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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I made the mistake of reading twitter comments regarding today's testimony and my faith in humanity is gone for the day. There are far too many people who think Ford is lying and that Kavanaugh has been the paragon of truth and virtue for the entire process. So for any American tropers you really do need to go out and vote in November this year and the next few years.
I don't suppose there is any good news coming out of US Politics today?
It's the Sunk Cost Fallacy for a lot of Republican voters. They've put a lot of time, money, and energy into the idea they are the good guys and the Democrats are not only incompetent but outright malicious.
If Kavanaugh is bad then so is Trump for appointing him and the Republicans for supporting them both.
Then if that's true...what does that make those who are die-hard champions of both?
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 27th 2018 at 11:49:35 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Frankly, I don't give a F... if this ruins Kavanaugh's life or not. Let's put aside the accusations and talk about integrity first. After all, that is the main feature a livelong appointment for the court which judges the constitution of any country should have.
In this case we have candidate which started his nomination with a blatant lie (there is no way that Trump vetted anyone as careful as he claims), already got caught lying under oath, and is now continuing and lie.
Even if this were a case of mistaken identity or shifted memory, his actions have effectively disqualified him for the job. Or they would have in any other democratic country which still has standards.
@Hylarn: Have you actually read the platforms of Libertarian candidates?
The sanest one among them is Gary Johnson, and he thinks that the government can be "civilized" by arming the people with automatic weapons.
There'll be room for sane conservatives if-when the Republicans collapse (I have my doubts, though - the deplorables aren't going anywhere) but the Libertarians are not the proper flag for that.
At the end of the day, I have No Sympathy because of different reasons. The Republican Party has no right to appoint him given their illegal delay of appointing a successor. The party of no respect for the law is now finding themselves in a optics nightmare because they have continually pushed awful misogynists with no respect for the law into positions designed to determine the law. Kavanaugh deserves a fair hearing but if no one believes him then he has no one but himself to blame for allying with such a detestable army of scumbags.
It's like if you're at a Neo-Nazi rally and a poor migrant worker ends up dead. Is it strange people view you as a suspect?
That's also BEFORE that we should treat any such accusation with the deepest respect.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 27th 2018 at 11:53:35 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.On The Rachel Maddow Show today, she pointed out that Kavanaugh's behavior was a slip, and this kind of shouty, belligerent behavior has gotten him in trouble in previous vetting processes like this. Which is... interesting.
@PMC: He can't be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. So literally, no one is trying to get him in jail because that would be a misuse of the law at this particular point in time.
It was a bit darkly hilarious to see Graham very angrily accuse Democrats of wanting to do what the Republicans themselves had already done. So hilarious I wanted to hit something. It's like, they already know that stalling works and they're desperately afraid the Dems will attempt the same thing and succeed just as handily.
Which they should.
Is there any reason not to?
Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat is in full effect here.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Nope, but I'm sure that in fifty years, we'll have a 'Clean Republicans' myth where people will claim that most Republican politicians and voters were just regular people who were lied to by a small core of really bad people in the leadership.
Angry gets shit done.Just to make this whole thing even more disgusting, Linsey Graham actually has prosecuted Rape cases before. [1]
From his book
And
I think this thread on patriarchy
adds a lot of context to the Kavanaugh hearings. I’d be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts.
Pretty enlightening read. And a sobering one.
One post in particular points out the problems with "boys will be boys":
Even in a context that isn't outright sexist, you can still see it in the way we treat rich white men like Zuckerberg and Musk. A lot of people treat their antics as "harmless" juvenile stuff when they are fucking grown-ass men.
Edited by M84 on Sep 28th 2018 at 9:17:29 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt's not like grown women are immune to juvenile antics. The Double Standard is in how we treat them.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 28th 2018 at 9:18:52 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It's amazing how familiar that "I don't want to ruin his life" rhetoric out of Lindsay Graham is. Because we hear that a lot in rape cases. It's pretty much one of the Stock Defenses for rapists.
What's interesting about it, though, is that it isn't used to stop investigations. It's used to stop punishments. "I don't want to ruin his life" is the line that judges break out to justify tame convictions. "He's on the Swim Team! He's got a scholarship! He could have a great future ahead of him! I don't want to ruin his life over some minor youthful shenanigans! So I'm sentencing him to four months' probation and a $50 fine. That should make everyone happy, right?"
Graham jumped the gun in playing the Don't Ruin His Life card. Saying that is a tacit admission that there is merit to these accusations, and that Graham just doesn't want them to be held against Kavanaugh.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I also appreciate how the thread focuses on internalized patriarchy: girls are taught to minimize ourselves, to not make a fuss. If anyone read my spoiler wall of text on the previous page, that is exactly the sort of internalized misogyny that has put me into bad situations.
Edited by wisewillow on Sep 28th 2018 at 9:32:43 AM
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I don't think that Graham cares. He is pissed that their Good Old Boys club is under attack by the grubby hands of the masses.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 28th 2018 at 9:35:55 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Wheeler is already worse than Pruitt.