Should Kavanaugh be confirmed for SCOTUS?

It would've been difficult to respect her wish to not be involved in an investigation if her letter had been handed off to the FBI. The vast majority of victims never even report being assaulted, because they don't want to have to go through the added pain of being investigated by cruel and incompetent people or be torn apart by attorneys & insulted by judges, only to have their attacker walk anyway, leaving them more hurt and usually also considerably poorer.

It wasn't a straight wish for confidentiality, it was a conditional request that she be talked to before going public. This condition could have easily been met before, and Ford's actions and statements since this went public have proven that she would have been willing to have this investigated. It would have even been possible to keep her anonymous during an investigation until after some supporting evidence came up, if she wanted that. If this were about confidentiality, Senator Feinstein did a pretty poor job of it anyways, unless confidential is supposed to mean "Democrats only"? The handling of this whole thing was shit.

Again adding something that I'm annoyed I even have to add: the handling of the accusation doesn't have any bearing on the veracity of it. They're independent events. It'd be nice if there were a criminal investigation into this that didn't turn into a team sport, but I know how unrealistic that is. Now.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

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Stormy Daniels attorney? Oh my I don't think I even need to touch that one.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Brian Banks.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Johnathan C. Montgomery

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Derek Cummings (I mean for fucks sake that guy's last name really made it bad)

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Paul Fensome

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Dustin Toth

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And William McCaffery

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Malik St. Hilaire

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Mahad Cassim

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Noam Shahzad

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Steven Pagones

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Jay Cheshire

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

He's shown for years women are liars unless they can prove otherwise. Afterall Duke.

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And Conor Oberst

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Nonsense on so many levels. These are not criminal proceedings--this is a job screening and interview process. A crazy conspiratorial misogynist might imagine there is ample motive to lie, but anyone who isn't a total halfwit will recognize that there are much, much stronger incentives to not even come forward in the first place, let alone come forward and lie. Even now, when their claims haven't been investigated, those who have made themselves known have already been subjected to extraordinary levels of harassment, abuse, threats and completely unfounded slander (sometimes hilariously disgusting, such as the conservatives who thought they'd uncovered a delicious conspiracy where George Soros paid Ramirez, and it turns out they weren't just being antisemitic caricatures but targeted a completely different Deborah Ramirez). They can look forward to this treatment continuing for weeks or even months. I know you've always had difficulties looking at both sides of an equation, but this is just ludicrous.

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She's an anti-Trump marcher, a liberal professor and a registered Democrat. Yeah there is ample motive.

https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-...with-kavanaugh

"Christine Blasey Ford has claimed that four other people attended a small gathering at which she was allegedly assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Three of those people, PJ Smyth, Mark Judge, and Kavanaugh, have already denied any recollection of attending such a party.

On Saturday night, Leland Ingham Keyser, a classmate of Ford's at the all-girls school Holton-Arms and her final named witness, denied any recollection of attending a party with Brett Kavanaugh."

Yeah. It's becoming more and more likely that she made this shit up.

Let's pretend a hypothetical scenario occurs where she recants, states it was a lie and apologizes. What should her punishment be?

Right, Lewk. You're going to dismiss out of hand 60% of all Americans, closer to 70% of all American women, because they're not on your side in the culture wars.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Right, Lewk. You're going to dismiss out of hand 60% of all Americans, closer to 70% of all American women, because they're not on your side in the culture wars.

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30 year old allegations with zero hard evidence brought up by someone with a political ax to grind at the last minute. Fucking hell Loki are you this dense? You do know this forum has a population of like 20 right. You can just say "Fuck Republicans who cares if he didn't do it this is great" and it won't impact any election.

Someone want to clean up lewks childish stupidity?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

She's an anti-Trump marcher, a liberal professor and a registered Democrat. Yeah there is ample motive.

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This is just not a compelling argument no matter how you look at it.

Millions of American women marched against Trump. Irrespective of your definitions or data you're looking at hundreds of thousands of women who teach at the postsecondary level. If we accept your views the vast overwhelming majority of these will be liberal, but even by realistic estimates a majority of them are likely to be liberal and many if not most are likely to be registered democrats. Even by a conservative estimate, the pool of female liberal Democrat-voting professors who marched against Trump is likely to contain thousands of members, and, of these, hundreds are likely to have gone to the same unis as Kavanaugh at the time he was there, and a few dozen are likely to have been in the same prep-school environment at the time he attended Georgetown prep.

All of the above also applies to Gorsuch. And yet, we saw nothing like this during his confirmation. If the criteria you mention constitute such strong and ample motive to lie about being assaulted, where is everyone There should've been hundreds of these people coming out of the woodwork trying to derail Gorsuch's confirmation by lying about him, just as there should be hundreds accusing Kavanaugh of assaulting them.

Lewk, your reasoning does not hold up to scrutiny. It is borderline conspiratorial. It doesn't take into consideration the obvious negative consequences of coming forward to accuse a man--especially a powerful man--of sexual assault, negative consequences that typically lead victims to never report their experiences at all. And, of course, it doesn't take into consideration what reality actually looks like, ie. that women have historically been--and are still--reluctant to report this kind of assault.

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https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-...with-kavanaugh

"Christine Blasey Ford has claimed that four other people attended a small gathering at which she was allegedly assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Three of those people, PJ Smyth, Mark Judge, and Kavanaugh, have already denied any recollection of attending such a party.

On Saturday night, Leland Ingham Keyser, a classmate of Ford's at the all-girls school Holton-Arms and her final named witness, denied any recollection of attending a party with Brett Kavanaugh."

Yeah. It's becoming more and more likely that she made this shit up.

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The information in your quote has little to no real bearing on the probability of her claims being true. All these comments are variations on "I don't recall", and none have been made under circumstances where lying about not recalling the events would have any legal consequences. On the other hand, many people have attested, in interviews and in writing, to the toxic and dangerous culture prevalent at these prep schools at the time, characterized by not only heavy drinking but an inclination by a number of young men to take advantage of intoxicated girls. If you want to talk probabilities, a priori the likelihood of a binge-drinking entitled prep-school dude trying to force himself on a drunk young girl isn't all that low. It's certainly much higher than the likelihood of a woman lying about being assaulted, esp. if she named her attacker six years ago in private conversations.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

The information in your quote has little to no real bearing on the probability of her claims being true. All these comments are variations on "I don't recall", and none have been made under circumstances where lying about not recalling the events would have any legal consequences. On the other hand, many people have attested, in interviews and in writing, to the toxic and dangerous culture prevalent at these prep schools at the time, characterized by not only heavy drinking but an inclination by a number of young men to take advantage of intoxicated girls. If you want to talk probabilities, a priori the likelihood of a binge-drinking entitled prep-school dude trying to force himself on a drunk young girl isn't all that low. It's certainly much higher than the likelihood of a woman lying about being assaulted, esp. if she named her attacker six years ago in private conversations.

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What possible defense could Brett provide that would make you believe him over her?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

What possible defense could Brett provide that would make you believe him over her?

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At present, four women have implicated Kavanaugh in some form of sexual assault (Dr. Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and two as yet unidentified women). If they have not in fact been assaulted, the most persuasive evidence to exonerate Kavanaugh would be a confession from these women that they lied about Kavanaugh assaulting them, with no other women coming forward to accuse him. If the women were indeed assaulted, the second most persuasive evidence would be confessions from the real perpetrators. There might be some other more imaginative way to exonerate Kavanaugh, but these are the most effective ones I could think of off the top of my head: unqualified and sincere confessions.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

The information in your quote has little to no real bearing on the probability of her claims being true. All these comments are variations on "I don't recall", and none have been made under circumstances where lying about not recalling the events would have any legal consequences. On the other hand, many people have attested, in interviews and in writing, to the toxic and dangerous culture prevalent at these prep schools at the time, characterized by not only heavy drinking but an inclination by a number of young men to take advantage of intoxicated girls. If you want to talk probabilities, a priori the likelihood of a binge-drinking entitled prep-school dude trying to force himself on a drunk young girl isn't all that low. It's certainly much higher than the likelihood of a woman lying about being assaulted, esp. if she named her attacker six years ago in private conversations.

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The information in your quote also doesn't have much bearing on the probability of her claims being true. All you're really proving is that it could be plausible, that it's possible the allegations could be true, but I don't think that was ever seriously in question. It'd be an embarrassment that we're even talking about it otherwise.

If we're talking probabilities, then it should be noted that the probability of one specific woman lying isn't what's important; it's the probability of any woman who ever encountered him lying. It's probably true that someone is more likely to lie about not being guilty of a crime than to lie about being the victim of a crime, but whatever the probability of lying about being the victim is, you have to roll those dice once for every woman he's ever encountered. Any one of them could have made a false accusation for whatever reason. Nothing is proven yet.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

At present, four women have implicated Kavanaugh in some form of sexual assault (Dr. Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and two as yet unidentified women). If they have not in fact been assaulted, the most persuasive evidence to exonerate Kavanaugh would be a confession from these women that they lied about Kavanaugh assaulting them, with no other women coming forward to accuse him. If the women were indeed assaulted, the second most persuasive evidence would be confessions from the real perpetrators. There might be some other more imaginative way to exonerate Kavanaugh, but these are the most effective ones I could think of off the top of my head: unqualified and sincere confessions.

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So in other words there is absolutely nothing that Kavanaugh can do to prove his case to you.

Let's take him out of the mix. Say random Joe is accused of sexual assault. He's innocent. Outside of the victim recanting or someone else claiming they did the deed are you suggesting we should just condemn random Joe?

And what could Ford say convince you she's telling the truth, Lewk?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

So in other words there is absolutely nothing that Kavanaugh can do to prove his case to you.

Let's take him out of the mix. Say random Joe is accused of sexual assault. He's innocent. Outside of the victim recanting or someone else claiming they did the deed are you suggesting we should just condemn random Joe?

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My new hobby: forum anthropology.

I would like to draw your attention to the question that was asked: "What possible defense could Brett provide that would make you believe him over her?". Specifically note that the question was not about what would be sufficient to prove guilt, but about their relative believability. Thus the trap was set. In answering the question as it was asked, Aimless has taken the bait. And now we see that the trap is sprung: here Aimless is being offered the choice between taking back his words or adopting the position of "Guilty until proven innocent". But our Swedistanian colleague is a guileful one. Will he recognize the false dichotomy and evade the rhetorical trap, or will he allow himself to be ensnared?

Let us observe.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

So in other words there is absolutely nothing that Kavanaugh can do to prove his case to you.

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That is not what I said. Kavanaugh's team could in theory uncover evidence that would compel the four women to confess to lying, or identify other perpetrators who can take the blame (which they attempted to do, with hilarious results). I also left open the possibility that they might be able to present some evidence that I haven't been able to think of. But, as it stands, it is extremely difficult for Kavanaugh to do anything to eliminate or even drastically reduce concerns about his guilt. "Proof" is unlikely.

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Let's take him out of the mix. Say random Joe is accused of sexual assault. He's innocent. Outside of the victim recanting or someone else claiming they did the deed are you suggesting we should just condemn random Joe?

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If Random Joe is credibly accused of sexual assault by four different women, independently of each other, with contextual information suggesting a pattern of otherwise reckless or inappropriate behaviour--and a documented shall we say revolting attitude towards women and cavalier relationship with the truth--in numerous situations characterized by extremely questionable acts frequently involving the exploitation of drunk girls or women... I am suggesting we should not appoint Random Joe to a judgeship. If I were in a position to decide, I would not employ Random Joe.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

The information in your quote also doesn't have much bearing on the probability of her claims being true. All you're really proving is that it could be plausible, that it's possible the allegations could be true, but I don't think that was ever seriously in question. It'd be an embarrassment that we're even talking about it otherwise.

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I was referring to the bit Lewk quoted from the article. I'm not sure which part you're referring to here, because I didn't really quote anything, other than to paraphrase the non-denials Lewk was apparently presenting as proof that the allegations are lies. A statement to the effect of "I don't recall" or "I have no knowledge", made through a lawyer under circumstances where there are no negative consequences to falsely denying having knowledge of the events in question, shouldn't move the needle in any direction. Lewk has decided to take the position that Kavanaugh's accusers are lying. We have no compelling evidence to suggest that. Based on what we know about sexual assault, if the choice is between Kavanaugh assaulting women in the manner described on the one hand, and the women lying on the other hand, we have more reason to believe the former--unless we believe, for some reason, that women are more likely to lie about being assaulted than a man is to sexually assault a woman.

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If we're talking probabilities, then it should be noted that the probability of one specific woman lying isn't what's important; it's the probability of any woman who ever encountered him lying. It's probably true that someone is more likely to lie about not being guilty of a crime than to lie about being the victim of a crime, but whatever the probability of lying about being the victim is, you have to roll those dice once for every woman he's ever encountered. Any one of them could have made a false accusation for whatever reason.

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If he's accused, independently, by four different women, the likelihood of one of them lying is slightly higher, but the likelihood of all of them lying is much lower, and each individual allegation is sufficient on its own to disqualify him.

That said, I'm not sure this is the most appropriate approach to analyzing the situation. We're not talking about random events like dice-throws--we're trying to infer the truth based on evidence in the form of testimonies, which should be expected to have a non-random relationship with the real world. If multiple dice throws come up sixes, it isn't particularly informative; if multiple independent lines of plausible evidence point in the direction of a particular conclusion or set of conclusions, that is more likely to be informative.

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Nothing is proven yet.

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Absent a full confession from Kavanaugh, or a video of him raping someone, nothing will be proven.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

If he's accused, independently, by four different women, the likelihood of one of them lying is slightly higher, but the likelihood of all of them lying is much lower, and each individual allegation is sufficient on its own to disqualify him.

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He wasn't accused independently. The other women didn't enter the picture until after the first accusation. It's a dependent event.

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That said, I'm not sure this is the most appropriate approach to analyzing the situation. We're not talking about random events like dice-throws--we're trying to infer the truth based on evidence in the form of testimonies, which should be expected to have a non-random relationship with the real world. If multiple dice throws come up sixes, it isn't particularly informative; if multiple independent lines of plausible evidence point in the direction of a particular conclusion or set of conclusions, that is more likely to be informative.

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That approach shouldn't be taken any further than it already has, I agree. You were talking about probabilities, and I just wanted to point out that there was an element of self-selection here. It might be less likely that any given person were willing to lie about being the victim of the crime, but we might be talking about a specific person that self-selected, so that goes out the window.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

He wasn't accused independently. The other women didn't enter the picture until after the first accusation. It's a dependent event.

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I'd like to point out that by that yardstick, there hardly ever is an independent accusation in cases where someone did multiple things.

That's also not what "independent accusation" actually means.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

I'd like to point out that by that yardstick, there hardly ever is an independent accusation in cases where someone did multiple things.

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Yes there is. In fact the vast majority of the time (probably) there is since most crime and accusations go unreported on any major scale. A series of independent accusations can be how people who do multiple things get caught.

When I accused a burglar of breaking into my house and gave the Police his reg plate I did so because I'd seen the burglar in my house and read the plate from his car, not because I'd heard of a burglar being accused on the media and had the details read out. He was arrested after being caught burgling another property. My accusation and the other one he was arrested for were linked and prosecuted together with both being independent accusations.

The latter burglary would have happened after my accusation but because my accusation wasn't public knowledge nobody would have known that bar the Police.

Ford made the accusation to Feinstein before it became public. If the new accusers made the accusation to someone before Ford's became public it is independent, if they didn't then it isn't. This isn't to judge whether these ladies are telling the truth or not, but it does change whether its independent or not.