Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I was asking if he said it, not what people fear. I’ve heard it said as a positive he said he will reverse. I take it he did not. And I’m not saying he won’t I just wanted a simple factual answer to a very narrow question.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Nevermind those pesky facts. If the Left can’t claim he’ll destroy Roe, they’ve lost one leg of a three legged stool. So while they don’t have any proof he’ll undo Roe, they’ll fill in that blank by simply repeating over and over that he would do so. Just like the Right, they understand, as Uncle Bernays taught, “say it enough and it’s true.”

BK may very well be the Federalist Society’s Manchurian Candidate. But there’s no strong proof of that. If there was, you’d have heard it at the hearings, instead of hearing a 36 year old allegation.

But again, don’t hate the players. Trump has been using a Goebbels/Bernays playbook throughout his campaign and presidency. The Democrats are licensed to do the same.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

"As an aside, let me say that I have no love for the Democratic Party, which is torn between totalitarian instincts on one side and complete political malpractice on the other."

From a piece Bold N Brazen posted at the other FB, which pretty much sums up my feelings.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

No one was paying attention to that stuff except weirdos like us.

That issue was lost in a #metoo circus. The media, the Democrats, and Avenatti weren't coordinated, but they came together in a confluence of often incoherent indictments and grievances which obscured the issue at hand: Did this guy assault Ford?

I was agreeing with you. It was your admittedly obvious point, Sherlock.

I do and I don't. I can separate Kavanaugh's behavior from the broader "movement" that indicts things like "privilege" and "patriarchy." As I said, I'd ding Kavanaugh for working with Starr.

But when the media turned this into a circus and it became a broader cultural indictment of males of Kavanaugh's background generally, I wouldn't say I became sympathetic, but I definitely became turned off to the whole thing. First, I hate professional protestors and the media who glom onto these things and try to foment cultural skirmishes out of them. Second, it's not a crime to be a douchebag. No one hates douchebags more than I do. It's why I don't work in a firm, and detest most lawyers. The bona fides of my prejudice toward douchebags are impeccable. But... Even the douchiest douchebag deserves better than a Sherman McCoy flogging with a "guilty until proven innocent" slant.

And what really turned me off? The Left's argument, supported by that goofy senator from HI and I think Gillibrand, that skepticism of Ford's allegation was a moral failing, and somehow invalid. That's the core of deluded mob thinking in a nutshell. When the mere challenging of an allegation - a 36 year old allegation - becomes a "social crime," we're in moral panic territory. We're in with Cotton Maher taking ergot-induced hallucinations as proof of sorcery, and the prosecutors in the McMartin Day Care Center satanic abuse persecutions. Not only am I not supporting that. I'm obligated to work against it.

Those are no inapt comparisons, by the way. Nor are they insulting. That people feel very emotional about this issue does not license them to throw logic out the window. And no -- that this was a "job interview" does not vitiate due process. If I interview you and receive a call from someone during the process advising you assaulted someone years ago, I owe you the benefit of the doubt. I owe you a right to defend yourself before I decide on whether to hire you. I do not owe the caller a duty to believe the allegation unconditionally. That is absurd and indefensible.

He sat on it. He knew about it earlier. Tried to time it as a surprise in the hopes it would not give Trump enough time to float a replacement and get a vote before the election, after which point he'd attempt to block nominees a la Garland. He could've taken Kavanaugh out early.

Agreed. And they're making life way harder than it needs to be for Democrats. Perhaps rather than countenance their editorializing-and-sensationalizing-as-news, the Democrats might tell them to stick to facts.

Nor did Democrats, or they'd have stuck to the incident and the incident alone. Instead, they engaged in grandstanding just like the Republicans.

I'm not blaming the Democrats. But who needs to say the GOP is responsible for putting Kavanaugh on the Court? We already all know that. They nominated the guy! All I was offering was an answer to that seemingly ageless question, "How'd the Democrats manage to lose something it looked like they were winning?"

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is stupid. We know he will undermine Roe, because that's been the fundamental motivation of conservative action regarding the courts for a generation. It's absurdly naive to think that he won't.

He's also not stupid enough to say publicly that he will do that, but privately, he did feel the need to quibble with advising a prior nominee to say Roe is settled law.

A Manchurian Candidate is one whose ulterior motive is unknown. Kavanaugh's motives (and backers) are pretty clear.

You keep talking as though this was some sort of Dem strategy and not a person who came forward of her own accord.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Once again, the real outrage is naming things...

For someone so concerned about the evils of both sides, it's weird that you don't write about the deluded mob thinking that caused the other side not only dismiss the allegations as unproven but instead insist that they had been proven completely false.

Really weird.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

They are unproven. I believe something happened. But that belief does not mean the allegations are proven.

One can easily dismiss them as unproven. What one cannot do it dismiss them as lacking credibility.

Also, the GOP wasn't engaged in deluded thinking. They were intentionally acting to get their guy on the Court. Nor was the GOP exhibiting a mob mentality. The mob plays offense, not defense. It prosecutes, it accuses, but it does not defend. The GOP was playing defense here.

Is the GOP morally corrupted here? I think yes. That's a more grave indictment than my charge that the Democrats lost their focus and became somewhat incoherent and flailing. So if you're saying I'm siding with the GOP over the Democrats, you're wrong. I'm just explaining, again, why the Democrats lost what it looked like they were winning.

There's nothing interesting about accusing the GOP of cynicism and zero-sum game politics. There's much interesting in a postmortem of how the Democrats came so close and still fell short.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The dusty money part of the GOP still holds sway over the Big Issues. They know not to fuck with Roe in any significant manner, as it's political doom.

I see him holding establishment water. He's a cipher.

It was a Schumer strategy. He orchestrated the use of the letter and the timing. Ford was not orchestrating anything with anybody so far as I've heard.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Hi. This is insane. The mob very much does defend rapists. One might call it rape denialism or rape dismissiveness. It's kind of thing that's part of the zeitgeist. Almost a custom, one might say.

You were wrong if you thought there was a point where it looked like the Dems were winning.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Which is why we've started a trade war, imposed tariffs, are putting children in camps. They got their tax cuts. The deal is the fundies get abortion.

I mean, the court has already fucked with it some, it isn't going to be hard for them to say yes to TRAP laws that have already closed clinics.

Citation, please.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

There was no denial here or dismissal. The GOP stuck its fingers in its ears and hands over its eyes because they wanted their guy on the Court. It was purely amoral. They were never going to seriously listen to Ford.

Had Schumer not sat on this letter and brought the allegations out early, they'd have perhaps considered Ford. Some would still dismiss her. But they wouldn't have had the convenient dodge, "Oh, look at the timing... This is all just political."

I thought they had him after his outburst. When Kennedy asked him to deny the attack and BK equivocated and cited the fact that no other corroborated the allegation, rather than immediately denying it, I thought they had a killer soundbite. When he lied about Keyser refuting Ford's story, I thought they had him.

Instead, everybody focused on him lying about blacking out and being in an MFM threesome.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The deal is the fundies get used and get little. They have no choice but to vot R as the Ds have gone hard left. The fundies are owned by the GOP. It's just a question of turning them out.

That is a real risk, I agree.

Did you see him anywhere near this thing while it was ongoing? Hear from him? He's the leader, and he was conspicuously absent. That's how you know he was involved.

But where'd I hear about it? A Democrat friend who'll probably be running for Congress in the next eight years.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Right, they just relied on the underlying... how do you say... culture.

Once again, citation needed. Even if you had more than insinuation, you're ignoring the stated wishes of the alleged victim.

Again, you cannot be this naive. That dodge was doing to be in play no matter when the allegation became public.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

It had nothing to do with culture. It was a political decision. They wanted their guy on SCOTUS, and decided to put him there by any means necessary.

Of course Schumer ignored Ford’s wishes. How does this refute my point that the timing of this was Schumer’s strategy?

Wrong. If Schumer’d used this early, the GOP would’ve been able to pull him gracefully. If Schumer has privately discussed it with McConnell, the whole affair could have been avoided. Instead, he sat on it, to use as a last minute surprise. I don’t blame Schumer for playing political games. That’s his job. But asi said earlier, if you have an all but assured win, take it immediately. Trying to time it to push the vote beyond the election was not a wise risk/reward assessment on Schumer’s part.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I will repeat: Republicans were always going to be able to put a conservative on the Court for this seat. Once Kavanaugh was shown to be a liar with an injudicious temperament and a history of treating women poorly, they had a choice about whether to find another conservative, or to stay the course with him.

Also to repeat: Don't you think that telling K to withdraw, nominating someone else, and holding the vote after Election Day would have motivated R voters more?