Octopus Overlords

Defiant wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:06 pm Former Georgetown Prep classmate calls Kavanaugh accusations ‘story I know was repeated dozens of times’

Holman wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:09 pmMeanwhile, it turns out there is a letter from alumni of Dr. Ford's school: nearly 600 women signed on to a statement that the kind of behavior she described was rife in the culture they shared with Georgetown Prep. Obviously this doesn't make them witnesses to the exact event, but it adds weight to Ford's request that the FBI corroborate that she told people well before Kavanaugh was nominated.

As far as Dr. Ford’s specific allegations, it is inconsequential/irrelevant to us whether anyone has heard them before, and in no way affects our belief that she is telling the truth. What we are referring to in our letter is the nearly ubiquitous experience of high school girls as they try to navigate coming of age in a society dominated by toxic masculinity.

Defiant wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:06 pm Former Georgetown Prep classmate calls Kavanaugh accusations ‘story I know was repeated dozens of times’

“For those of you who don’t know, I went to Georgetown Prep, where both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch went as well,” wrote Ruyak. “When I came forward with allegations regarding Gary Orr, a former priest, sexually assaulting me…Mark Judge (Kavanaugh’s friend in this who despicable story of sexual assault) reached out to alums saying that Gary Orr was a great priest and that I had obviously been corrupted by liberalism into a homosexual and therefore was most definitely lying.”

Once Orr admitted to molestation, Judge alleged said: “Orr was raping kids because of the unchecked liberalism at Prep, and that regardless of whether or not I was telling the truth, I was a homosexual and had it coming.”

“So…for me to hear that this son of a bitch is involved in the allegations of Kavanaugh attempting to rape a girl in high school comes as no surprise to me,” said Ruyak. “It’s always the loudest most arrogant voices that are trying to hide the truth beneath the din of their own pompous voices.”

He went on to say that the story Dr. Christine Blasey Ford “is one that I know was repeated dozens of times in my 4 years at Prep.”

Kraken wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:01 pm

El Guapo wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:06 pm

Kraken wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:01 pm It won't stop his confirmation, but it will harm GOP candidates' standing with women going into the midterms. I am mystified how any woman can be a Republican in the Trump era, but I guess this will peel some of them away.

Interesting column from Ross Douthat (the most interesting / thoughtful of the NYT conservatives IMO) about that. Basically that confirming Kavanaugh has major potential perils for the pro-life movement - if Roe gets overturned as the result of confirming Kavanaugh while he was facing rape allegations, and as a result women flee from the GOP en masse, the result could be a reality where states have the constitutional right to ban abortion, but most legislation (outside of a few very red states) winds up being fairly pro-choice.

Also, the polling for the GOP among college-eduated women is already pretty bad. Bannon's basically said that the GOP should give up on them altogether.

So maybe Democrats are losing the battle and winning the war, or losing the skirmish and winning the battle, or something like that. Although if Kavanaugh is on the SC for 30 years, the GOP can counterattack long after the Trump administration is just a bad memory.

Enough wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:02 pm The tit and clit secret society? What a revolting sexist man, so gross.

Paingod wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:10 pm
What they need is a letter with names that actually remember hearing about the event.

Paingod wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:54 pm Did any recant their support, though?

Did they even ask at the right high school? From what I'm hearing, Kavanuagh was rubbing elbows with kids from other schools on that night, and the victim isn't someone he went to school with. Do we get a letter from the kids at her school?

*Edit: One of the women on the letter lets us know his school is all boys, and hers was all girls. Now I'm more curious where all the girls who knew him well enough in high school to sign on as character witnesses came from. If they only ever saw him in formal events, he will most certainly be well behaved.

*Edit: Another says he was well behaved at church and social events. He would never have done this sort of thing.

*Edit: And the NYPost reports that 200 people (of possibly uncertain origin) have signed a letter supporting the accuser.

Attention Mr. Grassley, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Corker, Mr. Graham, Mr. Cornyn and Mr. 46 minus 1: this is Mr. Merrick Garland. Remember him. You held his Supreme Court nomination open for 293 days without a single hearing. During those 293 days, no one came forward with a shred of evidence about anything that would disqualify him. You just didn’t schedule a hearing or vote for purely political reasons. There is now a credible attempted rape allegation against your Court nominee. For a lifetime appointment. Whose nomination has been open only for 71 days. And your plan is to rush a vote on his nomination without an FBI investigation into a sexual assault he may have committed? Because 46 minus 1 says about the FBI, “this is not their thing.” The “I” in FBI stands for “investigation.” Even I (and everyone that works at the White House) had two FBI investigations into my background as the White House photographer, though I had never committed a crime. So you don’t want the FBI to investigate someone for the Supreme Court about a credible attempted rape allegation? Please explain.

El Guapo wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:56 pm
Curious why Monday (as opposed to other days) is a showstopper. Also curious what are the "fair terms" for a hearing that she's looking for.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:04 am

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:28 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:43 am Probably the strategy is simply to delay the vote as long as possible. Longer delay = less chance of a shoe in.

That would imply this is all just dirty politics. Is it?

It's probably not ALL dirty politics, but I have no idea, nor does anyone here, but I'm not a naive sheep, either. Both parties' leadership are out for blood of the other, and will do or try to do things to "win" at costs we would probably blanch at if the real truths were known. Conjecture.

If you made me bet on it, I would come down on the side of a "happy" coincidence for the Dem leadership that this lady's story was available and that she was willing to speak out. They likely "took it from there" wrt timing, coaching, etc.

To put it another way: much of the democratic voting base is at LEAST disturbed by the Gorsuch Garland fiasco, and that Dem leadership at the time did not fight as much as they should have. So I would guess that behind closed doors, you might hear something like "OK, guys, we HAVE to do something about Kavanaugh being crammed down out throats. Anybody got anything to slow this thing down until after the midterms? You know our voters are not happy about the GorsuchGarland situation - we MUST do something this time"

Not implying that Ford is lying, or has any strategic interest herself in her speaking out, but it was like manna from Heaven for a desperate Feinstein and Co, and they scooped it up.

Jake Tapper wrote:A prominent DC conservative, trying to promote an alternate theory that someone else (and not Kavanaugh) may have sexually assaulted Professor Ford, named that person, showed photographs suggesting Ford confused the two and more. This is stunningly irresponsible.

Whelan did not respond to requests for comment. He had told people around him that he had spent several days putting together the theory and thought it was more convincing than her story, according to two friends who had talked to him.

Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh’s confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination.

Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Enough wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:35 pm From the WAPO article,

Whelan did not respond to requests for comment. He had told people around him that he had spent several days putting together the theory and thought it was more convincing than her story, according to two friends who had talked to him.

Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh’s confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination.

Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Edit, and there was the earlier story that reported Kav told Hatch it was a case of mistaken identity. Hmm...

When questioned about the message that such a view sends to sexual abuse victims Graham said, "Well, there wasn't a crime committed. These are two teenagers and it's obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away."

Graham then noted that Kavanaugh has denied the accusation. "He just flat out says that's not true. Regardless if it was true, these are two teenagers and she said no and he respected that so I don't know what the issue is."

Enough wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:59 pm Franklin Graham ladies and gentlemen,

When questioned about the message that such a view sends to sexual abuse victims Graham said, "Well, there wasn't a crime committed. These are two teenagers and it's obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away."

Graham then noted that Kavanaugh has denied the accusation. "He just flat out says that's not true. Regardless if it was true, these are two teenagers and she said no and he respected that so I don't know what the issue is."

Holman wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:57 pm

Enough wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:35 pm From the WAPO article,

Whelan did not respond to requests for comment. He had told people around him that he had spent several days putting together the theory and thought it was more convincing than her story, according to two friends who had talked to him.

Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh’s confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination.

Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Edit, and there was the earlier story that reported Kav told Hatch it was a case of mistaken identity. Hmm...

So now we have a Supreme Court nominee not only accused of sexual assault 35 years ago but quite possibly involved in framing someone else for just this afternoon...

you literally cannot come up with a more midcentury literary canon plotline than "prep school friends covering up a sordid decades-old secret decide the outcome of a high-stakes political contest"

pr0ner wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:58 am Whelan has deleted his entire Zillow theory from Twitter and "apologized".

Needless to say, his apology tweet is getting ratioed.

pr0ner wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:58 am Needless to say, his apology tweet is getting ratioed.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:11 am

pr0ner wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:58 am Needless to say, his apology tweet is getting ratioed.

I've seen this term quite a few times lately. Can someone explain WTF it means?

Ratioed means that a tweet has a high ratio of responses to retweets. Often, a ratio like this means that a tweet was controversial and had a lot of people jumping on the OP and each other. It's similar to on Reddit where you can tell that there's probably an argument in the comments of a post when it has more comments than upvotes.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:11 am

pr0ner wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:58 am Needless to say, his apology tweet is getting ratioed.

I've seen this term quite a few times lately. Can someone explain WTF it means?

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:52 am Holy crap. Any woman that votes for him after that beyond my comprehension.