Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Is there a term for a victim of gaslighting?

 

Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse that thrives on uncertainty. A person can grow to mistrust everything they hear, feel, and remember.

 

What would a gaslighting victim say about information that challenges his belief? Fake news, notoriously liberal, biased nonsense...

 

Those who have experienced gaslighting may also wish to seek therapy. A therapist is a neutral party who can help reinforce one’s sense of reality.

 

The bitch of it is that reality has a liberal bias. B-)

[Winstonm]

Seems there is more impeachment talk in the air:

 

A New York Times investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University has uncovered another allegation of sexual misconduct that was previously unreported. Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh in the 1980s, reportedly said he saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a dorm party where his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Stier notified senators and the FBI about the incident but it was not investigated, according to the Times, which cited two officials who have spoken to Stier about his account

[rmnka447]

Seems there is more impeachment talk in the air:

 

That bastion of truth and honesty forgot to mention that in the incident they were reporting, the book they were taking it from pointed out that the person involved couldn't remember the incident. They have since (surprise, surprise) printed a retraction. Just the old progressive propaganda machine working its guilt by accusation ploy.

 

BTW, a GWU law professor pointed that you can only impeach someone for things they do after they are in office. He referred back to Schuyler Colfax who apparently did some nasty stuff before being appointed to the bench. The courts ruled that he couldn't be impeached for actions prior to being appointed and that is the precedent.

 

But, hey, I can appreciate that most progressives favor Humpty Dumpty law -- the law means what they want it to mean at any moment. It's what makes conservatives like me cringe whenever progressives start going on about how the rule of law is being undercut and abused.

[andrei]

A New York Times investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University has uncovered another allegation of sexual misconduct that was previously unreported. Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh in the 1980s, reportedly said he saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a dorm party where his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Stier notified senators and the FBI about the incident but it was not investigated, according to the Times, which cited two officials who have spoken to Stier about his account

 

It becomes more and more clear that you (and others here) are grossly misinformed.

 

So to help with that:

 

"

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.

"

[Winstonm]

That bastion of truth and honesty forgot to mention that in the incident they were reporting, the book they were taking it from pointed out that the person involved couldn't remember the incident. They have since (surprise, surprise) printed a retraction. Just the old progressive propaganda machine working its guilt by accusation ploy.

 

BTW, a GWU law professor pointed that you can only impeach someone for things they do after they are in office. He referred back to Schuyler Colfax who apparently did some nasty stuff before being appointed to the bench. The courts ruled that he couldn't be impeached for actions prior to being appointed and that is the precedent.

 

But, hey, I can appreciate that most progressives favor Humpty Dumpty law -- the law means what they want it to mean at any moment. It's what makes conservatives like me cringe whenever progressives start going on about how the rule of law is being undercut and abused.

 

You can be impeached for lying during your confirmation hearings.

 

FWIW: The NYT did not retract but offered a correction to their story. The Hill describes it like this:

 

The Times in the story published Saturday reported a former classmate of Kavanaugh's named Max Stier said he witnessed the now-justice expose himself and force a female classmate to touch his penis at a dorm party. The Times said it corroborated the story with two other officials who had heard the same report from Stier.

 

However, the woman involved in the alleged incident did not speak to the Times and, according to the correction, her friends say she does not recall that it happened.

 

You know, if you tried to find out the accurate information for yourself instead of relying on Fox and Friends to tell you what is happening you wouldn't so often look like a twit.

 

Let's recap with reality compared to what you claimed: 1) The NYT issued a correction, not a retraction. The basic story is unchanged. 2) Kavanaugh was never going to be impeached for what happened 30 years ago but for lying under oath during his confirmation hearing.

[johnu]

...

Moderator - Can you award a participation award to andrei? He is trying the best he can with limited resources.

[hrothgar]

 

BTW, a GWU law professor pointed that you can only impeach someone for things they do after they are in office. He referred back to Schuyler Colfax who apparently did some nasty stuff before being appointed to the bench. The courts ruled that he couldn't be impeached for actions prior to being appointed and that is the precedent.

 

 

Either said professor or you completely misunderstand what took place.

 

1. Schuyler Colfax was Vice president at the time. He was not a judge, not had he been "appointed to the bench"

2. Colfax was impeached, and said impeachment did fail, however, this did not get ruled on by the courts nor does it establish any kind of legal precedent

3. The impeachment vote against Colfax was close to being a party line vote. Yes, some folks in congress justified their decision claiming that they didn't want to impeach someone for a crime that they commited before taking offer, but the real precedent is that impeachment trials are inherently political.

[hrothgar]

The article is pure conjecture by a notoriously liberal law review site, so no conclusions can me drawn.

 

I am very much in agreement that Lawfare is highly critical of Trump, however, its laughable to describe the Lawfare as liberal.

The word "liberal" actual has a meaning, and it is different than "people who are mean to Trump"

 

And, when you are describing a web site founded by Jack Goldsmith as "liberal" you've completely lost perspective

[y66]

From Why Can't Congress Solve Hard Problems? by Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

Ultimately, the U.S. needs stronger institutions if it wants to accomplish difficult things.

How much of a problem is the loss of congressional capacity?

 

That question comes up, as Congress returns from its August recess, in a Monkey Cage item from Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman that focuses on the collapse of House committees from 1995 on. It’s a solid piece, but as Josh Huder points out, the rise of congressional leadership was probably critical to the passage of major legislation such as the Affordable Care Act. The House was weaker when committees ruled before the reforms that began after the 1958 election; it’s weaker now, after Newt Gingrich concentrated influence in the speaker’s office at the expense of everything else.

 

Huder also questions whether congressional procedure is ultimately related to solving public-policy problems:

 

But many put misplaced hope in the committee system, believing it will create the pathways to revolutionary policymaking. That belief lays too much blame on Congress for what is really the fault of the political environment more broadly. Congress cannot fix every political problem.

In part, I agree. The biggest problem with the current policy-making process isn’t Congress or the presidency; it’s the Republican Party, which has to a shocking extent simply given up on trying to solve problems. The most obvious example is health care: Republicans think the Affordable Care Act is bad policy, yet almost a decade later they still don’t have any real alternative. The same is true in one policy area after another. This wasn’t the case in the 1980s, when Republicans regularly pushed substantial legislation (including, of course, legislation to reduce what government was doing). But since the Gingrich years, and especially over the last decade, they’ve largely become a post-policy party. That has very little to do with the structure of the House and Senate, and I think it matters more – it’s why a unified Republican government in 2017 and 2018 produced so little.

 

But I also disagree with Huder in part. If the House is better organized – if it’s more powerful – that means the nation can do more. The same with a better organized Senate or White House or federal bureaucracy. A system of separated institutions sharing powers doesn’t produce a zero-sum contest; to the contrary, the more powerful each chamber and institution can become, the more powerful the country is, and the easier it will get to solve difficult problems. The same is true within the House: Strong committees and strong leadership can make for a more powerful institution. The correct answer to leadership vs. committees is both.

 

To me, that’s the promise of the republic that the Framers designed. It’s what united, at least for a while, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Yes, all the overlapping authorities, the checks and balances, can make it hard to do anything. But multiple veto points are also multiple initiation points. And that brings with it enormous potential for action. The trick is to follow up on Madison and Hamilton, and to keep finding institutional designs that unleash and nourish that potential.

Yup.

[y66]

From Why I’m rooting for the G.M. strikers by David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

“Successful strikes beget more strikes,” Steven Greenhouse, the longtime labor reporter, writes in today’s Times. The reverse is true, as well: Failures by labor unions — and the workers they represent — lead to more failures.

 

For this reason, the current strike by almost 50,000 General Motors workers matters well beyond the auto industry.

 

Organized labor is in the midst of a modest winning streak right now. Teachers in at least seven states have staged walkouts. Last year, thousands of Marriott workers went on strike, as did other hotel workers in Chicago and health care workers in California. Many of these job actions led to pay increases, as employers decided that they would rather increase wages than continue to deal with the chaos and costs of walkouts and strikes.

 

A high-profile successful strike by one group of workers, in turn, encourages other workers to take the risk. “When, say, teachers in Oklahoma see their West Virginia colleagues walking out and winning substantial pay increases, there is a contagion effect,” as Jake Rosenfeld, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has said. “They start to believe, ‘Hey, we can do that, too.’”

 

Over most of the past 40 years, of course, the dynamic has been working in the opposite direction. President Ronald Reagan famously fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981, which encouraged companies to play hardball with their own workers. As more companies did so — refusing to grant raises and firing strikers — workers became afraid and disillusioned.

 

For years, the United Automobile Workers union — the one that went on strike this week — has been suffering from this kind of vicious cycle.

 

Some of its problems have been self-inflicted, including corruption. U.A.W. leaders have recently been the subject of a corruption investigation, in which a few have been convicted of accepting bribes. In some cases, they took the bribes from employers in exchange for accepting concessions during contract talks. When the U.A.W. narrowly lost an election to unionize workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee this year, some workers said — understandably — that they voted against it because they were skeptical the union would really fight for their interests.

 

The G.M. strike is in part an effort by the union to halt this cycle of defeat. By calling the strike, the union’s remaining leaders are trying to demonstrate a new willingness to fight for their members. “A successful strike at General Motors could persuade U.A.W. members that the union is willing to take significant risks to fight on behalf of its members, potentially opening the door to more organizing in the anti-union South, where many auto plants have migrated,” Mike Elk wrote in The American Prospect yesterday.

 

The striking workers are asking for a pay increase and for the reopening of idled plants, among other things, and they are arguing that G.M. is now profitable enough (having earned $8.1 billion last year) to afford both. Given the wage stagnation that most workers have suffered in recent decades — and the larger import of the G.M. strike — I’m rooting for the workers to win a better deal.

 

I’m also rooting for the U.A.W. to solve its corruption problem and make sure its leaders are looking out for the workers rather than themselves.

[kenberg]

Seems there is more impeachment talk in the air:

 

A New York Times investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University has uncovered another allegation of sexual misconduct that was previously unreported. Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh in the 1980s, reportedly said he saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a dorm party where his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Stier notified senators and the FBI about the incident but it was not investigated, according to the Times, which cited two officials who have spoken to Stier about his account

 

 

Does anyone other than me find this description a bit odd? I have never wanted to push someone else's penis anywhere, my friends have not expressed any interest in pushing my penis anywhere. and just how they would push it into a woman's had seems like a mystery. And painful even if it could be done.

I am not saying that nothing happened, but I would hope for a description that seems more plausible.

[hrothgar]

 

 

Does anyone other than me find this description a bit odd? I have never wanted to push someone else's penis anywhere, my friends have not expressed any interest in pushing my penis anywhere. and just how they would push it into a woman's had seems like a mystery. And painful even if it could be done.

I am not saying that nothing happened, but I would hope for a description that seems more plausible.

 

Having some experience with Princeton eating club culture back in the 80s, , I do not find this surprising

[Winstonm]

 

 

Does anyone other than me find this description a bit odd? I have never wanted to push someone else's penis anywhere, my friends have not expressed any interest in pushing my penis anywhere. and just how they would push it into a woman's had seems like a mystery. And painful even if it could be done.

I am not saying that nothing happened, but I would hope for a description that seems more plausible.

 

It sounds to me as if you did not spend much if any time around a bunch of drunken fraternity brothers. And that the woman who was the supposed target can't remember sounds to me like she might have been equally drunk instead of forgetful, which would help explain why she did not want to answer questions.

 

When I was a senior in high school, I was courted by a number of the fraternities at the University of Oklahoma. One night I dropped in with a date on a frat party during "rush week" and from that brief experience developed the idea that the movie Animal House was only a slight exaggeration.

 

The frat boys had arranged a very drunk and very willing girl as my "date" for the night, and when they saw I had brought someone offered instead the use of a private room for the evening. About the only thing missing was Otis Day and the Knights.

[Winstonm]

If this is accurate, it is a damning assessment of the investigation into Kavanaugh. From the WaPo editorial board:

 

....federal agents interviewed none of the two dozen people who Ms. Ramirez said could bolster her story and ignored an allegation of a second episode of drunken misbehavior.

 

This investigative shoddiness was apparently the fault not of the FBI but of Republicans looking for the cover Mr. Flake had claimed he did not want. At first, they limited the FBI to questioning only four people about two separate allegations. Agents eventually got an expansion of the number of people they could contact — they interviewed 10 — but not an extension of their deadline: a mere week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisted that the Senate would vote within days. Under these pressures and limitations, the FBI interviewed few and turned in its report early.

 

And this from Slate:

 

But the real sin unearthed by the excerpt isn’t that there was a second account, that another former Yale student allegedly remembers seeing Brett Kavanaugh behave in disturbing and inappropriate ways. The real sin is that this former student, Max Stier, went to Delaware Sen. Chris Coons and then the leadership of the Senate, way back in the fall of 2018, to try to tell them what he remembered. And the real sin is that the FBI never investigated it. Indeed, the FBI didn’t talk to any of the 25 individuals given to them by Debbie Ramirez’s lawyer, or any of the multiple witnesses who came forward to the FBI of their own volition (including a former roommate who believed Ramirez and published his own account of Kavanaugh’s college behavior in Slate). But the FBI didn’t talk to these people because the FBI never even spoke to Brett Kavanaugh about the alleged events. The FBI never spoke to Christine Blasey Ford, either. The FBI did interview Ramirez last October and found her “credible,” but then just left it at that. According to the new reporting, an agent told her lawyers that “We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else.” They did not get that authorization, and they did nothing else.

[barmar]

Does anyone other than me find this description a bit odd? I have never wanted to push someone else's penis anywhere, my friends have not expressed any interest in pushing my penis anywhere. and just how they would push it into a woman's had seems like a mystery. And painful even if it could be done.

I also never wanted to rape someone, or even sexually harass someone, but I understand that it goes on quite a bit, especially by drunk frat boys.

 

I've never told anyone before (not even my family), but when I was a child my father would sometimes take me to work (a family-owned wholesaling business) when I had a day off from school, and I would help out in the warehouse. One worker I would frequently assist would sometimes take me into a corner, pull out his penis, and masturbate by pushing it into my underpants. I was too young (probably 10-11) to understand what he was doing -- only decades later did I recall it and realize that I'd been the victom of child molestation.

 

I can't remember if my sister (a year younger than me) also helped like this. If she did, I hesitate to think what might have happened to her.

[kenberg]

It sounds to me as if you did not spend much if any time around a bunch of drunken fraternity brothers. And that the woman who was the supposed target can't remember sounds to me like she was just as drunk.

 

When I was as senior in high school, I was courted by a number of the fraternities at the University of Oklahoma. One night I dropped in with a date on a frat party during "rush week" and from that brief experience developed the idea that the movie Animal House was only a slight exaggeration.

 

I was in a fraternity for a wile.I joined for what I thought were practical reasons, to some extent it worked. In me senior year in high school my parents told me that if I wanted to go to college ( the U of M is in Mpls) I could continue living at home (in St. Paul) without contributing to family finances. I really hated living at home, I really wanted to go to college, so I continued to live at home, meaning I slept there and had breakfast there, lunch and dinner I ate on campus. Joining a frat I could eat there. I still slept at home. Eventually I quit the frat, moved out of my house, figured I can either make it or I can't but I am outta here, both home and the frat.

 

One frat experience: We were to select a queen and there was much discussion about physical features of women. I was assigned to pick up a candidate at her home and while driving her to the frat we had a discussion. She had decided that this would be her last pitch for becoming queen of anything. She thought it was not good for her to put herself up for this sort of judgment, and she was done with it. This matched well with thoughts that I had been having about the whole thing.. I was seeing someone else at the time or I am pretty sure I would have asked her out, probably but maybe not having enough sense to wait until the judging had been done. Neither she nor I gave much of a damn as to whether she won, I think she didn't.

 

Yes, I got drunk for the first time at the frat, I had had a personal crisis and when it passed I drank a serious amount of scotch. And there were various frat like things that I thought were nuts but most were not awful. But I got out, it wasn't for me.

 

So my experience with all of this is not zip, but I agree it is not extensive.

 

I accept that drunken parties lead to strange things. But the story still sounds strange. Guys, drunk or not, do not usually want to push another guy's penis. As to the woman forgetting, I can imagine that if she was asked "Do you recall a bunch of guys pushing another guy's penis into your hand?" she might well say no. If the incident were described in a more realistic manner, perhaps she might think back and say "Oh yes, I do recall".

 

A victim should be given a great deal of credence and should be treated gently when she has a little trouble saying things right. This situation is different. We have a newspaper columnist for the NYT and a guy writing a book. The subject could lead to impeachment so it is of great importance. Neither the columnist nor the book writer were traumatized victims, not in this event anyway. It is very reasonable to expect them to present the story in a way that makes sense. They could ask the witness "The guy's friends pushed his penis into her hand? Please give a little more detail as to exactly how this was done. Please explain whether BK cooperated with this, please explain whether it was BK or his friends that pulled his pants down". In short, have the witness give enough detail so that the story holds together.

[cherdano]

I admit "kenberg would like more detail explaining how some pushed someone's penis into someone's hand" was not among the things I would have predicted to read in the Water Cooler. Strange times we live in.

[Winstonm]

 

I was in a fraternity for a wile.I joined for what I thought were practical reasons, to some extent it worked. In me senior year in high school my parents told me that if I wanted to go to college ( the U of M is in Mpls) I could continue living at home (in St. Paul) without contributing to family finances. I really hated living at home, I really wanted to go to college, so I continued to live at home, meaning I slept there and had breakfast there, lunch and dinner I ate on campus. Joining a frat I could eat there. I still slept at home. Eventually I quit the frat, moved out of my house, figured I can either make it or I can't but I am outta here, both home and the frat.

 

One frat experience: We were to select a queen and there was much discussion about physical features of women. I was assigned to pick up a candidate at her home and while driving her to the frat we had a discussion. She had decided that this would be her last pitch for becoming queen of anything. She thought it was not good for her to put herself up for this sort of judgment, and she was done with it. This matched well with thoughts that I had been having about the whole thing.. I was seeing someone else at the time or I am pretty sure I would have asked her out, probably but maybe not having enough sense to wait until the judging had been done. Neither she nor I gave much of a damn as to whether she won, I think she didn't.

 

Yes, I got drunk for the first time at the frat, I had had a personal crisis and when it passed I drank a serious amount of scotch. And there were various frat like things that I thought were nuts but most were not awful. But I got out, it wasn't for me.

 

So my experience with all of this is not zip, but I agree it is not extensive.

 

I accept that drunken parties lead to strange things. But the story still sounds strange. Guys, drunk or not, do not usually want to push another guy's penis. As to the woman forgetting, I can imagine that if she was asked "Do you recall a bunch of guys pushing another guy's penis into your hand?" she might well say no. If the incident were described in a more realistic manner, perhaps she might think back and say "Oh yes, I do recall".

 

A victim should be given a great deal of credence and should be treated gently when she has a little trouble saying things right. This situation is different. We have a newspaper columnist for the NYT and a guy writing a book. The subject could lead to impeachment so it is of great importance. Neither the columnist nor the book writer were traumatized victims, not in this event anyway. It is very reasonable to expect them to present the story in a way that makes sense. They could ask the witness "The guy's friends pushed his penis into her hand? Please give a little more detail as to exactly how this was done. Please explain whether BK cooperated with this, please explain whether it was BK or his friends that pulled his pants down". In short, have the witness give enough detail so that the story holds together.

 

Ken, I agree that serious consequences require serious investigation, which once again condemns the derelict investigation done by the FBI, reigned in by the Republican-controlled senate, into the claims surrounding Kavanaugh's actions. Which leads me into this, a quote I borrowed from a poster known as Earlofhuntingdon at Emptywheel.net.

 

From Andrew Reynolds, political scientist at UNC (emphasis added):

 

“When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.”

 

They can’t win unless they cheat. No safe pair of hands longing for a return to a time of mint juleps on the veranda will fix that. It will take a generation of hardworking, hard networking women and men, who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and their hair mussed. I pinky swear.

 

The GOP in its present iteration actively works to suppress democracy. That is really the issue - about Kavanaugh and about everything else in the political arena. Who truly are the enemies of this nation?

[rmnka447]

You can be impeached for lying during your confirmation hearings.

 

So did anyone ask Judge Kavanaugh about this alleged incident during his confirmation hearing? If not, it's pretty hard to say he lied about it. So, no impeachment. Even more important, you have to have some proof that the allegations are true. People can make lots of claims but that doesn't make them true.

 

 

FWIW: The NYT did not retract but offered a correction to their story. The Hill describes it like this:

 

You know, if you tried to find out the accurate information for yourself instead of relying on Fox and Friends to tell you what is happening you wouldn't so often look like a twit.

 

Let's recap with reality compared to what you claimed: 1) The NYT issued a correction, not a retraction. The basic story is unchanged. 2) Kavanaugh was never going to be impeached for what happened 30 years ago but for lying under oath during his confirmation hearing.

 

 

The correction completely undercuts the allegations. The "victim" apparently doesn't remember the incident and wasn't contacted about it. It's just more wild claims by individuals bent on character assassination. But, hey, in the progressive biosphere, any allegation that might get you a political end is OK, right? It's easy to see how corrupt the moral indignation of progressives is. First class slime balls.

[Winstonm]

So did anyone ask Judge Kavanaugh about this alleged incident during his confirmation hearing? If not, it's pretty hard to say he lied about it. So, no impeachment. Even more important, you have to have some proof that the allegations are true. People can make lots of claims but that doesn't make them true.

 

 

 

 

The correction completely undercuts the allegations. The "victim" apparently doesn't remember the incident and wasn't contacted about it. It's just more wild claims by individuals bent on character assassination. But, hey, in the progressive biosphere, any allegation that might get you a political end is OK, right? It's easy to see how corrupt the moral indignation of progressives is. First class slime balls.

 

Your ignorance, biases, and lack of critical thinking skills I find too trying with which to bother. I will help you overcome your ignorance this one last time.

 

First, Kavanaugh under oath at his confirmation hearing categorically denied engaging in any sexually inappropriate behavior. He also denied that he drank excessively. Either of these would be enough to impeach if shown he knowingly lied about any sexually inappropriate behavior or any excessive drinking, including the new claim by the witness, Max Stier.

 

Second, the issue from the NYT is not the girl but that a reliable witness, Max Stier, claimed he witnessed Kavanaugh engaged in lewd behavior. That the girl says she doesn't remember has no bearing whatsoever on what Max Stier says he witnessed.

 

Again, no one knows for sure what happened. The FBI were not allowed to investigate thoroughly. That you exonerate Kavanaugh without question says way more about you than it does about the NYT, the girl in question, or Max Stier.

 

At the least, a critical thinker should be curious as to what the reality is about Kavanaugh.

 

Best of luck with your cancer - from a retired hospice nurse. Now back to your regularly scheduled brainwashing programming.

[kenberg]

I admit "kenberg would like more detail explaining how some pushed someone's penis into someone's hand" was not among the things I would have predicted to read in the Water Cooler. Strange times we live in.

 

Agreed! I was a bit hesitant about getting into this discussion at all. I decided to do so, partly because I thought that the weirdness of it was part of the problem. The NYT publishes a story and, while the story as told sounds ridiculous, people don't want to get into a long discussion as to whether it is or is not reasonable to think a bunch of guys pushed some other guy's penis somewhere. So the story just lies there unchallenged. And yes, I will now probably drop out of this particular discussion.

 

[Winstonm]

 

Agreed! I was a bit hesitant about getting into this discussion at all. I decided to do so, partly because I thought that the weirdness of it was part of the problem. The NYT publishes a story and, while the story as told sounds ridiculous, people don't want to get into a long discussion as to whether it is or is not reasonable to think a bunch of guys pushed some other guy's penis somewhere. So the story just lies there unchallenged. And yes, I will now probably drop out of this particular discussion.

 

 

Again, I don't think you two guys have ever been drunk enough - Okie drunk - at least not many times and with a bunch of immature, horny 19-20 year olds. That someone like an extremely drunk Bret Kavanaugh could be coerced by his drunken buddies to pull his penis from his pants (as a drunken joke) while standing behind a girl, who had her back to him, and then had those same drunken buddies shove him from behind so that his penis hit her hand is not, to me, at all far-fetched. Having been around a lot of drunk horny guys in my youth, there isn't much that isn't possible to have occurred. The only oddity to me is that there was someone around sober enough to notice it and remember the incident.

 

But none of this is really the issue. The issue is the lack of investigation that the FBI was allowed to do prior to Kavanaugh's confirmation, and who set the parameters of that investigation. Kamela Harris asked this very question to Christopher Wray. His answer? The White House.

[hrothgar]

So did anyone ask Judge Kavanaugh about this alleged incident during his confirmation hearing? If not, it's pretty hard to say he lied about it.

 

 

Kavanugh: "I'm here today to tell the I've never sexually assaulted anyone. Not in high school, not in college, not ever. sexual assault is horrific."

 

Please note: Indecent exposure rises to the level of sexual assault if there is any kind of physical contact.

[y66]

Your ignorance, biases, and lack of critical thinking skills I find too trying with which to bother. I will help you overcome your ignorance this one last time.

Anybody making book on this (the last time part)?

[y66]

From New Jersey Opens a New Path to Gun Safety by the Editorial Board at Bloomberg:

 

This is a time of real progress on gun safety — no thanks to Washington. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continue to block vital and popular gun-safety legislation. The U.S. House of Representatives this year passed a bill extending background checks to virtually all gun purchases, and it appears poised to pass legislation to allow courts to temporarily take guns from people who are a danger to themselves or others. But gun-safety legislation continues to languish in the Senate. In the states, fortunately, it’s a very different story.

 

Legislatures across the country have recently passed laws — banning semi-automatic “assault” rifles in Connecticut, for example, and requiring background checks on ammunition sales in California. Yet the problem with these initiatives is obvious: Guns can be moved across state lines. Shooters in Chicago, for instance, might use guns sourced in Indiana or Mississippi, where traffickers can continue to exploit weak laws, regardless of what Illinois might do.

 

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy just took what might be a big step toward addressing this. He signed an executive order that seeks to use his state’s purchasing power to raise safety standards not just in New Jersey, but in other states too. New Jersey spends millions to arm its state police and other law-enforcement authorities. The executive order will require firearm manufacturers and retailers who do business with the state, wherever they’re located, to disclose whether they adhere to New Jersey’s safety standards. The order also empowers state agencies to make adherence to those standards a requirement for companies seeking to sell firearms to New Jersey.

 

The order is aimed especially at the “bad apple” gun dealers that are responsible for a disproportionate number of guns used in crimes. According to an analysis by the Brady campaign against gun violence, roughly 5% of gun dealers are responsible for about 90% of the guns recovered from crime investigations. Dealers and manufacturers doing business with the state will have to disclose whether they have adopted policies to ensure public safety, including preventing so-called straw purchases (where the real buyer is hidden) and thefts of firearms and ammunition, and to aid law enforcement in denying criminals access to guns. The state will also require that financial institutions doing business with the state disclose what policies they have in place to ensure that their gun-industry clients don’t facilitate reckless commerce in firearms.

 

There’s a simpler way to curb gun violence, of course. Congress could enact, and the president could sign, sensible new national laws, and fund research on gun violence to inform future policy. And the president could direct the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to crack down on rogue gun dealers. Until the Senate and White House are freed from the grip of the gun industry, however, state leaders will have to make progress where they can.

 

Governor Murphy has opened a promising new path to saving lives.