witnesses, cross examination and closing arguements. Which don’t exist here.
6 Likes
Consider the source. Then don’t.
2 Likes
The only surprise is that the GOP didn’t make a harder effort to find two African-Americans who are currently teenagers to be the fall guys.
[ETA: after reading this quote from the Murdoch Post there’s still a chance they might try it: “The committee did not release any more details about the men, or why both were coming forward with the claims.”]
10 Likes
Blumenthal just actually poked a huge whole in this very thing. He pointed out that people who make up stories are able to give a complete story and don’t seem to have any holes. When someone is telling the truth, they tend to have gaps they cannot fill in.
15 Likes
13 Likes
