Kavanaugh: The aggressor or the victim?

The legal system works under the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty,

Three weeks ago Henry Eshbaugh wrote an article titled “Stuck in my Kava-craw” about US supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In the rather polemical piece he called Kavanaugh “non-human”, “a nympho who raped people” and a “perv”. Henry claimed that there were multiple credible and corroborating witnesses against the US Supreme Court nominee.

I want to get the facts straight: On July 9, US president Trump nominated Judge Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. Kavanaugh had served the previous 12 years on the 2nd most important US court, was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and had otherwise flawless academic credentials and a brilliant CV.

He had passed 6 FBI background checks previously and answered a total of 1297 questions in the Supreme Court hearings. On July 30, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and registered Democrat, wrote a letter to Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, claiming that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her in the 1980s when both were high schoolers in Maryland. She asked to have the issue treated confidentially and remain anonymous. The case remained secret until 13 September when her letter got leaked to the media (by Feinstein?) and several outlets like Washington Post, New York Times and The New Yorker ran stories on her. Since then two other witnesses, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick came forward with allegations against Kavanaugh who vehemently denied all accusations. In the wake of the #metoo-movement, a media spectacle started. Both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh made statements in front of the US Senate Judicial Committee, repeating their initial statements. Amidst the controversy, the senators decided to open a FBI investigation into the matter and find corroborating witnesses. After a thorough and deep investigation, the FBI produced a several hundred page long report that found: nothing! No corroborating witnesses, no evidence, if all Kavanaugh’s credibility was strengthened and the credibility of the three accusers severely damaged.

Dr. Ford had named 3 witnesses of the alleged party where supposedly Kavanaugh tried to rape her: Mark Judge (he denied that the party had ever happened), PJ Smyth (also denied this party ever happened) and her best friend from high school, Leyland Keyser. Keyser responded under oath she did not even know Kavanaugh and had never been at a party with him. Dr. Ford could not remember any details of the party: Where was the house? Which year did it happen? Who brought her to the house? Who brought her home? Whose house was it? Did she confide in anyone? Nothing. Only thing she remembered: it was Kavanaugh and she had one beer.

The second accuser, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh was the leader of a gang rape ring and named 4 witnesses: 2 of them did not respond to interview requests, one was already deceased and one plainly denied knowledge of any such ring or incidents.

Similarly, the FBI could not find any corroborating witnesses from an incident at Yale University that Deborah Ramirez had described. The interviewees that the FBI asked, denied any knowledge of any incident involving Kavanaugh and Ramirez. Requests by FBI officials to give more evidence, were ignored by Ramirez’s lawyers.

All accusations against Kavanaugh came down crashing like a house of cards. On October 6, Judge Kavanaugh was confirmed with a senate vote of 50-48 to the US Supreme Court amidst hostile and violent protests of #metoo-activists. Meanwhile Dr. Ford has backed down her claims and does not want Judge Kavanaugh to be impeached should the Democrats win the US House elections. She has now walked away with 700 000 USD from the GoFundMe-website. It is unlikely she will be prosecuted for her uncorroborated accusations.

The justice system is based on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” (Latin maxim: ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat; the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on the one who denies). I would like to ask everyone to adhere to that principle and give Brett Kavanaugh, a man of high character and academic credentials, whose name and reputation were wrongfully demolished on the altar of vile, heinous, unsubstantiated und uncorroborated accusations and whose wife and daughters got death and rape threats, what he deserves: respect and an apology.

-Theodor Videnberg

It’s a job interview, not a criminal case. You don’t have to prove guilt. Also, did I mention he sucks ass?

Three weeks ago, I wrote an article titled “Stuck in my Kava-craw” about how badly this CHUD sucks at his job. And yeah, I hit the notes on his multiple accusers pointing to sexual misconduct in multiple cases over many years. This isn’t a criminal case. He’s not going to go to jail. This isn’t a matter for the fucking justice system. He’s just not going to get the job. Or, he wouldn’t, if the government wasn’t full of spineless partisan hacks acting in bad faith and trying to cover their own ass with a SCOTUS appointment. There’s clearly a much lower standard for disqualification here than my comment compatriot would lead you to believe, and the whole complaint is essentially that the government is currently made up of unprincipled dipshits.

Furthermore, the FBI probe he points to was limited in scope to the point where corroborating witnesses were barred from testifying by the executive that nominated him. Folks from the FBI in senate testimony essentially noted that this probe was a farce, politically motivated to the core, and essentially useless insofar as “proving guilt” goes.This was obvious to any spectator not marinading in Breitbart.

But hey, if you wanna regurgitate alt-right talking points you licked off the grass: we don’t even need to talk about these allegations. There are fairly trivial points against him.

How about the fact that Kavanaugh was the only guy on the Federalist Society shortlist who believes that 1. there shouldn’t be federal probes into misconduct by sitting presidents (convenient for Agent Orange), and 2. there shouldn’t be double-jeopardy statewise (in other words, the SDNY probe into Trump’s shitty finances is barred too). If he gets his nomination he’ll have a free judge in the pocket. Real nice, guys. I wonder why Trump, a president who’s facing a state and federal probe into his shady dealings, and a guy with authoritarian leanings, would want to stack the court in his favor?

Doesn’t it seem strange that this is his unique selling point over anyone else on the shortlist, and it would’ve been cake to retract his nomination and vomit up some other nitwit, but the Republicans decided to fight a pitched battle to get him appointed?

But we don’t even need to go there. How about the fact that Kavanaugh was a part of the Bush white house - a dude who wrote legal briefs defending torture? Don’t tell me a guy like that deserves a place on the Supreme Court - they’re supposed to have something of a moral compass. Funny how that was sealed and never a matter of discussion for the senate.

How about the fact that if you really wanted to repeal Roe v. Wade, you could just appoint Allison Eid? Just play the idpol game, you nitwits. Watch the libs squirm - this is the American “left” we’re talking about, and privileged as they are, they seem incapable of talking about economic injustice in any fucking form. Y’ever wonder why Hillary lost?

We don’t even need to go there. How about the matter of judicial temperment? “I’ve never blacked out, senator. Have you?” Fucking please. I get to spout shit because this is the Felix comment section, and being entertaining is therefore something of my job. Does this seem like temperment worthy of the higest court in a nation of 300 million people, a lifetime appointment? He obviously doesn’t have a suitable temperment. Hell, it’s kind of ironic that this portion of the testimony was about his drinking, because it seemed to me (a student, and thereby one who drinks) like he knocked some scotch back over lunch. How do you make these comments sober?

Hell, how about the fact that he perjured himself multiple times during his testimony? There are supposedly criminal consequences to this. What do you think they wrote up Bill Clinton for? He should have been censured by the senate and summarily dismissed, but unfortunately, we live in Hell.

What about the shady way in which these proceedigns started? Why did Anthony Kennedy resign? Something smells; he hired clerks for next term already, so this was clearly a spur-of-the-moment decision. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that his son was at Deutsche Bank (recently fined a historic sum for laundering Russian money), in charge of the real estate division, during the Great Recession. Trump was at the time well-known to be a bad businessman; he was on the verge of sinking, and he was saved by - guess who? There’s a funny clip where Trump’s just finished a State of the Union address -- he shakes Anthony Kennedy’s hand and mostly talks about how great his son is. Does something smell funny to you?

Or what about the obscene debts developed from “buying season tickets to baseball games” that definitely weren’t gambling debts? Does it seem strange to you that these were paid off by a dark-money group (like the one that paid Collins six figures for her vote up). Where was the pointed line of questioning?

I know Latin too, you know -- to close, I’ll provide my own; thank Henry Beard for the translation. Te oportet futuere tete. Tu tibi futuendus es. Velim te futuas. Te rogo ut futuas te ipsum. Cheers, bud.

-Henry Eshbaugh