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Trump orders supplemental FBI investigation of Kavanaugh allegations before floor votee

Tanngrisnir said:
No, it sounds like they weren't allowed to do their job by the WH.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...witter&utm_content=business&utm_medium=social
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Yes, I told you this would be the response as soon as this investigation was authorized (that they'd complain about the artificial time constraints and limited scope). I'm pretty sure any investigation that did not conclude Kavanaugh was a drunken rapist would have to last long enough for the Democrats to recover control of the Senate.

Do you know what Dr. Ford is an expert on?

She's a published expert in how to use hypnosis to create false memories and mind control. In 2008 she co-authored "Meditation with yoga, group therapy with hypnosis, and psychoeducation for long‐term depressed mood: a randomized pilot trial", published by the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the article is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20496 In addition, Christine Blasey Ford is said to currently head up the CIA Undergraduate Internship Program. None of this was disclosed to the Senate Judiciary Committee (why not)?

It is well understood by clinicians that anyone who is subject to hypnosis can suffer false memories. The New York Times ran a story ‘Hypnosis May Cause False Memories‘ (September 10, 1997) explaining the science:
HYPNOSIS, even self-hypnosis, can sometimes result in the creation of false memories -the belief that something happened even though it never did. A psychologist at Ohio State University in Lima and fellow researchers found that even when people were warned about the possibility of acquiring pseudo-memories under hypnosis, more than a quarter of them did anyway.

Dr. Joseph Green, a professor of psychology at Ohio State and co-author of the study, said, ''There's a cultural expectation that hypnosis will lead to more accurate and earlier memories, but that's not true.''

For that reason, there is a raging controversy over the use of hypnosis to help people recall lost memories of early trauma. Many experts dispute the conclusion that such recovered memories are always real. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/10/us/hypnosis-may-cause-false-memories.html
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Shouldn't the Committee take into account Kavanaugh's accuser is an expert in self-hypnosis and recovered memory, and that the latter is deemed quite unreliable?
 
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Plus Ultra said:
Yes, I told you this would be the response as soon as this investigation was authorized (that they'd complain about the artificial time constraints and limited scope). I'm pretty sure any investigation that did not conclude Kavanaugh was a drunken rapist would have to last long enough for the Democrats to recover control of the Senate.
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What a comically asinine thing to assert.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
What a comically asinine thing to assert.
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But absolutely confirmed and I guarantee you this will be the exact thing Democrats on the Committee and elsewhere will denounce when the FBI report becomes official. That you didn't know this would be the case is ridiculous, I suppose you would like others to think you'd accept any honest report from the FBI, but you and I both know the only report you'd accept is one that confirmed Kavanaugh was a drunken rapist, anything other than that would be garbage and unacceptable until after Democrats had a majority in the Senate when the FBI's report would become irrelevant.
 
Plus Ultra said:
But absolutely confirmed and I guarantee you this will be the exact thing Democrats on the Committee and elsewhere will denounce when the FBI report becomes official. That you didn't know this would be the case is ridiculous, I suppose you would like others to think you'd accept any honest report from the FBI, but you and I both know the only report you'd accept is one that confirmed Kavanaugh was a drunken rapist, anything other than that would be garbage and unacceptable until after Democrats had a majority in the Senate when the FBI's report would become irrelevant.
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No, you and I both know if the FBI was hamstrung in who it could talk to, it was orchestrated by the White House in order to get Kavanaugh through.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
I would be a lot less reluctant to approve the nomination of an HONEST alcoholic than I would be to approve the nomination of a DISHONEST alcoholic - wouldn't you?

Isn't the question "Is __[fill in the blank]__ honest about __[fill in the blank]__?" rather than "Is __[fill in the blank]__ an __[fill in the blank]__?"?

If the answer to the REAL question is "No.", then isn't the supplementary question "Since __[fill in the blank]__ isn't being honest about __[fill in the blank]__ what else are they not being honest about?"?
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Well, at this point, Kavanaugh is honest and not a drunk. But the Dems support his lying accuser, who can't remember a thing, other than blurting out Kavanaugh's name. What an effective witness. A professional prosecutor said she couldn't even get a search warrant from her weak ass testimony. If you had to believe one of them, there's no contest. And it's not the whimpering valley girl.
 
The FBI apparently is done and found nothing:
The White House has found no corroboration of the allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after examining interview reports from the FBI’s latest probe into the judge’s background, according to people familiar with the matter.

It was unclear whether the White House, which for weeks has raised doubts about the allegations, had completed its review of the FBI interview reports.

Still, the White House’s conclusions from the report aren’t definitive at this point in the confirmation process. Senators who will decide Mr. Kavanaugh’s fate are set to review the findings on Thursday, and some of them may draw different conclusions.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chairman, said on Twitter early Thursday that the committee had received the report.

The result could leave senators in much the same position as last week—faced with two witnesses providing mutually exclusive accounts and forced to decide between them. The investigation, which concluded two days before its Friday deadline, has faced mounting criticism in recent days from Democrats who have said the probe wasn’t appropriately comprehensive.

Republicans have said the extended background check by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a concession to Democrats and wavering Republicans, who demanded it and said its completion without a major revelation should allow Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to proceed to a Senate vote. Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee, where Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings were heard, have claimed that the White House imposed too many restrictions on who the FBI could interview—they didn’t talk to Christine Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, for instance—to make their inquiry’s findings credible.
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As I said last week, back where we started. Confirmation on Friday, 51 to 49.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Which flies in contrast to every other power the government is given by the people.
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Really?

You mean that the Constitution of the United States of America is unconstitutional?

OpportunityCost said:
A power without limit was not intended in the Constitution.
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Yep, that's why the US has had more than one election.

OpportunityCost said:
The commerce clause is a power grab, nothing more, nothing less.
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You do know that "power grabbing" is something that ALL governments do, don't you? The only differences being how they go about grabbing it and at what level it is grabbed.
 
Plus Ultra said:
Not very well, sounds like the FBI is done already and hasn't corroborated anything. I think that's why mainstream media is focusing on this drinking stuff instead.
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The FBI took five of the seven days it was allowed to have, interviewed 10 of the approximately 80 people who indicated that they wished to provide the information that they had, and made sure that 8 out of the 9 people they included in their report had already stated that they supported Mr. Kavanaugh's appointment.

Regardless of whether someone thinks that ANY investigation SHOULD have been done, any rational person will agree that IF an investigation IS done, then it SHOULD be done properly and thoroughly so as to scotch subsequent claims of "whitewash".

The level and (apparent) partiality of the investigation that the FBI conducted is almost guaranteed to increase distrust and dissension simply because it does NOT look like the FBI did anything other than obey the politically motivated dictates of Mr. Trump. This is good for neither the FBI nor the country.

Besides, it really doesn't matter what is in the FBI report because you are never going to see it and the confirmation vote is highly likely to be along party lines since the goal is to "seize control of the Supreme Court for a generation in order to prevent the Democrats from accomplishing anything - when in power - and to enable the Republicans to do whatever they want - whenever they are in power".
 
Plus Ultra said:
Yes, I told you this would be the response as soon as this investigation was authorized (that they'd complain about the artificial time constraints and limited scope). I'm pretty sure any investigation that did not conclude Kavanaugh was a drunken rapist would have to last long enough for the Democrats to recover control of the Senate.

Do you know what Dr. Ford is an expert on?

She's a published expert in how to use hypnosis to create false memories and mind control. In 2008 she co-authored "Meditation with yoga, group therapy with hypnosis, and psychoeducation for long‐term depressed mood: a randomized pilot trial", published by the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the article is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20496 In addition, Christine Blasey Ford is said to currently head up the CIA Undergraduate Internship Program. None of this was disclosed to the Senate Judiciary Committee (why not)?

It is well understood by clinicians that anyone who is subject to hypnosis can suffer false memories. The New York Times ran a story ‘Hypnosis May Cause False Memories‘ (September 10, 1997) explaining the science:

Shouldn't the Committee take into account Kavanaugh's accuser is an expert in self-hypnosis and recovered memory, and that the latter is deemed quite unreliable?
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That's very interesting.

On the basis of your logic, we should conclude that an expert in open-heart surgery has a defective heart.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Really?

You mean that the Constitution of the United States of America is unconstitutional?



Yep, that's why the US has had more than one election.



You do know that "power grabbing" is something that ALL governments do, don't you? The only differences being how they go about grabbing it and at what level it is grabbed.
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The constitution is a method for the people to cede certain powers to government. All of the enumerated powers are specific and limited. This is why liberals love the commerce clause, it is an over reaching, unlimited power not specifically granted but inferred to grant more government power.

Yes, all governments grab power that's why they are a necessary evil and not the solution to every problem. Why do you want to give government more power?

Sent from my SM-S727VL using Tapatalk
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
That's very interesting.

On the basis of your logic, we should conclude that an expert in open-heart surgery has a defective heart.
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No you conclude that an expert on open heart surgery knows how to do heart surgery.

Sent from my SM-S727VL using Tapatalk
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
That's very interesting.

On the basis of your logic, we should conclude that an expert in open-heart surgery has a defective heart.
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Not at all, but we should be concerned with the recovered memory of someone who is an expert on how to use psychology to create false memories.
 
OpportunityCost said:
The constitution is a method for the people to cede certain powers to government. All of the enumerated powers are specific and limited.
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Quite right. That is because there was no question over other matters - like the power of the courts to rule on the constitutionality of laws or to determine what the specific words of a law meant in real life.

OpportunityCost said:
This is why liberals love the commerce clause, it is an over reaching, unlimited power not specifically granted but inferred to grant more government power.
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And, of course, that is also why "conservatives" love the commerce clause.

OpportunityCost said:
Yes, all governments grab power that's why they are a necessary evil and not the solution to every problem.
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Now there we are in agreement.

OpportunityCost said:
Why do you want to give government more power?
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I don't. But you don't appear to grasp the reality of the situation which is "Those who are in power will accumulate as much power as they can accumulate and those who succeed them in power will not give any of it back - they will also continue the practice of accumulating as much power as they can accumulate, and those who succeed the in power ..."

I suppose that the only solution for a society where the courts have abandoned their inherent right to say "Tell me Counsellor, do you actually expect any rational person to believe that crap?" is to rewrite the constitution so that absolutely every single possibility (no matter how unlikely) is spelled out clearly and specifically. That, of course, would mean that it would be necessary to include a clause along the lines of


"Neither State nor Federal government shall legislate with respect to any matter not herein specifically referred to until such time as a constitutional amendment clarifying whether that matter is a State or Federal responsibility has been duly introduced and ratified.".
​
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
But you conclude that an expert on false memory has false memory - don't you?
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Argumentative to the end for its own sake, eh?

I believe someone that is an expert on false memory would best be able to construct a story that sounds believable because it is a false memory she wants to believe.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Quite right. That is because there was no question over other matters - like the power of the courts to rule on the constitutionality of laws or to determine what the specific words of a law meant in real life.

And, of course, that is also why "conservatives" love the commerce clause.
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Give me a break. They have availed themselves of it far less than progressives. The safety net concept is almost entirely draped in the commerce clause as its principle basis.



Now there we are in agreement.
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/nod



I don't. But you don't appear to grasp the reality of the situation which is "Those who are in power will accumulate as much power as they can accumulate and those who succeed them in power will not give any of it back - they will also continue the practice of accumulating as much power as they can accumulate, and those who succeed the in power ..."
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Currently there is little push and pull over power between the branches of government. The legislature is entirely too ready to pass over regulatory power to administrative agencies instead of making hard choices themselves and throwing up their hands when pressed about reining them in. In my opinion the solution is for states to push back against the fed, but because of overriding amendments they don't have near the power they were meant to have to oppose the fed and keep it in check.

I suppose that the only solution for a society where the courts have abandoned their inherent right to say "Tell me Counsellor, do you actually expect any rational person to believe that crap?" is to rewrite the constitution so that absolutely every single possibility (no matter how unlikely) is spelled out clearly and specifically. That, of course, would mean that it would be necessary to include a clause along the lines of


"Neither State nor Federal government shall legislate with respect to any matter not herein specifically referred to until such time as a constitutional amendment clarifying whether that matter is a State or Federal responsibility has been duly introduced and ratified.".
​
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I'm sorry, I can't believe you. You are entirely too big of a proponent of government solutions to make me take the above very seriously.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Argumentative to the end for its own sake, eh?

I believe someone that is an expert on false memory would best be able to construct a story that sounds believable because it is a false memory she wants to believe.
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Anyone - even a stable genius - who wants to believe something enough can create their own version of reality and believe in it.

However, all this discussion of what Mr. Kavanaugh did (or did not) do and whether the FBI investigation was (or was not) fully and properly carried out is completely irrelevant since Mr. Kavanaugh is now a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America and Mr. Trump is delighted at HIS big win.

Whether or not the confirmation of Mr. Kavanaugh is a "big win" for the United States of America is something that history will reveal.

He could be like Associate Justices James Clark McReynolds, William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, and Clarence Thomas, or he could be like Associate Justice Stanley Matthews.

In any event, Mr. Trump appears to be pleased that he has ensured that the Republicans will rule the United States of America for the next generation.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Give me a break. They have availed themselves of it far less than progressives.
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Isn't that like saying that someone who kills 10 kids in a school shooting isn't a mass murderer because someone else killed 20?

OpportunityCost said:
The safety net concept is almost entirely draped in the commerce clause as its principle basis.
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Nope. The "safety net concept" is almost entirely draped in "The Bible" as its principle concept.

However I will agree that it took the commerce clause to enable the "safety net concept" to get implemented.

OpportunityCost said:
Currently there is little push and pull over power between the branches of government. The legislature is entirely too ready to pass over regulatory power to administrative agencies instead of making hard choices themselves and throwing up their hands when pressed about reining them in.
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The basic principle there is "rhe ability to claim all of the successes while disclaiming all of the failures".

OpportunityCost said:
In my opinion the solution is for states to push back against the fed, but because of overriding amendments they don't have near the power they were meant to have to oppose the fed and keep it in check.
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I'm not so sure that the Founding Fathers actually turned their minds to what powers would be needed, and by whom, to govern a country that was about 20 times as extensive in area and around 70 times as large in population as the original colonies/states were.

OpportunityCost said:
I'm sorry, I can't believe you. You are entirely too big of a proponent of government solutions to make me take the above very seriously.
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If you think that I am advocating

I suppose that the only solution for a society where the courts have abandoned their inherent right to say "Tell me Counsellor, do you actually expect any rational person to believe that crap?" is to rewrite the constitution so that absolutely every single possibility (no matter how unlikely) is spelled out clearly and specifically. That, of course, would mean that it would be necessary to include a clause along the lines of


"Neither State nor Federal government shall legislate with respect to any matter not herein specifically referred to until such time as a constitutional amendment clarifying whether that matter is a State or Federal responsibility has been duly introduced and ratified.".
​

rather than pointing out that that might be what is required in a specific situation - and that that specific situation just might be the one that the US finds itself in respecting the seemingly irreconcilable split between the

  1. "the Federal Government MUST have absolutely paramount powers over everything not mentioned in the constitution - providing that it is something that the Founding Fathers didn't actually discuss in their writings and therefore didn't turn their minds to" group; and
  2. "the Federal Government MUST NOT have any power whatsoever over anything which is not specifically mentioned in the constitution - regardless of how uneven that would make the laws of the United States of America" group.

then you are mistaken. To illustrate, I DO NOT "favour" amputation as a general course of conduct, but sometimes amputation is required to stop the spread of gangrene and in that situation I wouldn't feel at all reluctant to recommend a course of action that I do not "favour" as a general course of conduct.

Is there room for BOTH "federal" and "state" legislation on the same general topic? Yes there is.

That mingled jurisdiction could (and I'm making up an example) operate along the lines of:

  1. The "federal" government establishes a national maximum safe highway speed of 120 mph;
  2. The "state" government establishes a state maximum safe highway speed on 80 mph;
  3. The "federal" government requires that each state provide clear warning of the change in maximum safe highway speed to motorists entering the state and also provide a "deceleration zone" of one mile (in which the warning is repeated several times) before enforcing the "state" government established maximum safe highway speed (in order to prevent "state" governments from setting incredibly low maximum highway speeds right at the state border and ticketing everyone who enters the state before raising the speed limit back up to what it was on the other side of the state border).

As I said, that's one theoretical example of how commingled jurisdiction could work.
PS - You do know that arguing "The Federal government should not have the power to __[fill in the blank]__, that power belongs to the State governments." is NOT arguing in favour of LESS government power, it is simply arguing in favour of the same power being exercised by a DIFFERENT government, don't you?
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Isn't that like saying that someone who kills 10 kids in a school shooting isn't a mass murderer because someone else killed 20?
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Moral equivalence is a losing argument.



Nope. The "safety net concept" is almost entirely draped in "The Bible" as its principle concept.
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Bull****. The bible is about people helping each other, not having government take from your neighbor to help another neighbor. Terrible argument.

However I will agree that it took the commerce clause to enable the "safety net concept" to get implemented.
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Its so obvious, its pretty hard for you to deny it.



The basic principle there is "rhe ability to claim all of the successes while disclaiming all of the failures".
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Or widen the argument to diminish the point.



I'm not so sure that the Founding Fathers actually turned their minds to what powers would be needed, and by whom, to govern a country that was about 20 times as extensive in area and around 70 times as large in population as the original colonies/states were.
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I think the ideas they laid out should stay fairly similar whether you have 13 states or 50.



If you think that I am advocating

I suppose that the only solution for a society where the courts have abandoned their inherent right to say "Tell me Counsellor, do you actually expect any rational person to believe that crap?" is to rewrite the constitution so that absolutely every single possibility (no matter how unlikely) is spelled out clearly and specifically. That, of course, would mean that it would be necessary to include a clause along the lines of


"Neither State nor Federal government shall legislate with respect to any matter not herein specifically referred to until such time as a constitutional amendment clarifying whether that matter is a State or Federal responsibility has been duly introduced and ratified.".
​

rather than pointing out that that might be what is required in a specific situation - and that that specific situation just might be the one that the US finds itself in respecting the seemingly irreconcilable split between the

  1. "the Federal Government MUST have absolutely paramount powers over everything not mentioned in the constitution - providing that it is something that the Founding Fathers didn't actually discuss in their writings and therefore didn't turn their minds to" group; and
  2. "the Federal Government MUST NOT have any power whatsoever over anything which is not specifically mentioned in the constitution - regardless of how uneven that would make the laws of the United States of America" group.

then you are mistaken. To illustrate, I DO NOT "favour" amputation as a general course of conduct, but sometimes amputation is required to stop the spread of gangrene and in that situation I wouldn't feel at all reluctant to recommend a course of action that I do not "favour" as a general course of conduct.

Is there room for BOTH "federal" and "state" legislation on the same general topic? Yes there is.

That mingled jurisdiction could (and I'm making up an example) operate along the lines of:

  1. The "federal" government establishes a national maximum safe highway speed of 120 mph;
  2. The "state" government establishes a state maximum safe highway speed on 80 mph;
  3. The "federal" government requires that each state provide clear warning of the change in maximum safe highway speed to motorists entering the state and also provide a "deceleration zone" of one mile (in which the warning is repeated several times) before enforcing the "state" government established maximum safe highway speed (in order to prevent "state" governments from setting incredibly low maximum highway speeds right at the state border and ticketing everyone who enters the state before raising the speed limit back up to what it was on the other side of the state border).

As I said, that's one theoretical example of how commingled jurisdiction could work.
PS - You do know that arguing "The Federal government should not have the power to __[fill in the blank]__, that power belongs to the State governments." is NOT arguing in favour of LESS government power, it is simply arguing in favour of the same power being exercised by a DIFFERENT government, don't you?
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I think you are rambling so far afield that you aren't addressing any points I make.
 
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