Quote from: theymos on September 29, 2018, 12:54:22 AM

If the Democrats gain both the House and the Senate in the upcoming election, then I'm calling it right now: Trump will get so amazingly frustrated that he will do something massively stupid/illegal and end up getting impeached (via the support of many Republicans).

I don't think there is a lot that Democrats can do to frustrate the President. Trump will be unable to move any of his legislative agenda forward, and will be unlikely to get most of his political appointees that need Senate confirmation confirmed, however beyond that, there is little the Democrats can do. The government may shut down, possibly for an extended period of time, however it is to be seen who would pay politically for that.

In order for Trump to be removed from office, a fairly substantial portion of hard line Republican Senators will need to support impeachment, possibly including some who believe Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if he is guilty of what Ford alleges. I would predict that Trump would get impeached multiple times by Democrats, but is unlikely to reach anywhere close to the necessary support for him to be removed from office.

Quote from: theymos on September 20, 2018, 01:52:51 AM

The best-case scenario IMO is that we quickly get solid evidence that Kavanaugh is guilty, and then he's replaced [Amy Coney Barrett] who is then confirmed before the Democrats have any possibility of taking back the Senate.

To be clear, after witnessing what happened over the past two weeks, it will not be possible for Republicans to get anyone confirmed on the Supreme Court, ever, if Kavanaugh is not confirmed. Baseless accusations will be thrown against anyone right of center (and possibly anyone nominated by a Republican) nominated, and there will be calls to investigate such claims, and such investigations will not find any evidence to support such claims, then more outrageous accusations will be made, only to be followed by more investigations, more hearings, and more delays.

What makes me the most upset about this entire process is just how transparent of a smear campaign against Kavanaugh this is. On it's face, the Ford allegation is at least somewhat plausible prior to hearing any response from Kavanaugh, however the accusations from the New Yorker, and especially from the Creepy Porn Lawyer are so outlandish, that they frankly do not warrant a response from Kavanaugh.

Further evidence this is a smear campaign is the blatant disregard and uninterest in the truth by Democrats. None of the Democrats asked Ford any substantial question that would assess the credibility of her or what she is saying, and they for the most part were questioning Kavanaugh about things like his yearbook and drinking habits, in attempts to further smear him, and his friends from High School. Over the past two weeks, many Democrats have publicly said that Kavanaugh is presumed guilty for various reasons, all of which are ridiculous, and should be chilling to every American, and also goes against any sense of even basic fairness. The presumption of guilt is something that we see in authoritarian countries.

In regards to Ford specifically, it is fairly clear she took steps over many years to prevent Kavanaugh on the supreme court. It has been argued that she disclosed the alleged assault to her therapist in 2012, however Kavanaugh was speculated to be a pick by Romney if he were to win the 2012 election.

This begs the question as to why Ford did not come forward during Kavanaugh's work on the Starr investigation into Bill Clinton (during which time, everyone on that team was both smeared and throughly investigated by those close to the Clintons), nor when Kavanaugh was nominated onto the DC court of appeals. I suspect the answer lies with Mark Judge.

In one line of questioning by Democrats on Thursday, one of the Senators asked Kavanaugh about a character in Mark Judge's book, "Brett O'Kavanaugh" to which Kavanaugh responded that this is a fictional book. I believe the book in question was published in 1997, so technically speaking the Clintons would have had access to it during the Star investigation, however the Kavanaugh-Judge relationship was probably too obscure to go looking at fictional writings of Judge. Fast forward to 2003, Google Books (or something closely titled) was launched, in which it became possible to search the text of books. The initial process of scanning books was fairly slow, and it took some time for Google to have a very wide catalog of books available for searching, so there is a good chance Judge's book was not available on Google Books in 2003 (-2006 when he was confirmed), but even if it was, there is a good chance, those looking into his past might not search Google Books because of its limited catalog. Fast forward to 2012, Ford could have researched the frontrunners to be nominated by Romney, saw the geographical connection from their early years, prompting her to find the Judge-Kavanaugh connection in Judge's book, and went from there.

Unfortunately, Republicans really botched the questioning both because the questioner did not have experience in cross-examining witnesses, and because the format (and time constraints) was horrible. There are multiple lines of questioning that I would have liked to see Rachael Mitchell pursue, however I would have liked to see Mitchell question Ford about any research she conducted on Kavanaugh prior to her making her allegation, and the timing of her therapy session in relation to this research.

In regards to Ford's lawyers, it is fairly clear they are acting as political operatives. Ford was referred to her 1st lawyer, Katz, by Senator Feinstein's office (or maybe it was Feinstein herself, I don't remember). Ford's lawyer got her to more or less immidiately get a polygraph test under very shady circumstances, under which IMO she had a very high probability of not being reported as deceitful (assuming she was lying during the test), ignoring the lack of underlying evidence the test actually took place, such as the machine readouts, and the video/audio of the test. There is not any evidence that Ford agreed to bear the cost, or was aware of the cost of the polygraph, indicating her lawyers intended on paying for it, absent sufficient GoFundMe funds. Her lawyers also successfully delayed the hearing by a week under what can only be described as misleading circumstances, if not via outright lying. Her lawyers also made it very politically difficult for Republicans to meaningfully question Ford or her credibility by forcing a public hearing, even though Ford later said she preferred a private questioning in CA. It was Ford's lawyers who started the calls for an FBI investigation, even though the FBI would not be able to obtain any information that Senate staffers would be able to get.

In regards to the requests for an FBI investigation, this is clearly a farce, attempting to further delay a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation. The FBI is unable to compel anyone to speak with them, while the Senate can issue a subpoena. The penalty for lying to an FBI agent is substantially the same as lying to a senate investigator under these circumstances. The FBI is not able to obtain any information that Senate investigators can obtain, and they don't know what specific questions Senators are interested in, while Senate investigators can work with Senators to ask specific questions. The claim that a Senate investigation is somehow "partisan" is ridiculous based on the fact that both Democrats and Republicans can investigate, although the Democrats refused to previously participate, which is further evidence of their dis-interest in learning the truth.