Time To Smear Kavanaugh's Good Name...

[carpedm9587]

As I understand it, the witnesses that Ford herself named have already signed legal affidavits saying that the incident as described by Ford never happened. Ford has literally nothing to substantiate her accusation other than hazy and contradictory recollections over three-decades later. Under any other circumstance, this case would be dismissed before even going to trial.

I have not seen this. Can you provide a link, please? And I'd prefer a link to the actual legal affidavits, or a reasonably credible neutral reporting source (e.g.,, Reuters, AP, etc.). Brietbart is not going to cut it...unless they link to the actual affidavits.

[lilpixieofterror]

From where I sit - both sides seem to have an axe to grind...

And yet we work from presumed innocence where it’s the accuser that needs to provide evidence the event in question happened or happened how they described it.

[Mountain Man]

I suspect no allegation will be seen as credible or independently corroborated by the right - and they will all be seen as credible and independently corroborated by the left...

...and so it goes...

A typical wishy-washy carpe response.

[Starlight]

And yet we work from presumed innocence where it’s the accuser that needs to provide evidence the event in question happened or happened how they described it.

Wat?

"Innocent until proven guilty" is part of the method of criminal judicial process and connected therein with the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt". That's not what this is. This is not even a civil case where the standard would be the balance of probability. This is essentially a public job interview. The mere existence of rumors can be totally rational grounds for an employer not to hire someone and to go to the next candidate on their list.

Secondly, once an accuser makes an accusation, that in itself is evidence. Their testimony, their witness that the event happened, is evidence. There is not an onus on them to provide more evidence in order to be taken seriously.

In a lot of instances the evidence does just boil down to a he-said she-said situation where the only evidence is the testimony of the victim and of the accused. That's inherently 50-50 to begin with, and then you have to start considering things like the character of the two people, their backgrounds, the fact that we know from studies and past experience that only a very small percentage of such allegations turn out to be false etc. So if the accuser has a reasonable character background (e.g. is a university professor in good standing) then the chances the accusation is correct is probably >95%, and while that might not be good enough for a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard were this a criminal case, it would certainly be good enough for a balance of probability standard in a civil case or a "we have some serious concerns about this candidate" type standard that would be relevant to a potential employer which is really the relevant standard here.

[lilpixieofterror]

Wat?

"Innocent until proven guilty" is part of the method of criminal judicial process and connected therein with the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt". That's not what this is. This is not even a civil case where the standard would be the balance of probability. This is essentially a public job interview. The mere existence of rumors can be totally rational grounds for an employer not to hire someone and to go to the next candidate on their list.

Secondly, once an accuser makes an accusation, that in itself is evidence. Their testimony, their witness that the event happened, is evidence. There is not an onus on them to provide more evidence in order to be taken seriously.

In a lot of instances the evidence does just boil down to a he-said she-said situation where the only evidence is the testimony of the victim and of the accused. That's inherently 50-50 to begin with, and then you have to start considering things like the character of the two people, their backgrounds, the fact that we know from studies and past experience that only a very small percentage of such allegations turn out to be false etc. So if the accuser has a reasonable character background (e.g. is a university professor in good standing) then the chances the accusation is correct is probably >95%, and while that might not be good enough for a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard were this a criminal case, it would certainly be good enough for a balance of probability standard in a civil case or a "we have some serious concerns about this candidate" type standard that would be relevant to a potential employer which is really the relevant standard here.

So it comes down to you’re totally cool with destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life based on little more than roomer and he said/she said. I wonder if you’d be cool with the same happening to you?

[Mountain Man]

Justified anger from Mr. Kavanaugh (Senate committee transcript):

This is an outrage for this kind of thin, uncorroborated, 35-year-old accusation to be leveled in this fashion at this time. I’ve been in the public eye for 24 years, since I started with the independent counsel in the fall of 1994, very public at various points in my life. I’ve been through six background checks. I worked in the White House at the highest levels, senior staff, traveling with the President all over the world, seeing the most highly sensitive secrets of our Nation for years. I went through a difficult confirmation process for the D.C. Circuit that was public with two separate confirmation hearings in 2004 and 2006.

I’ve been a judge for 12 years in a very public way. I’ve been identified repeatedly as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Whether that was accurate or not, I’ve been publicly identified. My decisions have been publicly discussed. I’ve been very much a presence at the Yale College reunions. I’ve been on multiple panels there. So I’ve been active in the class. The class newsletter has talked about me. The people in my class have been at those reunions and those events.

In all that time, not a word. And then 4 days, you know, when just right before a vote for the Supreme Court, after the nomination itself has been pending for months, and I’ve been through the hearings and 65 Senate meetings and all the written questions, and then — and then, after all these years, with all this time, and all these descriptions with no corroboration and with her best friend saying she never heard about it, you know, I’m — I’m really just, you know, stunned. And outraged.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...on-into-chaos/

[Starlight]

So it comes down to you’re totally cool with destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life based on little more than roomer and he said/she said. I wonder if you’d be cool with the same happening to you?

Not getting a job you apply for does not equal "destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life". I've got rejected for jobs I applied for before. I lived. Kavanaugh will do the same.

[Starlight]

The number of allegations is not particularly relevant, what is relevant is how credible they are.

Both seem as relevant as each other. A large number of individual unlikely accusations can make a cumulative case that's as good as a small number of likely accusations.

If the individual accusations boil down to he-said she-said and the credibility of the accuser and defendant are judged to be similar, then it is quite a reasonable question to ask how many such allegations need to exist before a reasonable person judges them likely true. Typically many reasonable people say a he-said she-said is 50-50, and therefore they require two accusers alleging incidents to conclude that the balance of probability leans against the accused.

However I would personally place serious consideration on the fact that the research shows false accusations are few and far between and are outnumbered greatly by true accusations, which tells us that even in a he-said she-said situation we should place vastly more stock in the accuser's account if the credibility of the two is deemed roughly equal. Certainly in US public politics in recent decades the number of true accusations appears to have vastly, vastly, outnumbered any false accusations. (Off the top of my head I cannot think of any accusation in the last 30+ years in US public politics that turned out to be false, but I wasn't following US politics closely for that whole period.)

[QuantaFille]

Not getting a job you apply for does not equal "destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life". I've got rejected for jobs I applied for before. I lived. Kavanaugh will do the same.

Someone accused you of rape, and that's why you didn't get the job? Interesting.

[One Bad Pig]

When there is adequate evidence to confirm or refute the allegations.

That's the thing - how in the world does one find "adequate" evidence to prove a negative?

I try not to come to a conclusion just because it aligns with my political position.

Well, that would make two of us. I can't help but have the sneaking suspicion that you're resisting coming to the conclusion misaligned with your political position, however. In the era of well-corroborated #metoo, these allegations are mighty thin gruel.

[Mountain Man]

That's the thing - how in the world does one find "adequate" evidence to prove a negative?

The problem is the imbalance. A false accusation can be made in seconds, but it can take hundreds of man hours to disprove it.

[JimL]

So it comes down to you’re totally cool with destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life based on little more than roomer and he said/she said. I wonder if you’d be cool with the same happening to you?

For one thing not getting the job is not destroying the man or his families life. He was nominated for the job, not given the job. And for another, if his reputation is ruined it will be because the accusations were found (by members of the republican majority) to be credible, which they obviously are to anyone with an ounce of objectivity.

[lilpixieofterror]

Not getting a job you apply for does not equal "destroying a man’s family, reputation, and life". I've got rejected for jobs I applied for before. I lived. Kavanaugh will do the same.

So you were on international headlines were you were accused of being a rapist? When did this happen?

[lilpixieofterror]

For one thing not getting the job is not destroying the man or his families life. He was nominated for the job, not given the job. And for another, if his reputation is ruined it will be because the accusations were found (by members of the republican majority) to be credible, which they obviously are to anyone with an ounce of objectivity.

So airing international headlines were you accuse him of being a rapist, without any evidrnce, isn’t about destroying a man and his family? How entertaining that you and Starlight ignored that little detail.

[Starlight]

And there's yet another accusation:

an allegation made by a Rhode Island man -- whose name was redacted from the transcript -- raised in a call to Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's office "concerning a rape on a boat in August of 1985."...

alleges that in 1985 "a close acquaintance of the constituent was sexually assaulted by two heavily inebriated men she referred to at the time as Brett and Mark." The incident allegedly took place on a boat in the Newport harbor. Kavanaugh denied being in Newport or on a boat or on a boat with Mark Judge.

The report as read said when the man learned of the assault, "he and another individual went to the harbor, located the boat the victim had described and physically confronted the two men, leaving them with significant injuries."

The report said the caller contacted Whitehouse's office the morning of September 24, 2018, after he saw Kavanaugh's high school yearbook photo on television and realized one of those men was Kavanaugh.

As it stands, this latest accusation doesn't seem all that convincing as it relies on remembering what people 30 years ago looked like and identifying them in a photo. Unless the woman herself can be found, this one should probably be shelved.