Texas Cops Seize Anti-GOP Sign From Homeowner's Lawn
from the whole-lot-of-stupid-everywhere-you-look dept
Stupid unconstitutional stuff is happening in Texas. "Again?" I hear you ask, irritated but not surprised. "Yes," I repeat. "In Texas, and involving local politicians and law enforcement." "Again?" I hear you say (again) and the circle of commentary life continues uninterrupted.
A resident of Hamilton, Texas, posted a political sign in her front yard composed of a white label board remix of political cartoonist Ann Telnaes' remix of the GOP logo.
Here's the original:
Opinion | The Republican National Committee flip-flops and announces support for Roy Moore's campaign https://t.co/5bNaFuDk5c pic.twitter.com/JC0954e5rR
— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) December 5, 2017
And here's the sign that was, until recently, in homeowner Marion Stanford's yard:
As one does in this age of social media telegraphy, outraged parties brought this to the attention of a local politician with a sizable following -- Texas Ag Commissioner Sid Miller -- who dumped his own petrol on the partisan bonfire by posting it to Facebook and calling it an example of "Democrat sleaze." He also claimed the picture was supposed to be "Judge Kavanaugh's young daughter" -- a claim made without supporting evidence but with the amplification of 738,000 Facebook followers.
Shortly thereafter, Marion Stanford began receiving threats. Unfortunately, this is the predictable part of the backlash. Stanford also received a visit from local law enforcement, which was a bit less predictable. But they weren't there about the threats. They were there about the sign, as the Dallas Morning News reports.
Tuesday evening, she said, police came to her house and said they had received complaints.
“Police told me to remove the sign or they would take it and would arrest me,” Stanford said. “So I let them take the sign.”
This claim has been denied by the city, which issued this statement via the city manager.
The city manager of Hamilton, which is about 100 miles southwest of Fort Worth, denied that police mentioned arrest or forcibly took the sign.
“It’s political season, and a citizen here placed a yard sign that featured a political animal taking an inappropriate position with a young child,” Pete Kampfer said. “A police member visited the owner’s home, and the owner asked the officer to take the sign.”
This denial is more than a little weird. First off, even if officers did not mention arrest, they said something that caused her to hand over the sign to them. The police had no business being there in the first place, so their presence is completely inexplicable… or is at least something the city manager isn't willing to explain.
Second, the whole sentence starting with "it's political season" makes zero sense. "Political season" or no, the sign was protected expression the government had no business interfering with. The addition of "taking an inappropriate position with a young child" suggests the city -- and possibly the police -- are no smarter than the idiot commenters on Sid Miller's page who claim the picture is pretty much child porn. It isn't and only someone hoping to see someone punished by the government for protected speech would make this claim. That group apparently includes the city manager.
This is lawsuit bait. Even if the police did not threaten arrest, officers did visit a citizen to discuss protected expression -- protected expression that ended up being removed by police officers and taken to the station. Whatever the chain of events, it makes everyone involved at the government level look bad. There was no reason to visit, much less take the sign. Even if the homeowner offered to give it up, officers shouldn't have been there to ask the question, much less take her up on her offer.
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Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, gop, marion stanford, police, political signs, sid miller, texas
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Makes sense
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Re: Makes sense
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The only thing Kavaugh's hearing proved was that once again... partisan politics and party come's before law and order and due process.
But I am marking this down in my book the same as Trump. While I personally am not a fan of them, I sure does fill me with glee to see all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left.
I keep telling both parties that the more you allow your own corrupt and evil side to do this shit the more the other side is going to try to one up you on it next time.
I look forward to the next round of bullshit that will be arriving just as George Washington predicted in his farewell address.
Democrats and Republicans so deserve each other... the parties should get married just so they can go through a nasty divorce, wash, rinse, and repeat!
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He lied to congress and they are not going to do anything about it, color me not surprised.
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I keep seeing people making this accusation, but they are never able to back it up when asked how he lied.
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This really isn't difficult.
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But I do agree that I would suspect that his descriptions of "Boofing" and "Devils Triangle" for example to be lies, not sure how those would change meaning because those kinds of definitions are set by majority opinion of peoples understandings of them.
I did not read the whole list, but a lot of those look more like opinions about lies, they should have kept it more concise to the really obvious ones that are most likely to be lies.
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Inquiring minds want to know.
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For what it's worth...
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Confronted with a link and a comprehensive list, will Padpaw scream "fake news" and just ignore, or will he have a sense of honor and admit he was wrong?
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a list, I tell you.
Please believe my list.
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I for one suspect Kavanaugh intentionally lied, the problem is proving it though. That said, I get more of a kick out of seeing him make it to SCOTUS as people kick and scream.
They should have been way out in front with the Sexual Assault charges but they tried to use them in bad faith and it blew up in their face. If Kavanaugh is guilty and can be proven then the bullshit fucking antics of the Democrats HELPED get this guy a seat on the court rather than prevent it!
When you come to me in the hour of your peril I suspect you are up to foul play!
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I think it is more telling that the GOP chose that hill to die on as opposed to just picking someone else off the list provided to Trump. Lucky for them they didn't need to die to get the nomination. I mean really, why so desperate for him specifically? Was there no other good candidate that didn't have the potential baggage Brett might have had.
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Couldn’t Kavanaugh have recused himself from hearing the case so that it could be heard?
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Then you take a quarter...
And put it into the payphone to call up your buddy to come to your house because there is a drunk girl there. You each take a drink from one of the cups and then ...
shake hands, say good night, and return home because you are a good religious boy that would never do anything bad, oh and you are a virgin.
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Congress gets lied too all the time, and they do nothing about it most of the time and usually because it serves some end.
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I have seen congress critterz get their panties in a twist just at the implication that someone they do not like lied to them ... and then - they just ignore plain nd outrageous violations when it is their dude messin up.
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I thought Kavanaugh was being hysterical.
As John Oliver observed, "I hate to say it, but I’m starting to think that men might be too emotional for the supreme court."
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I don't agree with most of John Oliver's politics but he is hilarious and usually makes good points. Though I bet if he was a female the story would be different.
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A female what?
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I did not do well in english class and do not care.
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A deer
A female deer
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If Kavanaugh was a woman accused...
IF Kavanaugh was a female jurist appointed to the Supreme Court and had been accused by a man of sexually assaulting him when he was fifteen and she was seventeen, the whole dynamic of.the affair would have been different. I'm not sure there'd have been a hearing.
If she was accused by a woman, Kavanaugh might have been denied confirmation out of hand.
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Hi there, Mr. Incel! You may want to know that “female” is generally an adjective, not a noun, and using “female” as a stand-in for “woman” or “girl”—especially if you do not use “male” as a stand-in for “man” or “boy”—makes you sound creepy as fuck. This has been your helpful lesson of the day! 👋
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Kavanaugh's Convincing Display...
a) He was an underage drunk in high school. That's not necessarily a disqualifier; most of my high school friends drank undereage, and so did I.
b) He was lying about it in the face of the evidence of his yearbook. Renate alumnus? Beach week Ralph club???
I've talked to some others that think he was showing all the signs of being hung over, too...so I speculate that he still has an active drinking problem which will lead to an interruption of his time on the bench fairly soon.
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The American people did not choose to make Trump choose SCOTUS nominees, we voted for Hillary Clinton.
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And we are NOT a democracy so Hillary needed to win the Electoral College instead of the popular vote.
And yes, all of this IS the will of the American people. The government we have is the government we "collectively" ask for. You want to change that? go for it, it is a free country but you will fare much better if you first learn how it works vs running around with ignorant statements like that.
Obama wasted his load on Obamacare and it cost him. Then he managed to piss off enough people (along with Democrats abuse of Bernie) to make America swing in Trumps direction. And SCOTUS nominees was one of the issues during the election so ahem... yea... we did choose to make Trump the person nominating judges to SCOTUS.
Democrats could have likely beat Trump if they had any fucking sense but they don't, instead they ran a total loser cunt... Hillary!
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Idiot lefties get to blame every position a righty takes as Russian propaganda never realizing that such claims equally mislead you as well.
Everyone share ideas and concepts that the best and worst of humanity has had.
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How's the vodka this fall .. better than last year?
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pot, meet kettle...
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Barack Obama did not refuse to give Merrick Garland a single hearing; the Senate did. Neil Gorsuch did not jump in line ahead of Merrick Garland; the Senate made sure the seat was open for him after the 2016 election (and after the scary Black man was no longer POTUS). Donald Trump did not, as far as I know, order the GOP to withhold the Garland nomination for nearly a year just so Trump could fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the bench; the GOP did that to make sure they could eventually seat a pro-life conservative on SCOTUS.
The GOP stole a SCOTUS nomination from Barack Obama because he dared to nominate someone in the last year of his presidency—and, by Mitch McConnell’s own admission, because the Republicans held control of the Senate. If Mitch McConnell is willing to go on live TV and say the GOP held up the Garland nomination for the sake of partisan politics, what makes it so wrong to call what they did “stealing the Supreme Court”?
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They are huge hypocrites.
No one likes a hypocrite.
... or a liar
... or a pussy grabber
... or a rapist
... or a sexual predator
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What?
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And it sounds like the cops handled it well. My local cops would probably have done something similar - "If you leave that up, someone who has had a child molested will likely vandalize your house. Or file a lawsuit. Or force us to arrest you."
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And it sounds like the cops handled it well. My local cops would probably have done something similar - "If you leave that up, someone who has had a child molested will likely vandalize your house. Or file a lawsuit. Or force us to arrest you."
You understand that is the Exact Opposite of the job the police are supposed to perform, right?
They should be there to say, "We'll keep an eye on your house because some people are grumbling." Not, "Well it'd be a damn shame if your house gets vandalized."
That sign was not any sort of illegal graphical content - otherwise the police department would have said so clearly, instead they denied any sort of legal force.
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Not entirely correct according to history.
Keeping the peace is also a function of the police, which means you can totally be arrested for doing something totally legal but happens to still breach the peace. Or have you not been watching any news for the past several years?
You can be arrested for pretty much anything, including for your own protection, yes I agree that is a bullshit reason, but unfortunately that is also seen as a valid excuse for some police departments and judges.
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TD has several articles on things like this, there is even an article where a woman was raped and then put into jail for her own protection.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/jailed-rape-victim-who-inspired-jennys-la w-sues-local-hospital
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180227/20031839326/cop-hits-womans-car-94-m ph-killing-her-infant-police-arrest-woman-negligent-homicide.shtml
Seriously you can be arrested for "anything", its not a joke, opinion, or mystery. It is just a fact of tyranny and one that TD writes articles about too.
If you need proof for this stuff you are either so young you need to go back to class or something and finish your homework!
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uhhh....
Police can arrest you for a wide variety of bum charges. That does not mean they are correctly doing their job. Abuse of power is not the same as correct execrise of power.
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Sigh.
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The situation is called the "heckler's veto" - when someone's threatening immiment violence over the speech of another, the police's proper duty is to go after the instigators - NOT the speaker.
In this case, the police should have been shutting down the shitstains sending threats to her, not being their weapons and bullying her into silence.
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You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride.
Do not attempt to paint this as "Keeping The Peace" as that is obvious bullshit.
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She GAVE them the sign. They didn't seize it.
My suspicion is that the cops warned her of the trouble it'd cause *to her and her family* if she left it up.
Says right in the article that she told them to take it. Which kinda kills the headline of them "seizing" it.
Maybe YOU don't think it falls under child porn (Graphic depiction of a sexual act on a child). Maybe a court would agree. After costing the woman everything she owns in legal fees fighting it.
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Yes, the city manager (who wasn't there) said that. The owner of the sign says otherwise. What's your point?
Also in that article that you clearly read, it says that an actual law professor and other unnamed legal experts says that it's protected speech. I'll take their opinion over yours.
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"Maybe YOU don't think it falls under child porn (Graphic depiction of a sexual act on a child). Maybe a court would agree. After costing the woman everything she owns in legal fees fighting it."
He offered no opinion of his own.
"Also in that article that you clearly read, it says that an actual law professor and other unnamed legal experts says that it's protected speech. I'll take their opinion over yours."
I know right? There is no such thing as two professionals with the same credentials that "disagree" on anything. I mean... why do we even have courts anyways? This shit should be easy.
Do us a favor, go an post the same sign in you front yard and let us know how it all works out. I assure you we would all be very interested in the results.
After costing YOU the legal fees fighting it!
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BULLSHIT
The simplest way to deal with the sign was to merely remove it from the front lawn and optionally put it in the trash. Why would the home owner ask the police to take it?
The city's account is simply not credible. A much more likely explanation is that the police insisted on taking it so that the home owner would not put it back in place as soon as the police had left.
Occam's razor suggests that the police are lying.
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Re: What?
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Re: What?
Cite statute, please, bearing in mind that this cartoon was A) A cartoon, not an image of a real child, B) in no way explicit, and C) clearly protected political speech.
"Art depicting sexual acts with children" when defined broadly can include classics like Lolita, which to the best of my knowledge isn't banned anywhere in the US. Explicit pornography involving real children is banned. (And of course, having sex with a real child is illegal - supposedly. Unless the person having sex with real children is a Republican politician. But no, this sign is clearly what's wrong with America...)
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Lolicon, Nabakov's classic, etc.
Works that portray child sexuality, sex with children etc. etc. are currently in legal limbo. We have states in which it's legal so long as actual children weren't involved, and we have states in which it's illegal even if it's a bad stick figure drawing. In some states, whether or not your lolicon scene in your otherwise non-pornographic manga can be jailable or not depending on what county you live in, so it's good to know the local laws.
But things have been very weird. In the 70s when NAMBLA was still a thing. We hadn't yet had the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare (which started the great pedophile scare in the 80s). The Tiny Treasures cologne adverts were not even blinked at, and stories about teens getting it on were common airport-pulp reading.
Incidentally, all this stuff only matters regarding portrayals of sex with children. Many states actually endorse sex with children if it's licensed, id est, the partner marries the tyke first. We still have judge-endorsed child marriages in the US as young as 11-years-old, and yes they're expected to perform their bridal duties that young.
In the 1990s, we still had 9-year old brides. Can't speak for the aughts. But prior to that, child marriage was entirely legal (with consent of parents or a judge) and far from being a rare thing. Protection of children from early marriage is one of those ways America hasn't yet been made great.
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Re: Lolicon, Nabakov's classic, etc.
All this waffling about state and county is pretty meaningless when we know where this event took place. I'm still waiting for a relevant statute that declares non-obscene, clearly-political depictions of stick-figure girls being felt up by elephants illegal.
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Re: Re: What?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003
"'Art depicting sexual acts with children' when defined broadly can include classics like Lolita, which to the best of my knowledge isn't banned anywhere in the US."
It's been banned since 2003.
There was even a famous case when Christopher Handley was the first to be charged under the new law. Not only was his life screwed up, even with the acts of "sexualization of minors" charges dismissed, the law still remains uncontested in court (who'd fight it?).
No, the PROTECT Act ensures at any time, the government can pull out another ridiculous charge at any time.
So if you have a copy of "Lolita" lying about... you've been warned.
***
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PROTECT act...
I know since then the law's been challenged, but I can't say how successfully. Allan Moore's _Lost Girls,_ for instance, depicts child sexuality, but is not on the current challeged books list.
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Re: Re: Re: What?
From your own damned link:
The actual overview of the act:
Regarding the Miller Test:
So, once again: Cite statute, please, *bearing in mind that the portrayal is clearly not obscene, and is clearly protected political speech."
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Also, FYI, Lolita is not banned in the US. Please don't lie.
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Re: What?
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... does it ring a bit too close to home?
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Re: What?
Having a sign implying the republican party supports molesting children seems like it would be breaking at least a few laws.
Doesn't seem like a free speech issue when you are accusing someone of being a child predator.
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"Having a sign implying the republican party supports molesting children seems like it would be breaking at least a few laws."
But you don't name any, so we can assume you don't actually know.
"Doesn't seem like a free speech issue when you are accusing someone of being a child predator."
Who is this "someone" you speak of?
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Having a sign implying the republican party supports molesting children seems like it would be breaking at least a few laws.
It does not. It literally breaks no laws, because the First Amendment makes it clear that any law it would break would be unconstitutional. Please, please, please learn something about the First Amendment before making such dumb claims.
Doesn't seem like a free speech issue when you are accusing someone of being a child predator.
Uh. Seriously, you are flat out wrong. You should learn something about the First Amendment. This does not accuse someone of being a child predator, it is protected speech. You are wrong.
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Re: Re: What?
By that logic, all the Christians who say “all LGBT people are pedophiles” would be breaking a few laws—but I have yet to see any of those Christians arrested, tried, and convicted of a crime for doing that.
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Re: Re: What?
Depends on how you define law. Let us consider a few.
(1) Observation of science, e.g. ``law of matire''. Nope.
(2) Law of math, e.g. commutative law. Nope.
(3) Law of the U.S. Nope, not even plausible due to First Amendment.
(4) Law of Texas. Maybe, not licensed there, and Texas does some weird stuff. However, due to incorporation, Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697,707 (US 1931), any such weird stuff would be struck down. So, nope.
(5) Law of the imagination of Padpaw. Well, maybe, I suppose, but that is a rather weak and surprising sort of law.
Are you sure that you are not just full of something organic and odoriferous? Until that is answered, I doubt that we would benefit from exploring whether a political party that associates with Roy Moore can actually be defamed.
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s/matire/nature/
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Facts not in evidence
I hate grandstanding politicians.
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Re: Facts not in evidence
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Anti-police Techdirt: police should NEVER de-fuse a situation.
"protected expression" overlooks the sheer fact that enraging people isn't wise.
Peace officers -- under common law -- are supposed to find some way to stop imminent violence. It's too bad that even if the accusation leveled in your headline is true, though you soon back off it, but the obvious way is to remove the sign.
The First Amendment -- which foreigners don't even have written down anywhere -- still isn't absolute.
I advise you test your notions in the UK where you apparently live, if call that living: just wear the wrong color jersey into a pub where ardent fans of the local football club hang out. And DO NOT then call the police to protect you, but keep insisting in your right. Enjoy.
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Re: Anti-police Techdirt: police should NEVER de-fuse a situation.
This is essentially MLK Jr. and his issue with the white moderate. "Calm down and wait your turn". The system as it currently stands does not redress abuse or tyranny.
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Re: Anti-police Techdirt: police should NEVER de-fuse a situation.
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I have so many problems with this ridiculous post that I would like to carefully address all of them.
And? Pissing people off isn't a good idea, true. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to ever say anything ever.
Back up a moment. Let's take a look at the "imminent violence" claim that didn't exist until you came along. Were there armed thugs on the property ready to shed blood if the cops didn't immediately step in and take action? No? Because established law--in fact, it literally IS common law--makes it pretty clear that anything short of a situation like that is not grounds for police intervention. Or any level of government intervention. (foreshadowing)
The obvious way to...what? To prevent people being offended? To stop hypothetical violence that nobody has any reason to believe is imminent? Well, I've got news for you.
That middle part seems to be a total non-sequitur, but I'll agree with you on the rest of it. Yes, the First Amendment is still open to interpretation. We learn more about its reach with every major court decision. For example, this decision from last year, which affirms that Texas governor Greg Abbott did indeed violate the first amendment by removing a state-approved "nativity scene" parody. Note how it goes to great lengths to cite Matal v Tam, a supreme court decision that's barely a year old now. In fact, if it had been on the books just a little bit earlier, there would be no ambiguity about Abbott's personal liability in this situation (the court found he is liable regardless, but he's still appealing that decision because of course he is).
Anyway, that is a practical example of exactly what happens when the government steps in to try controlling "offensive" speech. Quite a bit different from the picture you seem to be painting.
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Re: Anti-police Techdirt: police should NEVER de-fuse a situation.
I do not accept the assertion that I should limit myself because a police officer might do the same for something similarly legal.
Back to this story, if cops had shown up, said that there were complaints and they were concerned for her safety, and would she mind doing something different with the sign, there wouldn't even BE a story. The fact that the police left with the sign in their possession doesn't support that scenario.
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Association Football Hooligans...
...will pound you to jelly for calling it soccer.
But this explains why I find most spectator sports a bit culty.
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Re:member last week when you promised to leave
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And yet, you keep coming back here every day.
Two things.
Please define “common law” as you understand it, so everyone is on the same page.
Again: The sign is protected speech. What makes the person who put it up responsible for the reactions of others? The reactionaries are the ones who cannot control their tempers long enough to just keep walking by; if the reactionary throws a punch at the speaker, the speaker should not be punished for getting hit in the face. Doing so is little-to-no better than blaming a female rape victim for her own rape by saying she dressed like she wanted sex.
Another two things.
What the flying orange-and-blue blur do “foreigners” have to do with any of this?
It is absolutely a person’s right to wear, say, a Jacksonville Jaguars jersey in the middle of a bar full of Carolina Panthers fans. If the Jaguars fan gets beaten up over their shirt, they should not be blamed for getting beaten up; it would be no better than blaming a woman for being raped because she was wearing a skimpy dress.
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Re: Anti-police Techdirt: police should NEVER de-fuse a situation.
"Peace officers -- under common law -- are supposed to find some way to stop imminent violence."
Please explain to the class why peace officers, presumably under your "common law", failed to immediately confiscate all the signs and torches being carried by those fine people protesting in Charlottesville. The outcome there was very predictable.
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I am not talking about Ford and kavanaugh. There are plenty of examples I saw in the media after Trump got elected where people claimed they were victims of racism. Where it turned out they made the whole thing up to try and make republicans looks bad. Every single one of them got charged with filing false police reports, that's why it made the news.
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"false police reports"
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Re: "false police reports"
Most charges of racism are well beyond over cooked. And sure classism exists... the problem is you are practicing it right now.
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Cite them. Shouod be easy if they're as pervasive as you claim. (Also, isn't Trump the one saying the media are enemies of America? If so, why would you see these stories in "the media"?)
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In addition, why do some people paint an entire stereotypical group based solely upon the actions of a few within said group?
Because it is expedient and the end justifies the means - they are assholes.
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Well the only one so far who'd falsely accused Roy Moore was that undercover operative from right-wing false news manufacturer Project Veritas.
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Not so fast
I agree with you that this picture is not CP, but that does not mean a judge will agree with you.
According the the "definition" of CP "depictions" even if they are cartoons is still no bueno and clearly leaves it "open to interpretation". Considering the landscape around "guilty until proven innocent" today I would not be willing to test your theory legally even though I agree with it.
The reactions during Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing is more than enough proof that things are coming off the hinges.
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Re: Not so fast
I think for some groups they have been holding a 2 year long temper tantrum at this point over Trump being president.
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Re: Re: Not so fast
It just goes to my party before everything else accusation.
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Re: Re: Re: Not so fast
Wow - so let us not investigate Kav because Bill ... something something.
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Re: Re: Not so fast
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You think Kav will vote to lock up political opponents?
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Re: Not so fast -- blurred lines
But it is an excellent illustration of both a slippery slope and how dirty-minded we all are.
An elephant is juxtaposed next to a nonspecific painting female child saying "help!". It is clearly the satiric bite that bothers us, neither piece of the image is in any way questionable. Pretty obviously, no harm to children is involved -- unless it is the very indirect harm of conveying that this kind of thing is actually acceptable with real people.
Pretty obviously, one can make the image more and more realistic in any of a number of ways without actually harming any real children.
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Re: Re: Not so fast -- blurred lines
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We have appellate courts and the Supreme Court, as well as decades of case law on the matter, to help make sure one judge’s personal opinion on a political sign does not override a person’s First Amendment rights. Any judge who rules that sign to be “unprotected speech” is practically asking to have their verdict appealed and overturned in short order.
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Dammit, Mike, can you make the Sad But True voting button already?
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Everything is bigger in Texas...
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Re: Everything is bigger in Texas...
It's almost like Texas fucks it all up and the rest of you follow suit!
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Porn
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think of the children.
The little girl is trying to get help because the elephant is lost. Poor poor elephant, he is just sad, scared, and lonely. But only an armless girl has the compassion to help the little elephant.
May we all put similar signs in our yards to remind us of our duty to help lost elephants. I know I want to.
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What a mess
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Old usenet newsgroups
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.Groping.Old.Pedophiles
GOP 's been dicking around for decades. Sad.
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Sue all parties involved.
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Nevertheless, it was very nice of the cops to offer a free PSRS (Political Sign Removal Service).
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Party loyalty comes first
But, nope, this is America in 2018, where party politics rule and rights are trampled to protect the party.
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I'm all for a rapist being thrown into jail. But I could list a number of well-known cases where someone or a group of people were accused of RAPE, and it ended up being a LIE!!!
If she was raped and we have ZERO facts now that shows that to be true, she should have called the police, then be taken to the hospital where evidence could have then been gathered. Not wait 30+ years later. This guy has also been through like 6 past FBI background checks over the years being a Federal Judge. Yet all that has been clean every time.
This woman doesn't know what year it happened. Where it happened. When it happened. All the people she names were there have denied it happening or that he was ever there.
This leftest don't care about her or the rape IF it happened. They only care about Trump not getting his pick. Because they hate Trump and anything he does and have non-stop been trying to stop anything and everything he does.
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That is a standard for a court of law. I can think Kavanaugh is as guilty as Bill Cosby, but my opinion means nothing in terms of what can be proven in a court of law.
Yes, false accusations hurt the credibility of real rape survivors with real accusations. The point of movements such as #MeToo, then, is to ensure that the real survivors can make their accusations without being brushed aside or ignored. The police should investigate all such accusations for as much evidence that either proves or disproves the story. “Trust but verify” is what is being called for, not “believe all women no matter what” (nor “never believe any other women because one woman lied”).
She probably “should” have done a lot of things…but I cannot imagine how many of them would have made her a perfect, unassailable, wholly credible victim to you. This is largely what your opinion boils down to: “Because she is not the perfect victim—for whatever reason(s)—she is at least a liar.”
The FBI cannot generally find what they do not know to look for, and neither Kavanaugh nor his associates apparently let on that Dr. Ford might ever have been a “problem” for him at any point. If only Kavanaugh, Ford, and that friend of Kavanaugh’s knew about the (alleged) assault, how could the FBI have ever learned about it by interviewing Kavanaugh, who had every reason to lie to/mislead the FBI about it?
And yet, she directly answered every question asked of her by the Senate to the best of her recollection, whereas Kavanaugh dodged and weaved on similar questions. Whether she can remember every exact detail some 40 years later does not make her story less credible; if anything, the fact that she willingly went before the Senate and answered all their questions says a lot about her credibility. A liar tends to avoid the possibility of being caught lying.
Do I believe she was assaulted? Absolutely; she has nothing to gain by lying about that. Do I believe Kavanaugh was the one who assaulted her? I believe it is possible—and even likely. Do I think Kavanaugh should be convicted of a crime based on everything we know and everything that can be proven? No. Do I think he deserves his spot on the Supreme Court? Hell no—but not for the sole reason of my thinking he likely assaulted Dr. Ford.
[citation needed]
We can care about both. If Kavanaugh did assault Dr. Ford, he should not be a judge. If he did not assault her, he still should not be a judge based on the displays of anger and partisanship he put on display in his final hearing prior to his confirmation.
Hey, the GOP did it with Obama. How long did Mitch McConnell hold up the Merrick Garland nomination, again?
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