View Poll Results: What will be the result of the Midterms (vote twice!!)

Voters
48. You may not vote on this poll
  • GOP holds the House

    7 14.58%
  • Dems win the House by less than 12 seats

    20 41.67%
  • Dems win the House by 12-25 seats

    12 25.00%
  • Dems win the House by 25-38 seats

    7 14.58%
  • Dems win the House by 38+ seats

    1 2.08%
  • GOP gains 1 or more seats in the Senate (52-48 or more)

    29 60.42%
  • GOP holds the same number of seats in the Senate (51-49)

    7 14.58%
  • GOP loses seats but still holds the Senate (50-50 with Pence breaking tie)

    7 14.58%
  • Dems win the Senate (49-51 or more)

    2 4.17%
Multiple Choice Poll.
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  1. #841
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Vermont
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    If they agree on a day and the format, then Ford backs out or doesn't show absent some pretty substantial justification (e.g., family emergency of some kind, credible threat to her safety, etc.), I think Ford loses capital and it would be harder to begrudge the Committee going forward. I think she and her lawyers know this.

    But if McConnell and Grassley are now at risk of losing Murkowski, that means they have no margin for error. If no Ds vote for Kavanaugh, they'd need every other R to get to 50 votes so Pence could break the tie. And we still don't know where Collins and a couple other Rs stand (though I expect they'll fall in line). The point being, with the margin possibly so razor thin, Ford and her team now have a little more leverage to ask for some accommodation.

    Yes, there's certainly an element of theater to it. But hey, welcome to DC.
    Well, Murkowski and Collins are both pros at fretting and then getting on with the program, so I don't see much threat from either unless the process begins to unravel elsewhere (which it could).

  2. #842
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Not sure the Senate follows formal rules of evidence — their manner of questioning sure ain’t cricket. But if the notes are authenticated (proven to be real) it may not be hearsay if offered for the purpose of showing that she brought up his name years ago as opposed to offering the document for the alleged truth of the statements in the notes. Calling the doctor, of course, is the better evidence.

    I think they take all documents offered for the most part, for the record if nothing else.
    To be clear, the therapist's notes do not contain Kavanaugh's name, although you may have been speaking from hypothetical example instead of specifically about this case.

  3. #843
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyNotCrazie View Post
    I am still amazed that Trump has largely managed to stay silent on this. I'm guessing that he is being pushed hard to stay out of it and after his son's tweet, that effort was doubled.
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    It is hard to think of another example, really, where Trump has been so disciplined. McGahn is in charge of getting the nomination through, and even though their relationship is frayed my guess is that McGahn laid down the realities to Trump and for once he listened.
    Well, so much for that. Link
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  4. #844
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    From a USA Today article, here are the requests for the hearing made by Ford / Ford's legal team according to senate aides:




    The real negotiations are probably between Mitch McConnell and the R Senators, particularly the squishy ones. If the Rs have the votes on Kavanaugh, I expect them to continue to insist on a Monday hearing and to claim that many of these requests are unreasonable.

  5. #845
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    To be clear, the therapist's notes do not contain Kavanaugh's name, although you may have been speaking from hypothetical example instead of specifically about this case.
    Thanks, I have not followed what is in the notes or not. This helps.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tripping William View Post
    Well, so much for that. Link
    Ahh, Friday. You know it couldn't last.

  6. #846
    And just when you thought it couldn't get any nuttier, we've hit a whole new level of crazy.

    A guy named Ed Whelan put on his CSI hat and concocted a theory that one of Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmates who looks kind of like Kavanaugh might have been the real attacker. Now, Whelan is no Alex Jones-type crank (or at least, he wasn't thought of as one before yesterday). He's a very prominent player in DC conservative circles, and is one of Kavanaugh's Federalist Society pals who's been involved in preparing Kavanaugh for his confirmation hearings. Anyway, Whelan posted his theory on Twitter yesterday afternoon, including THE NAME, FORMER HOME ADDRESS, AND PAST AND CURRENT PICTURES OF THE OTHER STUDENT, who's now a middle school teacher in Atlanta.

    You read that right. In an effort to get his buddy on the Court, Whelan just explicitly identified some other unsuspecting random dude and threw him to the wolves.

    There was an immediate and severe backlash, and Whelan has now deleted his Twitter thread. It's been screenshotted, though, and is all over social media. You can go find it if you want to. I'm not going to link to it here because it's beyond lunacy, probably libelous and defamatory, and I don't want to give it more bandwidth than it's already getting. But here's the Washington Post's story about it.

    Amid the maneuvering, the nomination was roiled further late Thursday by incendiary tweets from a prominent Kavanaugh friend and supporter who publicly identified another high school classmate of Kavanugh’s as Ford’s possible attacker.

    Ed Whelan, a former clerk to the late justice Antonin Scalia and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, pointed to floor plans, online photographs and other information to suggest a location for the house party in suburban Maryland that Ford described. He also named and posted photographs of the classmate he suggested could be responsible.

    Ford dismissed Whelan’s theory in a statement late Thursday: "I knew them both, and socialized with" them, Ford said, adding that she had once visited the other classmate in the hospital. "There is zero chance that I would confuse them."

    Republicans on Capitol Hill and White House officials immediately sought to distance themselves from Whelan’s claims and said they were not aware of his plans to identify the former classmate, now a middle school teacher, who could not be reached for comment and did not answer the door at his house Thursday night.

    Whelan did not respond to requests for comment. He had told people around him that he had spent several days putting together the theory and thought it was more convincing than her story, according to two friends who had talked to him.

    Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh’s confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination. Kavanaugh and Whelan also worked together in the Bush administration.

    Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
    Link.

    I can't begin to describe the utter boneheadedness and breathtaking irresponsibility of this move from someone who's supposedly an ally of Kavanaugh's. This kind of whackery smells of panic and makes Kavanaugh look guilty as sin. At the very least, assuming there's a hearing, Kavanaugh will certainly be asked under oath if he had anything to do with this nonsense, and his relationship and communications with Whelan will be subjected to a full proctological exam. And Whelan was a Scalia clerk! I thought they were supposed to be smart.

    Between this, Ralph Norman's jokes, and Trump's attacks on Dr. Ford last night and this morning, the Rs are actively working to torpedo a confirmation they probably had in the bag 24 hours ago.



    ETA: Earlier in the week, Ed Whelan was also pushing a "false recovered memory" attack against Dr. Ford via Twitter (which he also has now deleted). Lordy.

    Whelan tweet.JPG
    Last edited by Tom B.; 09-21-2018 at 11:19 AM.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  7. #847
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Ford has responded:

    Ford dismissed Whelan’s theory in a statement late Thursday: “I knew them both, and socialized with” the other classmate, Ford said, adding that she had once visited him in the hospital. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.657b1a37c466

  8. #848
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    Between this, Ralph Norman's jokes, and Trump's attacks on Dr. Ford last night and this morning, the Rs are actively working to torpedo a confirmation they probably had in the bag 24 hours ago.
    It's hard for me to imagine any real hard evidence proving/disproving the allegations at this point. The only thing that can have real effects on the nomination process is one side or the other shooting themselves in the foot.

    I remain a little skeptical that all these supposed gaffes by Rs will have that effect, though. It's become common to say that we live in a different environment regarding issues of sexual harassment and assault than decades ago. That's probably true to some degree, but we still had someone elected to our highest office who was recorded ON VIDEO bragging about his ability to commit sexual assault with relatively minor effect on voting numbers. So I am not quite sure I agree on the supposed large effects all these gaffes will have.

  9. #849
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    A guy named Ed Whelan put on his CSI hat and concocted a theory that one of Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmates who looks kind of like Kavanaugh might have been the real attacker.

    <snip>

    Between this, Ralph Norman's jokes, and Trump's attacks on Dr. Ford last night and this morning, the Rs are actively working to torpedo a confirmation they probably had in the bag 24 hours ago.
    Who? And I realize there was probably a link to this Ralph Norman chap somewhere upthread, but news cycles being what they are... I'll also be asking "Who?" if you mention Ed Whelan to me in a couple days. Of the three things you listed, only Trump's twitter could possibly move the needle if he keeps tweeting stupid attacks on Ford. Possibly.

    Bottom line, here's what we're looking at, imo. Are 51 R Senators okay with the following point/counterpoint dominating the news: "She couldn't be expected to attend an unfair hearing" vs "We gave her a chance, and she didn't show"

    If 51 R Senators are okay with that discussion, then the Rs will press for Monday. And if she then doesn't attend, Kavanaugh is the next SCOTUS judge.

    Here's McConnell this morning speaking at the Values Voter Summit, per CNN (there's video if you click on the link):

    @CNN 1h1 hour ago
    Mitch McConnell: “You’ve watched the fight. You’ve watched the tactics, But here’s what I want to tell you: In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court… Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re gonna plow right through it and do our job.”

  10. #850
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    On the Road to Nowhere
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    Who? And I realize there was probably a link to this Ralph Norman chap somewhere upthread, but news cycles being what they are... I'll also be asking "Who?" if you mention Ed Whelan to me in a couple days. Of the three things you listed, only Trump's twitter could possibly move the needle if he keeps tweeting stupid attacks on Ford. Possibly.

    Bottom line, here's what we're looking at, imo. Are 51 R Senators okay with the following point/counterpoint dominating the news: "She couldn't be expected to attend an unfair hearing" vs "We gave her a chance, and she didn't show"

    If 51 R Senators are okay with that discussion, then the Rs will press for Monday. And if she then doesn't attend, Kavanaugh is the next SCOTUS judge.

    Here's McConnell this morning speaking at the Values Voter Summit, per CNN (there's video if you click on the link):

    @CNN 1h1 hour ago
    Mitch McConnell: “You’ve watched the fight. You’ve watched the tactics, But here’s what I want to tell you: In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court… Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re gonna plow right through it and do our job.”
    So now Ford gets to use this to say "Why should I bother showing up, you won't listen to me, your mind is made up, the hearing is a sham." You would think politicians would learn at some point that they are always being taped.

  11. #851
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    Who? And I realize there was probably a link to this Ralph Norman chap somewhere upthread, but news cycles being what they are...
    Ralph Norman is a GOP congressman who made a joke about sexual assault at a reelection debate yesterday:

    Rep. Ralph Norman opened up a debate between himself and Democratic challenger Archie Parnell on Thursday afternoon by making a joke about the sexual assault allegations surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

    "Did y'all hear this latest late-breaking news from the Kavanaugh hearings? Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln," the South Carolina Republican said to the crowd at the Kiwanis Club in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

    Laughter and some applause could be heard after Norman made the remark Thursday.

    While Parnell did not immediately respond to the comment during the debate, he released a response soon after it ended.

    "My opponent apparently thinks sexual assault is a joke. It is not. But I guess that's the best we can expect from someone who pulled a loaded gun on his own constituents," Parnell said in a statement.

    He was referring to an April event where Norman pulled out his loaded, personal .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and laid it on the table at a diner where he was meeting with his constituents in Rock Hill.
    -Jason "talk about shooting yourself in the foot... Norman won his seat in congress in a Special Election in 2017 by less than 4 points over Parnell" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  12. #852
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by dudog84 View Post
    So now Ford gets to use this to say "Why should I bother showing up, you won't listen to me, your mind is made up, the hearing is a sham." You would think politicians would learn at some point that they are always being taped.
    She didn't need this to not show up. If she does not want to testify, she won't testify. I think she wants to tell her story and let society judge whether she or Kavanaugh is more credible.
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  13. #853
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    I think she wants to tell her story and let society judge whether she or Kavanaugh is more credible.
    What is your basis to think this? Her demand to testify AFTER the accused is the opposite of hundreds of years of common law procedure.

  14. #854
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    What is your basis to think this? Her demand to testify AFTER the accused is the opposite of hundreds of years of common law procedure.
    Yeah, I don't the get the "testify after Kavanaugh" demand. I agree that seems strange. It may be that her side wanted to make a few demands they could give on so it would not look like they got everything they asked for. I dunno.

    I was merely saying that I think she wants to tell her story in public. The moment she divulged her name to the Wash Post she had to know that this thing would blow up and she would end up testifying in front of congress. The previous post seemed to imply that she would use McConnell's words as an excuse to get out of testifying. I was just saying that I don't think she is looking for a way to get out of testifying.

    --Jason "I strongly suspect Ford will get some of her demands satisfied and will end up testifying toward the end of next week" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  15. #855
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Atlanta
    Quote Originally Posted by littlejohn View Post
    Do any of our resident lawyers know how this works ? I read that Dr Ford herself released part of her therapist's notes , as a way of backing up her story. Does this open up the Senate to request a copy of all her therapist's notes ?? I know the Senate doesn't seem to even be following their own rulebook these days, but wondered if any our legal types knew how this would be dealt with.

    Seems the latest news was Ford's attorney saying she would only answer questions from the Senate panel, not an outside attorney, and wants to testify last. I can't imagine why Grassley would agree to either of those terms. An outside attorney gives the Rs cover, and a potential swing vote, in Collins of Maine, had already suggested this approach as a way to try to take the politics out of it.

    Seems, and I emphasize seems, that Dr Ford's side would rather fight in the political arena, and does not want to testify under oath, being questioned by an outside attorney.

    How would it work with Kavanaugh testifying first ? Testify to what exactly, if Dr Ford hasn't given testimony yet ?

    Lastly, pushing this off to next Thursday is no big deal to me, other than the obvious problem of cutting into my work time. If - IF - Kavanaugh is confirmed, he would start the term one week late. Big whoop. As I mentioned earlier though, if she bails on the next date, she's toast. They will proceed without her.

    A fascinating event to watch. Better pop an extra large bag of popcorn !
    That would be explosive if the Senate requested therapist notes in an attempt to "investigate" or get at the truth, and yet refused to subpoena Mark Judge who was allegedly the third person in this particular "Devil's Triangle" which allegedly occurred in a room at an alleged non-specified party that that neither Judge nor Kavanaugh allegedly attended.

  16. #856
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    California
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    If 51 R Senators are okay with that discussion, then the Rs will press for Monday. And if she then doesn't attend, Kavanaugh is the next SCOTUS judge.
    Republicans have already made a counteroffer for Wednesday.

  17. #857
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Asheville, NC

    Thought this looked appropriate


  18. #858
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by El_Diablo View Post
    Republicans have already made a counteroffer for Wednesday.
    "okay -- but only if it's late afternoon and over by dusk. All questions must be posed in the passive, not active, form of the verbs used. Gerunds are right out."

    This whole thing is getting absurd at this point, and takes away from the substantive impact of whatever the testimony might be.

  19. #859
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    Yeah, I don't the get the "testify after Kavanaugh" demand. I agree that seems strange.
    That's what they did for the Thomas/Hill hearings in 1991. Thomas went first, then Hill, then Thomas came back and was allowed to respond to Hill's allegations.

    If I'm Ford, I say I'll agree to go first and let Kavanaugh go second, but only if I'm allowed the option of coming back to respond after Kavanaugh testifies.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  20. #860
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Undisclosed
    Maybe I'm a jaded lawyer (okay, I am that regardless) but:

    Lay witnesses generally don't get to dictate the terms under which they will provide relevant evidence. Not in criminal cases. Not in civil cases. Not in front of governmental bodies. Not in front of investigatory agents.

    Personally, I am not in favor of Kav's nomination for reasons wholly unrelated to this issue. But everyone has known since Kennedy retired that the Senate was going to try and have his replacement by the opening of the Supreme Court's term -- which is one week from Monday. Dr. Ford's identity was known to at least one Senator since July. Demands that the witness now cannot be available before Thursday, or trying to dictate the order of questioning, or who gets the last word, or who does the questioning is just silly -- and Dr. Ford's lawyer knows that these will not fly. It is counterproductive to suggest such things as demands or conditions of testifying.

    Issues surrounding safety and publicity are certainly reasonable and I am sure would be accommodated by even the densest opponent of the witness. But it does not take a week or more of negotiations to get a witness with relevant information who supposedly wants to testify to come in and do so. And, unfairly IMHO, it makes this look like a political act more than anything.

    I don't think that Ford's lawyers are doing her any favors here and in fact are hurting their cause.

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