E. Jean Carroll awarded more defamation money
It was a foregone conclusion that the NY court would once again rule that Trump defamed E. Jean Carroll, award her money for it, and that he would plan to appeal:
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton who oversaw the trial, had already ruled Trump defamed Carroll. The jury merely considered the issue of damages.
The former president claimed — and still does — that Carroll was lying and made up the accusation to sell her book. He told The Hill in a 2019 interview that Carroll was “not my type.”
At a CNN town hall event last May, Trump called Carroll a “whack job” and insisted he did not know her.
I don’t think lawsuits like this one should be actionable, whether they be against Trump or anyone else. It should not be legally actionable defamation to say your accuser is lying about you and that you’re not sexually attracted to her. Nor was Trump ever found criminally liable for raping her, because the statute of limitations had run out by the time she made her accusations. I doubt her rape case would have held up in a criminal court anyway – unless it was a court composed of jurors or a judge who hated the defendant.
I don’t know when this sort of lawsuit became a thing. I don’t recall it from my law school days. I’m having trouble finding articles that describe the history of the legal doctrine that allows it; this one is about all I could locate, although it’s not as informative as I’d like. The gist of it is that such actions rest at least somewhat on a 1990 case known as Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Company, which involved these facts:
Michael Milkovich, Maple Heights High School’s wrestling coach, testified at a hearing concerning a physical altercation at a recent wrestling meet. After the hearing, Theodore Diadiun published an article in the local newspaper saying that anyone at the wrestling meet “knows in their heart” that Milkovich lied at the hearing. Milkovich sued Diadiun and the paper for defamation, alleging that the article accused him of perjury, damaged his occupation, and constituted libel.
However, the fact situation is quite different there from Trump’s. IMHO, a person who feels he’s been unjustly accused of rape or any other crime should be allowed to say so and to call his accuser a liar without incurring liability.
Amen.
Yes. This whole thing is preposterous. Combined with the bogus “fraud” case, it’s clear that there is no justice in the state of New York.
It was a political ruling, soon to be a common Lawfare way.
The ruling is proposterous. It is worth pointing out, however, that this trial would have never taken place if Trump had exercised full control over his mouth after the first trial.
Trump has two problems: (i) he can’t shut up and (ii) he has trouble hiring competent lawyers, because he is a bad client (he won’t take his counsel’s advice, and he doesn’t pay his bills). Those things cost him money. It’s a choice.
Yes, it’s absurd. And nearly everyone who wasn’t affected by TDS would agree.
I’m suddenly reminded of the Clinton impeachment over Perjury, when we were informed that Bill’s lies on the stand regarding his relationship with Monica were alright because he was hiding an affair that wasn’t directly part of the case he was being questioned over.
Now Trump says, “A court may have found against me, but I still say I didn’t do it,” and he’s forced to defend himself against slander charges. Pure nonsense.
Also – the jury was ordered to ignore Trump’s closing statement because Trump listed the dignity of the President as one of the reasons why he denied Carol’s claims even after her first court win. The judge claimed that was political speech (which the judge had earlier disallowed).
Question for Concerned Conservative:
What parts of the Bill of Rights are allowed to apply to The Great Orange Whale?
Concerned Conservative logic; the ruling was preposterous, but he is The Great Orange Whale. Sort of like she deserved to be raped because of the way she dressed (or was a Israeli Jew on October 7, 2023)?
@Baxuite
Of all the crap you have written about Orange Man Bad, this is probably the most galling on a personal level, Bauxite.
Firstly: it is probably untrue. The first lawsuit happened, as did the one against Kavanaugh.
Secondly: That’s Not How You Successfully Beat Accusations Of The Kind Carroll Is Making. I would know, I have helped friends deal with it and even been the target of one case myself, where I was accused of being a pedophilia by a former acquaintance of mine. One who had earlier admitted that couldn’t be true but who decided to spread it wide as part of a separate beef.
This lasted for about a year during which I was under significant stress due to finances and the whispering campaign that spread out, and I was lucky because it was never tied to my real life name directly, merely a common alias. I also had the evidence to back it up and could prove it to anybody who bothered reading. But that involved getting people to present the evidence to and also dealing with how I lacked (and frankly still lack) the finances for a protracted legal fight, especially given what it would get me.
During this time I was “encouraged” or “advised” to simply give up the fight, take on a new alias, or leave. But I refused and fought on precisely because I knew a few things.
Firstly: I had seen how this affected other people, many of whom were guilty but others who were not. They disappear, the rumors will be considered true regardless of the merit. And god forbid they get identified again. Many deserved that fate (indeed I helped bring down one), but did all of them? I doubt it.
Secondly: it would isolate me from much of the evidence and many of my friends, as well as a job opportunity.
It finally ended for the most part after a year, where I had made enough dents in the bastard’s reputation even he noticed and could not ignore, and so he came to the table. At which point I explained to his dishonest Thick Brainlet that I could prove he lied, that anybody who bothered studying the evidence could tell he lied, and that if this continued I would eventually bring charges.
So he ultimately backed down and began squelching the rumor he started on pain of legal penalties and report.
Moral of the story?
In order to beat accusations like this (which are At Least as important as beating the actual charges or lawsuit) you need to be LOUD, proactive, and never let up on your accusers. Even if you do not outright accuse them of lying (which might be the case) you do not let up on that they are wrong, that they are not behaving properly, and that you can muster the evidence. Because silence (especially in this) is taken as an admission of guilt, no matter how unjustified or wrong that is.
(There’s a REASON jurors have to be specifically instructed that the right to remain silent and Pleading the Fifth are not admissions of guilt.)
Now to be sure I am not a public person and could have an easier hurdle in libel to climb than Trump. I also have it much easier to demonstrate the evidence, including Mens Rea. But the similar principles apply.
So the “control of his mouth” comment strikes me as a particularly repulsive example of “Skirt too Short”. I agree with Neo that those accused of sins like that should be able to call their accusers liars. I also emphasize that doing so is often an integral part of one’s strategy for fighting accusations like this, ESPECIALLY if they are false or facetious. And frankly it is probably better if you are rich to eat the charges if it means you can continue steadfastly defending your innocence and presenting your case.
@y81
Broadly agreed, though in this case I don’t think this is a problem. You need to keep vocalizing your rejection of the accusations when they are like this, and calling the accuser into question. Otherwise you give support to the idea that you did it.
Trump’s mouth has been a boon and a liability. His face checksble lies eroding his credibility are the latter. But this is a place where you do need to be loud and hard on slapping down the charges.
Trump may be a bad client for not taking advice, but he certainly has tried to pay his bills (as even the MSM has told me by reporting on his lurid financial outflows to them).
Also I submit that a big problem he has with retaining competent counsel is the habit of leftist law fare targeting, blackballing, and demonizing them for the crime of having Trump as a client in order to help make it harder for him to retain competent counsel. Which is certainly part of the problem but does not make the rest untrue.
As the great philosopher Homie da Clown once ejaculated: “Let I gets this straight.” For over two decades, Plaintiff Carroll said nothing publicly (or privately, apparently) about the alleged “rape.” After L’Affair Kavanaugh, in which C.B. Ford accused the nominated jurist of some kind of sexual affront, at some indefinite time and place, either not witnessed or witnessed by persons who denied any recollection of same, during a high school party some thirty years prior, but was lionized in the media as another Anita Hill, this Carroll woman published an article in New York Magazine that The Donald had fingered her in a public dressing room in a department store against her will, at which time the State of New York passed a law extending the statute of limitations on claims of sexual assault, whereupon she filed a suit and won millions of dollars in a trial conducted by rabidly anti-Trump partisans in a hostile venue. Trump denied the event and continued to profess his innocence, apparently in a way that Plaintiff Carroll felt slandered her. Whereupon she sued him again and has again prevailed in a trial conducted by the same judge in the same venue. If one were to write a novella using this fact pattern, it would 1) never be accepted for publication due to its farcically absurd content and 2) the author would be immediately shunned by polite society. Yet here we are. Calling Franz Kafka.
The ruling is proposterous. It is worth pointing out, however, that this trial would have never taken place if Trump had exercised full control over his mouth after the first trial.
=
You’re getting rather transparent.
You realize twelve people pulled off the street in Manhattan were willing participants in this travesty. You know who the enemies of justice are? Your family members and your neighbors.
When the civil war is over, create a retroactive law that allows Trump to go after the lying *****, her lawyers, the judge AND the jury.
I don’t see a thread about it, but if they wanted to settle the arguments about whether the execution was as described by Alabama prison vs. some of the witnesses, they could just test it where animals are going to be used for food anyway. If the animals go unconscious quickly, or not should be settle the argument.
Even if Trump prevails on appeal, they got their headline.
Fortunately, his support is not fading. Methinks more and more of our neighbors are seeing that the pockets in the robes of justice are packed with joeys these days.
Turtler, your advice closely aligns with the response of the late Rush Limbaugh to accusations of racism, which he wrote about in his first book IIRC.
Suffering in silence is so overrated … and it is how we have let our rights be trampled upon by Nice People™ who Know Better™ (NPKB), to the point that the term “unalienable right” has been reduced to a Yang holy word.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/333926b7efeac8d966980702ceb475a73e46bb1561829a0de5c739b71f49708f.jpg
Instead, if what the NPKB dictates doesn’t work for us, or even harms us, we’re just expected to “take one for the team” in the name of their “common good”.
See: expecting the rest of us to emulate the idealism of “sanctuary cities” that the idealists can’t even emulate.
he has trouble hiring competent lawyers, because he is a bad client (he won’t take his counsel’s advice, and he doesn’t pay his bills)
Trump might be an unruly client. IF he “doesn’t pay his bills” (something I hear bandied about occasionally, though generally by people who are out and proud in their hatred of Trump personally and Republicans generally – I haven’t looked into whether his former lawyers have complained that he doesn’t pay) then that would certainly affect a lawyer’s decision whether to represent him.
But surely the damage to your career for representing a man who is apparently the only person in the country not entitled to a competent defense is a larger factor. If Trump were, say, a Clinton, and also went against legal advice and was a slow or reluctant payer, would he have trouble finding counsel? Or would some good lawyers conclude that representing a former president (or a former would-be president) with that particular pedigree might be worth the risk of not getting paid, because of the publicity and knock-on work?
Before Trump entered politics, did he have trouble finding lawyers?
The American Bar Association has, I understand, made its collective feelings about Trump known. In the same way that law students at UWisc have meekly submitted to a required, Kafkaesque DEI struggle session in order to advance to 2L, wouldn’t a whole lot of – what are they called, white-shoe firms? decline to represent a man whom their professional association has deemed radioactive?
Steve –
You left out one item that, while not legally binding, is amusing and probably telling. Carroll’s absurd claim is quite literally the crime in an episode of Law and Order: SVU.
I’ll also add the Trump’s team apparently didn’t provide a defense in the first trial. So under civil court rules (Preponderance of Evidence), the jurors would be required to find against Trump unless there was an obvious reason to discount the plaintiff’s evidence.
I agree that one accused of sexual misconduct ought to be free to deny it without having to worry about being sued for “defaming” his accuser. I’m having difficulty reconciling this sort of suit with the legal concept of impeachment by silence, which holds that if a defendant (before being taken into custody and given Miranda rights) remains silent in a situation where one naturally would be expected to speak up, his silence can be used as evidence of guilt/consciousness of guilt. Consider the following scenario: A is at a party talking to people and B interrupts and tells A that C just claimed that A raped her. Does A hotly deny it, and later be sued for defamation, or does he say nothing and have his silence introduced in evidence as consciousness of guilt?
It gets worse. Now suppose A denies raping C, is later indicted for raping her, and is found not guilty. C can still sue A for defamation, because she is not a party to the criminal case (the government is the plaintiff) and because the civil case has a lower burden of proof. [A famous instance of this is the civil wrongful death case against OJ Simpson after he was found not guilty of murder in his criminal trial]. In other words, a “not guilty” simply means that the government hasn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt that A raped C, but C can attempt to show that more probably than not, A raped her, and thus defamed her when he denied her claim that he did so.
Judge Lewis Kaplan committed reversible error in both cases. What was really egregious was how he let the second case proceed when the first one wasn’t final. It is still on appeal. Res judicata doesn’t apply.
Kavanaugh forcefully maintained his innocence. He’s never been sued for defamation.
You don’t think that the left wouldn’t love to tie up a conservative Supreme Court justice with defamation claim over an alleged sexual assault? You don’t think they couldn’t get a DC or northern Virginia jury that would be itching to find against the white man who killed Roe?
Yet they do not. Why?
– Kavanaugh had a pristine record of personal behavior.
– Kavanaugh never explicity called Blasey-Ford a liar, let alone repeatedly.
– Kavanaugh did not, repeatedly, say that Blasey-Ford is “not my type.”
– After claiming that Blasey-Ford is “not his type,” Kavanaugh did not mistake her for his ex-wife when describing a photo of the two of them together
– Kavanaugh did not get up and walk out of the proceedings
– Kavanaugh hasn’t spoken publicly about Blasey-Ford or her allegations in the years since his confirmation hearing, not even once.
But, Democrats will do this to any Republican? Trump’s behavior is the only way to handle allegations like this?
Sure.
junior:
I saw plenty of stuff about Trump’s lawyers in his first trial, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say he didn’t provide a defense. In the second trial, the judge ruled that the fact situation was much the same and so the jury only had to decide about damages.
y81:
Trump’s difficulty with hiring competent lawyers has much to do with a campaign by the left to launch lawfare against his lawyers. I wrote about that in this post.
Neo,
As I understand it, liability was res judicata. But legally, that is dead wrong.
And I’ve never heard of one jury trial being tried so quickly after the first. The Judge pulled a docket stunt.
IMHO, a person who feels he’s been unjustly accused of rape or any other crime should be allowed to say so and to call his accuser a liar without incurring liability.
Agreed. A defendant ought to have the right to say publicly that the case against him is full of holes and the plantiff isn’t honest or reliable. Carroll appears to live in a fantasy world where truth and fiction aren’t clearly separated, and the decision seems to be saying that her fragile world shouldn’t be questioned or disturbed, but ought to be imposed on the rest of society.
Of course, it’s wiser to let the lawyers (the “mouthpieces” of gangster lore) do all the talking, but how much of an option was that here? Trump was going to be repeatedly asked about Carroll’s claims, and not coming up with responses would give her charges a free field and encourage speculation that there might be something to them. Trump should have solicited and followed legal advice as to what he should and shouldn’t say, but it’s likely that, given the judge and jury, there was no way he’d receive justice in this matter.
A question, though. Isn’t Carroll now a public figure? Wasn’t the “famous” author and sex columnist already a public figure? Doesn’t that place a higher legal burden of proof in her defamation case?
Again, not that the law really mattered in any of this …
Concerned Conservative:
Stop digging your hole, you are wholly an embarrassment.
And what might one make of this….?
“Hunter Biden partner Rob Walker confirms payments to Biden family, China deal began when Joe was VP;
“Walker was closely involved with Hunter Biden’s initial dealings with CEFC China Energy, the same company that sent millions to the Biden family.”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/rob-walker-detailed-payments-biden-family-china-deal-while-joe-was
Has the statue of limitations run out yet?
@Bauxite
As should Trump. That is why Carroll got this kangaroo court to act as it did. As I would advise everybody else who is innocent to do (and I would note it would also be useful for many non-innocent people. For instance, decades of conspiracy theory claptrap was probably caused because Lee Harvey Oswald did what almost no other Presidential Assassin did and simply denied denied denied in the face of evidence, unwittingly “helped” by Ruby’s murder of him preventing more detailed cross-examination).
In large part because charges that would have been tabled against him in court were instead heard in Congress as part of that, and the accusers were heavily discredited at a time when Congress was balanced so that the Left could not simply railroad him. Which was not the case regarding Trump in this.
And had the Congressional hearing against either Kavanaugh or Thomas gone “better” for them, they absolutely would have. But they didn’t. In part due to them continuing the policy I and the others advocate of continuously, FORCEFULLY, and PUBLICLY maintaining one’s innocence and denouncing the accuser serving as a deterrent effect, and the catastrophic way the Congressional hearings fell apart for the left.
These are not 1-1 comparisons (because such things RARELY are) but they DO touch on the same basic principles of law, reason, and how you manage PR.
See above.
It’s downright embarrassing when you try to avoid the point. Moreso when you ignore relevant evidence such as that Virginia remains Purple for the most part, as opposed to New York, and absolutely nothing you have said would give people reason to NOT vigorously and publicly advocate their innocence up to the point of denouncing their accuser as unreliable/lying/deluded/dishonest.
Especially since doing so is an important part of battlefield preparation in court. There’s a REASON why it is important to establish your story early, to the point where a bunch of self-defense lawyers are bending the cardinal rule of “Never Talk To LEOs without your lawyer” to advocate that upon being confronted by the Law in a self-defense case, you first tell them that You Acted In Self Defense and Then ask to see your lawyer and clam up until then Precisely SO that the Prosecution cannot claim you came up with the self-defense claim later, upon consultation with your lawyer or ruminition.
(Obviously I am not qualified to give actionable legal advice and I highly suggest people consider carefully and consult with your legal representation about this hypothetical beforehand, but the fact that some people who are qualified to do this advise such speaks volumes.)
This is for a couple reasons. For one, doing so helps add in additional disincentives for people trying to do this. It shows you will not go down without a fight and thus they will have to expect to jump hurdles in order to get their win, and thus makes it less likely they pursue this case in the first place.
Secondly, it lets you point to a consistent, unbroken strand of forcibly defending your innocence and undermining the credibility of those trying to go after you.
Thirdly, if your accuser and their legal eagles DO try to go after you, it gives you a better starting ground to work from.
None of these general principles have an “Unless Trump” clause.
See above.
Like I said, it’s comic and sad how stupid and dishonest you make yourself when you are trying to AVOID THE RELEVANT POINT.
I do not deny any of these things, and in the case of the Third and Fourth I fully concede those were screwups on Trump’s part.
And absolutely fucking none of them change, alter, modify, or lessen the First Principles I pointed out about the importance of forcibly asserting your innocence in public and tearing down the credibility of your accuser.
Indeed, to be blunt Trump’s flaws and missteps make that MORE IMPORTANT for him vis a vis Kavanaugh (or Thomas for that matter), not less, precisely BECAUSE silence makes one look guilty even if it shouldn’t and it is a hell of a lot easier to believe Trump is guilty of this than Kavanaugh.
You cannot competently or honestly argue this point. As Steve and Robert Cosgrove pointed out, you do not have the law on your side. You do not have the facts on your side. You do not have reason on your side. You do not have first legal principles on your side.
So you are simply pounding the table to argue that “it’s different with Trump.”
And the irony is that you’re not entirely wrong, it IS different with Trump, but not in ways that change the relevance of these points.
Which is also why principles of action are Principles, not specific contingencies.
If they are motivated, have the opportunity, and think they can get away with it.
No, it is not. But the importance of forcibly asserting one’s innocence in public and ripping down the credibility of one’s accuser REMAIN.
Which is what you were insinuating not so subtly was the problem with this. Which is classic “You deserve this because your skirt is too short” victim blaming horseshit that in addition to being a moral abomination and legally sketchy at the best of times ignores the first principles I pointed out.
Which, I note, you have not even bothered to contest. At most you implicitly argued about the way to implement them. Which defacto concedes the points to me.
But I suppose you will huff and puff about this being an “unedited book” instead because you were called out for defending a verdict you agree was – and I quote – “proposterous” (SIC) – because the Great Orange Whale was on the receiving end and you decided to open by attacking Trump on probably the least objectionable and most wise of his responses to this: not being silent and agreeing to be the victim of Carroll.
(Obviously that’s not to say he hasn’t screwed up or worse in the course of this case, let alone others. He has.
But you shouldn’t have to be a perfect little legal and social ballerina who makes no mistakes or sins in order to avoid going on the hock for something as vile and ill-founded as this, and the “It shouldn’t but that’s the way it is” does little but point out the problems with this system and acquiescing to evil.
It also underlines why in spite of his myriad flaws so many people like or at least are prepared to tolerate Trump. For much the same reason Kavanaugh’s esteem grew among much of the right over the course of the trial. “He Fights.”
And why so many people are looking forward to the appeal for this corrupt, vile verdict.)
Regarding Kavanaugh – I believe he has immunity from lawsuits concerning his Congressional testimony. See this.
But, Democrats will do this to any Republican?
==
They did this to Brett Kavanaugh.
==
Their chosen agent was a woman who, even with the assistance of their paid and volunteer oppo research crew, could not provide evidence that she had ever met the two men she accused. They made use of a woman whose nexus of associations was such that it could not be demonstrated that it was even probable that she had crossed paths with the two men she accused. (There were, in 1982, about 50,000 young people in Montgomery County, Maryland born between the beginning of 1962 and the end of 1968. She didn’t attend school with either one or with Mark Judge’s sister; neither did her brother attend school with either one. She lived six miles from the Judge household, eight miles from the Kavanaugh household. Her father and Kavanaugh’s mother were both lawyers, but they worked in completely different segments of the greater Washington bar). She tapped a gal pal to back her up who undermined her claims completely. She made reference to another friend of BK she insisted she dated who gave an affidavit to the FBI so uninformative no one bothered to leak it.
==
Their 2d choice was a woman who actually had been acquainted with Kavanaugh at a later date. Her claim was that after reflection and six days of prodding, she remembered having a look at his penis when she was sh!tfaced drunk.
==
Their 3d choice was another woman living in Mongomery County, Maryland about 20 miles from the Kavanaugh household, who maintained that at age 20 and enrolled in community college, she took to hanging out with two high school students of 17 and was a witness to their gang rape hobby (which she never thought to mention to the local police at the time).
==
Another of their information ops was to put on television and man in San Francisco who had shared a dormitory suite with BK from August of 1983 to January of 1984. Most of us are not pathological enough to bear a 35 year long grudge over abrasions with our roommate.
Turtler – You’re ridiculous. Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court today (and wasn’t sued for defamation) because he didn’t have a history of womanizing and he excercised a basic adult-level of self-discipline to avoid calling Blasey Ford a liar and avoid addressing the matter publicly after the hearing. And Kavanaugh strongly defended himself and asserted his innocence. It can be done without getting yourself sued for defamation. I’m sorry, the first principle at issue here is, when an enemy is trying to destroy you, don’t help them. Trump does. Repeatedly. That doesn’t make me dishonest. If you think it does, you’re delusional.
And Art Deco – Democrats took their best shot at Kavanaugh and it didn’t stick. They also took their second best shot. (I believe Ronin Farrow had the story about the alleged undergrad party.) It didn’t stick either. Yet these things stick to Trump.
A lot of folks on the right seem to think that independents are going to be as outraged about the lawfare against Trump as we are. I’m sorry to tell you that they’re not. After eight years, people outside of the right’s bubble believe that Trump will deserve whatever he gets.
I’m sorry, Nikki Haley has it exactly right. With all of the problems that we have in the country and the failures of the Biden administration, we’re talking about E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump’s boorishness. We’re going to spend most of the spring in summer talking about January 6th. That is music to Joe Biden’s ears. Biden’s not going to have to spend nearly as much time defending his record because we’re set to have a general election campaign that is all about Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll, and January 6th.
“Yet these things stick to Trump.”
Um, OK. Now let’s do Russiagate.
Why do you think Russiagate DID stick?
Concerned Conservative’s squeeze?
LOL
Events, sonny, events.
Concerned Conservative may spend the next nine months frothing about The Great Orange Whale, but what else is new?
Bauxite:
Did you read my comment yesterday at 4:21 PM? Please read.
You are correct – I believe – that Kavanaugh didn’t call his accuser a liar outside of the hearings. But I’m not at all sure he never denied the accusations in other utterances or never said anything for which he could have been sued. I can tell you for certain, however, that with the Democrats I know, the accusations against him “stuck.” Every time his name ever came up with most of my female acquaintances, they were certain he was a rapist and a reprehensible creature.
Kavanaugh was confirmed for only one reason: Joe Manchin voted to confirm him as did the Republicans (except for Murkowski, who abstained). Take a look. All the other Democrats voted “Nay.” The Democrats certainly seemed to think the accusations against Kavanaugh “stuck.” Principle, or Kavanaugh’s history, or the vagueness of his accuser’s memory, or his upright life, had nothing to do it. It’s politics. And if Manchin hadn’t been representing West Virginia, I doubt HE would have voted in Kavanaugh’s favor either.
no but this accusation added up to the pile of insinuations that had a psycho killer show up at his residence, does that tip his perspective on certain cases like voting rights, as pointed out in the open thread, there is a conflict between the judge and the plaintiff’s atty quelle surprise,
so if some accuses Trump of murder, but gives no date, is that ok, tin man, its funny one of the ones peddling this garbage story, is someone who really should not speak of rope, where a hanging has occurred, joe scarborough,
of course the access hollywood tape, the reaction was indifference at the time, from billy bush, I think a certain name was volunteered in the course of the interview,
the sign of how far the tiffany network has fallen (maybe it was always like
anchorman or network, but they never gave up the ghost) of course tara reade can contemporaneous evidence, so did juanita broaderick, but per whoopi, thats not rape rape, as she excused polanski assault on samantha geimer, maybe they should have reinstated the hayes code after that episode,
@Bauxite
Quit while you are behind.
Literally every other person in this thread that bothered to address your disgusting, illogical little comment recognized it for what it was. Now even Neo has had to wade in on you re: Kavanaugh. Which ironically further cuts the legs out from under your claims that merely being a good enough boy and acting like it will be enough to avoid the furies.
You have found yourself in a hole of your own making. It is time to stop digging.
No, YOU are. Fuck off and rent a clue. You are acting like a demented old man with a vendetta because TDS has eroded what awareness you had.
You want to come after me and specifically try to personalize this to me because I’m the one going into the most depth calling you out for your failures, acquiescence to evil injustice, and lack of rationality. But that doesn’t WORK here because literally everyone else to address you in this thread has pointed the failure out too. And you don’t get to claim we are all Trump Cultists (especially not Neo).
Nice fairy tale you have there, shame it doesn’t add up. Neo addressed this point far better than I can, and I will simply reiterate her points.
Indeed, I will copy and paste some of them PRECISELY SO YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY EXCUSE AT ALL FOR NOT READING AND ASBORBING THEM.
This is the fruits, according to your grandiose and self-serving theory, of exercising a basic level of adult self-discipline and not having a history of womanizing. NOR do you have any right to ignore that this was unique to Kavanaugh, given what happened to Thomas far earlier.
Being on the Supreme Court by such a narrow margin. Making his defense in a public environment where he enjoyed absolute privilege under the law for what he said and had a broadly supportive Congressional base. And still having his name be mud by many on the Left as a molester and rapist.
To those of us who do not have our heads so far up our asses as you do, this is unacceptable and unsustainable precisely because it has still devastated Kavanaugh’s life and nearly ended it on at least one place. But to Bauxite, it is apparently the due rewards of virtue just as this abortion of a verdict is the punishment for Trump’s vice.
Am I supposed to be impressed by this when testifying in a fucking Congressional Floor where everything you say is subject to absolute privilege and thus cannot get you sued for defamation amounts to Cakewake Easy Mode for not getting sued for defamation?
I hate to tell you this Bauxite, but most people don’t live on the Floors of Congress. Most people will never get called to present there. Basing one’s strategy for legal defense upon being able to air your objections to false accusations on the floors of Congress under the shield of Absolute Privilege IS A REALLY FUCKING BAD, UNWORKABLE STRATEGY for humanity at large.
And indeed, it is likely not going to be tenable for Kavanaugh’s reputation in the long run. Why do you think he has not been vocalizing his defense towards B-F and her ilk including accusations of lies or delusion and relying on people like us to do so? Do you think it is because he does not want to? Do you think it is not because his case would not benefit from it (In which case you are objectively wrong AGAIN for the reasons I have mentioned)?
Most likely it is because Justice Kavanaugh the boy scout with impeccable, near-impeachable history knows he would be inviting further retaliation by doing so, even if his silence means that the rot of the narrative that he is a rapist and liar continues to fester like poison, much like the “Supreme Court stole 2000 Election” one and might one day end him.
But sure Brah, let’s pretend this is still about Trump.
Don’t say you’re sorry if you don’t mean it, and I have no reason to believe you do here. Nor frankly do most people here.
This is weak deflection and you know it. Moreover, “Silence is Violence.” It’s taken as an admission of guilt and in this case is violence against one’s own self-respect, self-worth, and good name.
Moreover, there are different levels of “Helping” the enemy destroy you, not all of which are equal. Trump fucked up many times on this issue, including on Carroll specifically. I will not deny it. But none would be as crippling or egregious as NOT rebutting the accusations forcibly and publicly (EVEN WHEN Not protected by Congress’s privleged speech shield).
This is something you still don’t get.
Almost exclusively because you Don’t Want To Get It, because it would damper your ability to play Ahab to the Great Orange Whale.
Yes it does.
So does your reliance on deflection, ignoring contradictory evidence, and focusing in on me because you can’t handle addressing everyone else (including our host) poking holes in your posturing and claims with varying degrees of gentleness and bluntness.
>blockquote> If you think it does, you’re delusional.
Ah yes, the classic Bauxite gaslighting. “I am just a very rational, concerned conservative (who does not seem concerned about much) pointing out the truth in a way reasonable people can disagree with, and if you disagree with that you are delusional.”
Maybe you’d have more credibility on this if you didn’t act like the abusive ex-girlfriend of the blog who thinks that whatever they say and do can be justified if you say it in a pithy and seemingly civil fashion. The irony is that this also underlines how you would not be likely to survive this kind of attack, no matter how squeaky clean your personal and social lives have been.
You quite literally fucked up the reasons why Kavanuagh was not sued for defamation (because he couldn’t be), why Trump does not have the option of purely staying silent or conducting his defense as Kavanuagh did solely from Congress’s floor, and the relevant laws. But I’m the Delusional one?
Sure, let’s go with that.
Neo addressed this better than I can. They took their best shot at Kavanaugh and nearly destroyed him by blocking his appointment to the Court. If you think a world where a man’s fate and probably physical or legal survival hinges upon Manchin and Murkowski is a great endorsement of your strategy, YOU’RE being delusional AS WELL As manifestly dishonest.
Especially since as Neo and others pointed out, Kavanuagh’s reputation was tainted in a way he will never be able to fully get back and will remain dependent upon the protections of being a justice of the Supreme Court.
I hate to fucking tell you Bauxite, but that’s not going to work for everyone. Even among those with unimpeachable (at least by normal moral standards) conduct.
There’s not enough spots on the Supreme Court to fit everyone in and I don’t think Court Packing XXXXL version I sgoing to work.
Not for lack of trying, or even complete lack of success as Neo pointed out.
Let’s discuss why, Bauxite. Shall we?
The answer you WANT this to be is it sticks to Trump because of his personality and personal history and foibles, which you would like us to believe are uniquely bad. They’re not uniquely bad, though you do have a scintilla of a point there. Trump has screwed up, sinned massively, made himself a target for reasons other than politics, and is an easy pinata to beat on. I would ACTUALLY be delusional if I denied all of that.
But none of that should justify this. None of that DOES justify this. And a cursory comparison of Bill Clinton’s life to that of Trump and how much worse the former is compared to the latter speaks to that “Dude led a Bad Life and is getting Bad Consequences” doesn’t cut the causal mustard. As does, you know, the Kavanaugh and Thomas attempted railroadings.
Even more important is the left’s narrative control and ability to poison the well on a grand scale. Spreading innuendo (often comically unproven and unproveable innuendo and accusations) which can only be rebutted with great difficult and effort, and will often have the rebuttals downplayed or ignored by a willing media. I know you know this is an issue, because as pig stupid as you can be you’re not that daft and have spoken about the double standards in media.
But apparently I and everyone else are supposed to ignore this in the case of Bad Orange Man in this.
Ridiculous.
But you know another reason why it “sticks to Trump” Bauxite? Because of those who know this is cockamamie and unproven at best and probably defamatory bullshit more likely, but will not exert themselves to denounce it because they hate the person it is targeting. Which of course helps give the accusations the patina of objectivity or bipartisan support.
And also makes them much more potent to use against others because if one accusation seems justified, it makes others seem more plausible (This was pretty much what #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen relied on). And while Trump is almost uniquely “polarizing” and hated (and not for entirely unjust reasons) just about Everybody is hated by somebody.
This is where hanging together or hanging separately comes in. And the fact that the most you could say about this abomination was less than a sentence of denunciation about its rank injustice and that it was “proposterous” (SIC) before going on about how Trump had brought this on himself (which has a sliver of truth but is only a sliver) and how apparently he shouldn’t retaliate against Carroll by undermining her credibility lest he get sued for libel underlined it.
There’s a common misquoting of Burke that goes on about how all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. But I find the actual quote far more accurate and in this case appropos.
You acknowledge that this conduct is evil. Yet you are more prepared to pour salt on Trump and us under the assumption that It Can’t/Won’t Happen To Me, or to the people I Care About.
You are provably wrong. I pray we do not suffer the full consequences of that.
Aw look. Bauxite is doing another strawman of his so he can demean us as being caught in the Right Wing Bubble.
Why the fuck would I assume that the independents would be as outraged about the lawfare against Trump when you can BARELY pretend to be outraged about it yourself, Bauxite?!?!
We know the merits of this case far better than most, even if you do not want to discuss those accurately. We are far better able to critique behavior by Trump and Carroll than most people, and certainly more than the talking heads covering this will.
I’ve made it a point to try and educate those I can about the injustice, folly, and illogic of it. Both out of partisan preference but also out of moral disgust and pragmatism. Many others have, including Neo, precisely because we understand we are working uphill against an apathetic or indulgent public and an absolutely dishonest, slanderous news media.
You on the other hand are not. Indeed you keep falling back to the “Skirt to Short” victim blaming horseshit. Can you even level and acknowledge that Trump is the victim in this case?
How unintentionally telling. Especially once translated. But I think I have dealt with Bauxite long enough to be able too, given his love of demeaning us and others as being within the “right wing bubble” and their claims to have an almost unique understanding outside of it. (Nevermind the question of how much time they’ve spent trying to get those “outside the right wing bubble” to understand this or how they should find this stuff disgusting on its merits, even when targeting Bad Orange Man).
Makes so much sense, reading it like that, doesn’t it?
But that’s not a road that will end well for us. Including you.
You keep saying those words, but apparently don’t mean them. You’d rather spend paragraphs trying to explain why you don’t see the need to argue against this kind of lawfare to the Nonaligned or how Trump brought this on himself unlike the Good Man Kavanaugh (…who basically suffered the same but in slightly different background) than you do actually doing so.
I would have been more sympathetic to that years ago, before Haley apparently decided to shred her credibility even worse than Trump did with things like flipping with the wind and advocating giving the state more power over internet autonomy.
Moreover, if Haley’s argument is that we should not fight back against this, it is folly. ESPECIALLY since Trump can’t hope to retire to private life like you so badly wish it were within his character to do so when he is being harassed like this and the legal immunities and protections for speech tied to the office seem to offer the only Out, precisely because so many Supposedly Concerned Conservatives won’t lift a finger against this kind of lawfare and will barely even denounce it.
How the hell do you think that will work in the end?
Suddenly we’re all Supreme Court Justice Nominees and there’s not enough places on the Court (or in protected positions) or political clout to protect all of us.
No, we’re talking about the ostensibly private part of the left wing attack machine’s efforts to delegitimize and destroy its political opposition while retaining control of the media. Which in case you haven’t fucking realized, is a major reason why we have the problems in this country that we do and why the Biden regime has been able to make such grandiose failures.
This shouldn’t be hard to consider. Indeed, it’s not like this isn’t observable against people other than Trump (like Dinesh D’Souza) or outside the US (see: European “Hate Speech”/Blasphemy trials).
But acknowledging this means acknowledging you are in many ways in the same boat with Trump, and you REALLY don’t want to do that no matter how factually sound it is.
There are certainly worse things to talk about, given how comprehensively the government has lied about January 6th and mistreated American citizens under the color of the law. An I’m not just talking about the poor sods who were forced to recant their views in bodies that make the average Star Chamber look like a model of judicial restraint or who got locked up without charges for years.
It includes people like you.
Because the true nature of January 6th is so little talked about outside of the Right Wing Bubble (one of the relatively few times where that concept has much weight) and there’s little comprehensive push on how to change that. So the question is if the regime can keep it together and under wraps even as things like the truth of Hunter Biden’s Laptop and corruption start leaking long enough to limp over the finish line.
The obvious counter-play is to start talking about January 6th and others more effectively. I have a love-hate relationship with Tucker at the best of times but he has done invaluable, very useful work exploding many of the Jan 6th memes, and the Left has been forced into a Lie Ratchet walking back narrative after narrative about it under concentrated fire.
If I had to bet, I’d guess you have done either literally nothing or virtually nothing to even try and help that. So why not?
And why the fuck are you helping him do that, Bauxite?
Which is more likely to get him or his replacement elected? People like Neo and Tucker and I punching holes in his narrative? Or people like you giving the bare minimum of lip service before arguing we need to concede the ground to him and move on to a Better, More Unicorn Like Conservative whose shit does not stink, whose voice is like birdsong, and who has lived such an unimpeachable life that these strategies cannot be used against them?
Plot twist: They can and will be used against them if the merest of opportunity presents itself. And amplified by the left’s narrative control, they will “stick” no matter how untrue they are or comprehensively they are beaten.
You just don’t want to acknowledge that.
But god forbid I consider you intellectually dishonest or actually dishonest. Because if I do, I’m delusional.
Right.
And Art Deco – Democrats took their best shot at Kavanaugh and it didn’t stick.
==
You’re obtuse. What’s interesting about the Kavanaugh case is that they took a shot at him without any live ammunition. And they nearly succeeded. The electorate, btw, did not observably react at all to their shenanigans. I should note that I have yet to see a partisan Democrat in any venue admit what was glaringly obvious about Christine Blasey Ford: that there wasn’t the slightest reason to take her seriously. The reason is simple: there is no evidence she and Kavanaugh have ever met – in 1982, in 1985, or at any other time. Her account of her acquaintanceship with Mark Judge contained not one detail that did not appear in Judge’s memoir, published in 1997. That Trump is an admitted adulterer with episodically bad manners doesn’t matter. They’ll go after anyone.
neo – I don’t think Manchin’s vote was determinative. Had the vote been 50-50, Pence could have broken the tie. I believe the determinative vote belonged to Susan Collins. Maybe Manchin was the 50th vote to announce. I don’t remember for sure, but I seem to recall that Manchin announced his vote after Collins.
Anyway, at the time, it sure as heck looked like Collins was kissing away her Senate career by casting that vote. Maybe she voted for ideological reasons – although she is pro-choice, so putting a potential 5th vote to overturn Roe wouldn’t have been one of them. Maybe she did it on principle because of the nature of the dirty trick that Democrats were running. But frankly, the best explanation (or even sine qua non) that I see for Collins’ decision is that she believed Kavanaugh’s denials.
Now imagine an alternative universe where nominee was a known womanizer, publicly disparaged the accuser, repeatedly called her a liar, stated that she “wasn’t his type,” misidentified her in a photo as one of his ex-wives, and then walked out of the hearing.
Would Collins have put her career on the line for that? I doubt it. I suspect that a dozen or so other Republicans would have balked too and killed the nomination. I’m not sure why that’s so difficult to see.
Re: immunity during testimony/debate – I thought of that. I’m not 100% sure if that applies to only members of Congress or also extends to witnesses. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kavanaugh would have been immune for his testimony before the committee. Regardless, that would go to Kavanaugh’s reticence about discussing the matter since his confirmation.
Recall also that Trump had at least a colorable immunity claim for statements while he was in office. I believe the Biden administration even filed a brief supporting Trump’s immunity claim. He eventually lost, but while his in-office immunity claim was working its way through the courts, Trump went out and repeated the same statements about Carroll after he left office, which practically ended his immunity claim even if he had prevailed in court.
If you’re up against an unscrupulous enemy, don’t pick a champion who behaves like an idiot. It’s difficult enough to convince the public that something nefarious is going on and that they should distrust judicial and other proceedings without having to also defend Trump’s antics. The man is an albatross and, quite frankly, the best thing that ever happened to the hard left.
So the punchline is this same gang demand justice forced breyer off the court replaced him with among other things the atty for the 20th hijacker who the regime sent back to the kingdom two years ago because he pulled a verbal kint from the usual suspects
@Bauxite
I’ve mentioned before how you are annoying, pathetic, and irritating when you are contorting yourself to avoid the point, and Art Deco wrote just above you are being obtuse. This kind of nonsense proves both of us correct.
For the record, Bauxite, Neo wasn’t saying that Manchin’s vote was determinative… in and of itself. But she didn’t specify Manchin’s vote alone. She specifically identified Manchin PLUS Murkowski.
Which you are “conveniently” overlooking.
The determinative vote is whoever puts in the margin of error, and with a vote this tight almost every vote is determinative. Which is the problem.
If Manchin opts to absent himself from the proceedings ala Murkowski, the vote is 49-48 and he squeaks in further. If Manchin votes nay the vote is 49-49 and Pence gets the deciding vote and he probably votes yay.
But things get troublesome when you start going much further than that. For instance if Murkowski voted nay (as she clearly had inclinations to do or at least not to vote present), if Collins votes present or God Forbid nay, and so on. Ironically the one situation I could see things getting better is if Daines were present and convinced to vote yay which would’ve bumped things up by one.
So there was margin for error down to about 2 votes, but that’s a squeaker.
This is what Neo was saying. The mixture of Murkowski and Manchin and – as you pointed out- Collins were determinative. Considering the Vice Presidential tie breaking vote, Kavanaugh had a 2-4 vote margin for error (depending on how you calculate the most obvious hypotheticals regarding Daines and the probable swing votes).
That as well as the shadow of the accusations continuing to rot away at his reputation iis the reward you theorize for living an all but unimpeachable private life while conducting a skilled defense from the most legally advantaged bully pulpit in US law, the floor of Congress.
One has to be delusional if they think this is a good result or indicates a healthy environment for conservatives.
Moreso, ironically this would fit in well to your admittedly tin-eared defense of whatsisname the disgraced former GOP head in Arizona and his attempt to “influence” Lake to stay out, since you argued the Senate might be our last shield against complete leftist dominance and how every Senator Seat
But curiously you ignore that point now, in spite of how this situation so obviously points back to it and the utterly thin margins for error. Probably because being able to say “Lake Bad, Should Go” allowed you to try and put lipstick on a pig that at best appeared improper, but bringing it up now would cut out the legs from your argument that the central problem is Trump and that we just need the Right Person to neutralize these claims.
Art Deco called your “argument” out eloquently. The Left went after Kavanaugh, the archetypical Clean Conservative, with a blank, and nearly shot him down. And they’re still using the innuendo and allegations and first reports to smear his name and gin up outrage to help their true believers (and cynical opportunists) get out the vote.
None of which you seem to be very concerned about (pace om) because you apparently think getting in through some of the narrowest of margins under a perennial cloud of smears from the accusations indicates this is fine, while Trump being brought up for libel on tenuous grounds in a hostile venue is just desserts because apparently you think it won’t happen to someone you support.
And if Collins votes present Kavanaugh’s congressional vote tally drops 49-48, pushing the margin of security to 2 votes.
If she goes nay it is 49-49 meaning Pence has to come in. She wouldn’t be a fatal case in and of itself, but if literally anything else went wrong, Kavanaugh would be sunk. Which is again the problem when you have such tight margins because almost everything becomes determinative, in much the same way that people focus on the last minute goal kick to decide a game but tend to overlook the play before it that made that last minute kick possibly determinative.
For better or worse, it really doesn’t matter why she voted the way she did, at least on this level. The fact is that she did. And if she didn’t, Kavanaugh gets in even hotter water. Which ironically dovetails with what you said about the margins of error in Senate races and the need to make each count, but undercuts your idea that the most important thing against smears like this is living an impeccable life.
Any two members of Congress could have sunk Kavanaugh’s confirmation and left him open to further lawfare. Whether that was Collins and Murkowski, Murkowski and Manchin, Collins and Murkowski, or some other combination. And we have at best modest ideas on why the dominos fell in the way they did.
You think that the best explanation for this is that Collins believed Kavanaugh’s denials. And maybe she did. In any case such a belief is very convenient when your main thesis is “Trump Bad Behavior Caused This To him, Just Be Like Kavanaugh.” But that wouldn’t explain the rest of the picture, including Murkowski and Manchin.
But putting your future in the hands of such cyphers with unknown and probably unreliable motives is a BAD THING. Especially since Kavanaugh did not merely face being denied a seat on the Court if he lost ala Gestapo Garland. He already suffered reputational damage and left wing conspiracist nonsense in the MSM and both among the Leftist bastions and low information voters* and faced being hounded for months or years in lawfare.
A pound of prevention is worth a ton of cure, which is one reason why the arguments about the senate results hold water. But it also makes your “Trump’s Skirt is Too Short” narrative fall flat.
Like I said, it is tedious and irritating when you work hard to avoid the point.
Firstly: I “suspect” your image of a dozen or so other Republicans balking is more of a product of Narcissistic style gazing in the mirror and projecting what you idealize about yourself into it rather than sober analysis. John Roberts had the widest confirmation margin of a Supreme Court Justice since the Dubya years, and that was remarkable for being 78-22-0, which was deemed narrow at the time but is now unthinkable.
In general nominations since then have boiled down to a couple dozen votes margin at most during that hallmark of Bipartisan Consensus the Late Bush and Obama years. Amy Comey Barrett got in with a squeaker of 52-48 with an almost party line vote in spite of how it was impractical to get at her with a similar scandal or accusations because she was a married woman (and I have no doubt the left canvassed).
So you’re missing the point. Someone with Trump’s personality or past life probably would have sunk the nomination, but NOT having Trump’s personality
or past life is NO GUARENTEE Of safety. Kavanaugh learned that firsthand.
Secondly: This is deflection. In many ways worse than deflection because a Supreme Court nomination hearing is not SUPPOSED to be a study on a justice’s guilt or innocence with a Nay vote indicating that (even if it would be taken so).
The fundamental problem with this scenario is the left’s ability to push forth character assassinating charlatans (or if I’m more generous, “People with cryptic and vague accusations and little proof”; is that enough to avoid libel from Carroll’s lawyers?) and have them face no repercussion. The correct answer is to go after them and make them suffer penalties in reputation and standing for pulling this stunt, whether it is against Kavanaugh or Trump.
You spend more time obsessing over Trump’s both real and imagined failings than pushing back against it.
Try and read the Congressional rules on witness testimony. TL:DR, unless they can be found to have perjured themselves it counts.
Which furthers my point, since reticence means he has to rely on surrogates to fight back against the smear (and especially in making pointed observations about his accusers’ follies and conduct). This is what Neo and I pointed out as a problem and it is very well taken, but you apparently seem to think being above the fray is going to shield one’s reputation from charges of this nature.
It won’t, and it hasn’t, as Neo’s contact with her Dem leaning friends attests and as many others can say.
This is why I talked about first principles (something you had no good response to).
This is true but also overlooks the point that Trump needed to be able to muscularly pursue the claim without being liable for libel in a kangaroo court jurisdiction in denying a charge that was never proven to begin with. This is “Guilty until Proven Innocent” stuff with actual ramifications, but the Great Orange Whale seems to short circuit your brain to overlook that.
There are multiple forms of idiot, Bauxite. You have helped demonstrate that personally on this blog.
Moreover, even an idiot (and I don’t think Trump is one, though I would happily call him a buffoon) can have virtues such as willingness to continue the fight and punch back against accusations, physical courage, and so forth.
But more than picking an idiot for a champion, you need to avoid picking a *coward* or one who will not rebuke accusations as one.
How would you know? I haven’t seen you do much of that.
Moreover, this is a cowardly, dishonest strawman. NOBODY said that you had to “defend Trump’s Antics” beyond that which you believe is warranted. I certainly don’t (as my scathing reference to his behavior towards McEnany and other antics shows). We may disagree on the extent to which one should vocally defend oneself against defamation of this caliber and particularly try to undermine the credibility of the accuser, but we agree that one should do so, especially the former.
So point out that you hate Trump and he is the Great Orange Whale to you, but that even the Great Orange Whale does not deserve this. And that because you recognize the threat this kind of kangaroo shenanigans has (AND YOU DO RECOGNIZE THAT, *DON’T* YOU?), you will not spend more time condemning Trump on this score than you will on the corrupt, abusive judiciary and the shameless, opportunistic liar that brought him to trial for an unproven non-crime and claimed that even protestations of innocence to something that was never proven (and almost certainly never happened) can be libel.
It’s not hard. I do it almost every time I talk about things like the Ukraine war because I have to deal with the naive or staggeringly biased whose (understandable) distrust and hatred of the likes of Biden, Merkel, and Obama outstrips their knowledge of the war and of Putin, often leading to a rosier picture of the latter than is warranted. I do it in regards to the Klanner Statist Prussophile scumbag Woodrow Wilson in regards to the Central Powers and of people who think Stalin’s many crimes made the Axis the lesser evil or lesser threat, at least in the moment.
Start learning how to do it, or forfeit what little credibility and trust you can still claim.
There you go again with the “Skirt to Short” Shit.
The best thing that ever happened to the hard left was their long march through the institutions, especially in education and media. That gave them narrative control and dominant power in education, which they turned into great effect. I’ve caught you reiterating proven horseshit about how Saddam didn’t have an alliance with Al Qaeda (based ironically on intentionally choppy, tortured parsing of the sources by anti-Bush elements in the administration to talk about how there was no “direct” link from Saddam giving funding and passports to direct vassals of Osama in Pakistan and the Philippines, among other things).
Neo has talked about it in great detail and how devastating it was even to Kavanaugh, who survived. Sidney Powell has disappointed lately but her discussion of Andrew Weissmann on this issue and his kangaroo courts are chilling and to be taken seriously, as are other observations of it.
But if I had to pick a second best thing to happen, it wouldn’t be Trump. It would be cowardly backstabbers who see a verdict they recognize is preposterous and unjust, but cannot condemn it more than they will the victim because of how much they hate him.
* PS: This is the other thing with your idealization of those outside the “right wing thought bubble.” Because most of those outside the “right wing thought bubble” aren’t savvy and even handed analysts. They are mostly low information voters who believe what they hear on the MSM. I would wager most of those in the “right wing bubble” are better informed and more balanced than most outside it precisely because we get the gist of leftist narratives while they and the low info middlemen don’t.
That makes them downright dangerous, especially since it means they can be used by the Hard Left’s Godfathers and can become party to injustices. As you yourself said, that they will believe Trump deserves what he gets.
That’s why I focus on the threat of the Left’s narrative control and how to disrupt it. It is also why I find the obsession with Trump on both sides and especially yours irritating. I am open to a point to taking or leaving Trump, hence why I supported Cruz and DeSantis.
But after a point I am opposed to giving the left wing media complex more Perceived acquiescence to their accusations when they are without merit. Apparently you do not see the problem with this when it targets the Great Orange Whale. And then you wonder why you get “boorish” words from much of the blog and are not trusted.
turtler – I’m not the one studiously avoiding the point.
– If Kavanaugh behaved like Trump, he wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court.
– Trump’s crude, undisiplined behavior make him both a soft target and a difficult-to-defend victim of the left’s dirty tricks and lawfare.
That’s my point. I find it difficult to believe that reasonable minds can disagree with that. Unlike you, however, I’m not going to acuse of anyone of being a liar.
“If Kavanaugh behaved like Trump ….” he would be a completely different person.
Is CC™ a complete moron?
Does OMB syndrome destroy all higher levels of cognition? Seems so.
Kavanaugh did not have the excesses of Trump’s personality but it did not matter to the left, CC™. Did you miss that? When Kavanaugh showed emotion and outrage about the assassination of his character the left pivoted and attacked him as showing an absence of “judicial temperament.” Did you miss or forget that CC™. Are you a moron or malicious CC™?
@Bauxite
Yes, you are. Neo had to point it out to you. Twice.
Possibly, maybe even probably, though I doubt it. But the point is that it was not for lack of trying from the left, and even now the stink of the accusations remains on him.
The point being that – as Art Deco and others pointed out – they will dig around to try and fit it on just about any Republican. Amy Comey Barrett largely escaped that in favor of other attack lines because she is a married woman and they could not find anything of that vein (or credibly or even Uncredibly invent anything).
It is foolish to assume that will always remain so.
This is true, and also underlines the importance of defending more vigorously against such dirty tricks and lawfare. Especially when they are so dirty and disgusting as this.
Moreover, I note that even if you got your dream and Trump dropped out to private life we would STILL have to continue attacking this verdict and its purveyors and the method used precisely because of the chilling, damaging effect it has on all of this. But would you? Somehow I doubt it.
Moreover I note that Trump is a big target but he is not quite as soft as appeared, in part because he does not let this kind of stuff slip by unchallenged. That causes plenty of problems (as you and I have pointed out) but also makes it much harder for this to go quite as readily. Genteel politics is admirable and even desirable, but it has its downsides. Especially when dealing with gutter thugs. This was a weakness of Dubya Bush and Romney (and ironically McCain was hesitant going after the “other” side during his run).
We can and should do better than Trump in terms of Reagan’s jujitsu like ability to retaliate and clamp down on leftist narratives while remaining fine for prime time. But we can do a lot worse than Trump and many in the Left sure seem to know it.
None of this removes the fact that if your address to this news is to spend more time focusing more on Trump’s foibles than on this violation of the spirit and likely the letter of the law, you are part of the problem. Which also makes your posturing and attempts to preen about being better than the Right Wing Bubble all the more richly ironic.
It begs the question “well, what are you doing about that?” And sorry, but while “Advocating we ditch Trump” is an effort (and even a defensible one), it is far from all that is necessary. Even if we agreed ditching Trump for someone else on the current slate of candidates was best, it would not outweigh the need to keep pressure on nonsense like this.
Because I reiterate: They almost got Kavanaugh, and in some ways they still inflicted a lasting wound on his reputation. Weissman has made his career off of getting people whether they did something or not, and not just in terms of hanky panky or rape.
This goes far beyond Trump and choosing this subject to obsess with harpooning the Orange Whale on is distasteful and naive at best, suicidal at worst.
Whatever merit your point has is outweighed by bigger ones. Starting with the fact that assuming this is about Trump just because he is the target is stupidly naive and short-sighted. Especially given the precedents it set.
Moving on to how Trump was an especially appetizing target but was not the only one.
We don’t disagree with that. But I and everybody else pointed out that your obsession with that point to the detriment of other, Vastly more important ones indicates an utterly unreasonable mind.
Literally everyone else in this thread that bothered to comment on your petty little post noted that and took issue with it. It is classic “Skirts too Short” nonsense that bodes badly not just for Trump but for all of us.
Not directly at least, you will instead abuse them by other means. Being caught in a Right Wing Bubble unlike you (though you conveniently omit how such a bubble develops or what you are doing to puncture it). Trying to thread explanations about how we shouldn’t make so much of this strategy applied to others but Trump by parsing arguments about what determined the Kavanaugh vote to say “See! Kavanaugh got in!”
(Barely, like ACB after him, and under a cloud of noxious turmoil.)
I call you intellectually dishonest because you are, and I can muster a formidable amount of evidence to that effect. I also have very solid circumstantial evidence (and some would go further) that you are a knowing liar to boot. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong, but your effects thus far have been underwhelming to say the least.
om likes calling you “Concerned Conservative (TM)” though frankly I think he should get a new moniker, not so much because the repetition is old and gets more irritating but because I’d much prefer if you showed much concern beyond the Great Orange Whale. Even if you cared not a single whit for Trump, or the Jan 6th prisoners (political or otherwise), or the legal concepts and moral principles involved it would at least behoove you to pretend on occasion to rebuild what remains of your credibility on this issue.
the only thing that I hold against Kavanaugh, is much like Gorsuch who’s mother was hounded out of office, by these Dem hacks, that he has not followed through on challenging much of this garbage,
turtler – You’re ridiculous. You more or less conceded every point I made, but you call me a liar and abuser whatever else because I don’t weigh the issues the same way that you do. That’s nuts.
Anyway, I say that if you have to fight an important battle, fight it on favorable terrain. If you fight on the enemy’s favorable terrain and lose, you still lost and the precedent is set.
Trump is the left’s favorable terrain. (Frankly, J6 defendants are as well.) Trump and his schtick are so odious to Democrats, independents, soft Republicans (and a lot of actually conservative Republicans) that it is easy for them to believe that he’s guilty of the things he’s been accused of. So in addition to fighting the perception of legitimacy that the public gives to judicial proceedings and officers of the court, you have to fight the public perception that defenses of Trump are just hyper-technical objections. Making the public outside of the right wing bubble understand how abusive these prosecutions are, in this circumstance, with this defendant, is hugely dfficult and, I think, impossible.
I don’t think that means that you abandon Trump or the J6 defendants to their fate. Just acknowledge how much more difficult they making it to fight back and don’t make them front and center in the 2024 campaign.
Bauxite:
I’m not into invective. But I note that you have had nothing to say to my points about Kavanaugh.
The charges stuck.
I agree that Trump makes it a bit easier for charges to “stick.” But they stick anyway, even to squeaky-clean Kavanaugh and “binders of women” squeaky-clean Mormon Romney the Trump-hating RINO.
One wonders how someone can suffer reputational damage after they have a court verdict in their favour ? Surely having been vindicated by a court, anything the defendant said after that point could not cause damage to the plaintiff’s reputation.
Any damages after that point are an admission that the court verdict is not credible, as it implies the public believes the defendant rather than the jury.
@Bauxite
Denial is not a river in Egypt, nor is it suitable for this blog.
No Bauxite, you are. And you’ve been called out as such by people far more than me, including our host. Who I will not claim endorses all my points, let alone all that have written, but who has noticed you utterly memory holing the very living, firsthand knowledge she has about the effects of these strategies on Kavanaugh.
You also like pretending I am the only person here going after you for your ridiculous, immoral behavior and suicidality spiteful attitude towards these kinds of abuses of power.
I am not. I am just the one that goes into the most detail and length.
This is what we call delusional AND Dishonest.
I agreed with you that Trump’s history and conduct make these charges stick more.
However, I completely rejected the idea that the appropriate answer to these strategies was focused on ditching the victim in question if they are “dirty” enough. I also put a question mark over your confident claim that had Trump been Kavanaugh he would not be on the court by pointing out how narrow and party line votes are.
I moreover pointed out why breaching the “Right Wing Bubble” is so important rather than always relying on trying to get the “right” candidate.
You have no coherent responses to any of these. I would know, I READY YOUR COMMENTS FAR MORE CAREFULLY THAN YOU WILL EVER READ MINE.
Indeed, I methodically quote you line by line and word by word.
This is you being a sore, gaslighting loser because I pointed out that ditching Trump is not the answer to all our problems. Not being Trump certainly was not to Kavanaugh.
Because you are.
This delusional, dishonest response of yours underlines that. You are like the superficially polite abusive ex of much of the commentariat here whenever the Big Orange Whale comes up (and on a few other subjects).
You forward a range of points that range from the well considered at best (which I note when I think I see them), to the half-baked, to the startlingly naive to the flat out, factually untrue or even malevolent (such as your idiotic, factually dishonest idea that Romney was better at GOTV than Trump, and your gaslighting, insidious claim that differences about that were matters of dispute between “rational minds” rather than a simple matter of interpreting the statistics when you got caught doing so wrong).
And then when you get caught you loudly demand the others answer whether they believe you or their own lying eyes and even argue that disagreement on this issue or their claims are “ridiculous.” (Sometimes before further retreating, motte and bailey style, to the “reasonable minds” borderline post-modernist stance).
Unfortunately for you, it is a relatively easy thing to counter. And the rest of the blogging public here has generally cottoned on to how you are nowhere near as honest or upstanding or reasonable a broker as you claim. And to be sure, of them may be motivated by overweening bias or personal animosity beyond reason, but others simply have to watch as you get pinned in to your various points and have them scrutinized.
This is one of those times.
No, what’s nuts is insisting that you do not have to pay half as much attention to the malignant nature of leftist lawfare and smear attacks because some of your preferred candidates escaped by the skin of their teeth with far weaker cases.
And what’s nuts is you insisting basic principles of constitutional law, that none should be convicted or found against without evidence (which Carroll does not possess) are simply “weighing the issues differently.”
They are not. They are cases of you failing to weigh relevant principles and issues at all. I’ve explained why that is not tenable. I do not need to do so again here.
And I thought my vote bakery analogy was bad. But at least I can stand by that as being accurate enough. This isn’t.
I hate to tell you this, but you CAN’T always fight important battles on favorable terrain. Maybe the enemy catches you off guard. Or maybe victory requires going deep into the enemy’s stronghold set up on there. Or perhaps you need to safeguard your supply lines from raiders.
In any case, securing favorable terrain and fighting on it when possible is useful, but it’s not going to be enough. So you had BETTER GET USED TO FIGHTING AND WINNING when unfavorable terrain comes up. Whether that’s finding ways to counter the enemy’s strength, deter them from attacking even on unfavorable terrain, or shaping the unfavorable terrain to be favorable to you.
Because the blunt reality is that the enemy gets a vote too, and they can and will choose to attack where they think they can.
ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS LITTLE TO NO CONSEQUENCE FOR THEM DOING SO, AND POSSIBLY SIGNIFICANT GAIN FOR THEM.
You have your head so far up your ass you are obsessed with replacing Trump and have talked at that about length, but have said effectively nothing about countering these strategies in the long run., let alone doing so EFFECTIVELY and VISIBLY for the public.
Which brings me back to the “this isn’t weighing issues differently, this is you not weighing certain issues at all when you find it congenial to your biases and agenda” point I made.
Also, “the precedent is set”? The precedent was set well before Trump on similar attacks. Many of them did not include rape accusations (though some did, like Anita Hill’s failed move) but Andy Weissmann has largely made his career off of this.
A: This is deflection. The legal principles involved means that we need to shoot down baseless, evidence-less accusations like this even against “unfavorable terrain”. Otherwise you reward them for doing so. This is a point many people, including our host, brought up.
B. Citation Needed.
That certainly was true for most of 2016. But it did not play out well, did it? Indeed, if Trump is their most favorable terrain they have a much worse track record on it than on McCain Terrain or Romney terrain, even in 2020.
They certainly love to hate him and there are features about Trump that are eminently hateable even to those on the right, but that doesn’t mean he is their most favored terrain in comparison to people who were content to hug the dream of collegiality and go down in silence or to less an effect. You don’t like that I pointed out W. Bush’s failure to control his enemies within his administration led to a massive blackwashing of him on the Iraq War and some other matters (featuring things like selectively editing accounting of Saddam’s ties to AQ and the Taliban to be less damning). But it holds.
And while Sanders shares much about Trump (multiple mansions for starters, outsider populist appeal) he did himself no favors by ruling Hillary’s server out of bounds.
The left itself clearly disagrees on at least many of those January 6th Defendants. Tucker and the Congressional Republicans have misfired plenty of times but actual footage of the January 6th Defendants was sufficient to get a bunch of their sentences squashed or charges dropped as it became clear the DC Machine had violated the Brady Rule writ large and smeared many of them.
Which brings me back to the point. Writing these people off is not merely immoral and unethical, it’s pragmatically dumb. It is quite literally letting the enemy dictate the terms of the engagement by prematurely ruling out several avenues of attack and not even contesting some – no matter how important – on the grounds they are “unpopular.”
Well, why are they unpopular (assuming they are)?
Because the left has been allowed to get away with character assassination writ large using its control of the narrative, often on a grandiose scale, even though in many cases there is scant evidence or even none.
There is a difference between advocating a limited tactically withdrawal when the situation truly warrants it or arguing against certain strategies, and simply giving the enemy more power by letting wrongly accused people hang out.*
“Democrats, independents, soft republicans, and a lot of actually conservative Republicans” are not hive minds, and they clearly do not find him so uniformly odious as you paint him to given the number of blue collar democrats (who you tried to claim were naturally part of the Republican base because of Reagan in spite of how they spent almost none of the elections since Reagan voting R) and independents, such as Blacks and Hispanics.
Moreover, if it is easy for them to believe that X is guilty of the things he is accused of, then the key strategy is to Highlight The Weaknesses In The Enemy’s “Evidence.” This is one reason why the Congressional avenue played so well to Kavanaugh’s defense, including the privleged speech and the way it caught CBF melting down on stage.
(And even THAT, as Neo pointed out, wasn’t enough to convince some Dems that he was still guilty.)
On issues like this, spend less time obsessing about how to spin it to take down Trump and more time about how you will disarm attacks like this against innocent or at least unprovable targets in general.
EVEN IF You personally dislike them.
EVEN IF they are “Soft Targets” or “Unfavorable Terrain.”
Firstly: Hyper technical objections exist for a reason, and should be given due respect.
Secondly: There’s not much more damning about the basics of this case than the fact that Carroll has literally no evidence, and Trump was never found guilty.
We’ve already established you’re not thinking, you’re rationalizing. Neo’s points in particular and how you (don’t) engage with them are telling on this point.
And none of that negates the need to fight battles like these (and indeed even if Trump dipped out tomorrow we would STILL Have to fight this particular battle BECAUSE of the important principles involved and because it is a case where leftist abuse was so relatively obvious).
We need to start extracting a price from the Left for doing these kinds of antics and making it visible. That will be hard, it will in many cases be an uphill battle even on “favorable terrain” and with people much more inoffensive than Trump. But it will be worth it by helping to put a stop to this kind of madness.
And it CAN work. There’s a reason why #MeToo has largely waned and broken down, especially in the wake of things like Amber Heard. Even Sidney Powell (as much as you may dislike her and as flawed as she showed herself to be) was able to hammer Weissman and co on some matters like their abuses regarding Enron.
So the appeal for Tunnel Vision on finding the “Right” Candidate is neither practical nor popular.
You see, this would be more convincing…. if you had written it before people like me had to hold your feet to the absolute fire to get you to say more about these cases than “Proposterous But…” and “Unpopular”, and after Neo of all people pointed out multiple times how the “Clean Conservatives” are also eligible for these attacks.
Still, your credibility and track record are so low even lip service on this matter is better.
Which most of us have, we just believe that the importance of the fight as well as the rather thin nature of the cases warrants it.
Which is a place where reasoned minds can actually disagree, and a path I would have been more open to before DeSantis dipped out. But there is sound reason for highlighting them. They represent some of the most grotesque abuses of power in recent American history, for nakedly political gain. And we have seen how the Left was forced to pull back at times under pressure on this.
* And for the sake of the argument, I am including actual criminals in January 6th on this. I don’t condone anyone who trespassed, or stole furniture or computers, or violated Capital preservation edicts on how you preserve the structure and surrounding area, or even bruised a capital hill cop or two.
But the conditions of their holding are blatantly not equal to their actual crimes. These were not terrorists**, they were not trying to “tyrannically” overthrow “Our Democracy” or what have you. To treat them as such is a sin and a crime.
** And how do I know they are not terrorists? if any of them ACTUALLY WERE terrorists they’d be paraded front and center by the left and its narrative control infrastructure along with the relevant proof. They wouldn’t be desperately grabbing people after the fact for the crime of “Lawfully carried a gun distantly outside capitol hill.”
@LordAzrael
Unfortunately reality does not work like that. For one, many court cases or legal proceedings are not about the subject in question, they just get colored by it. This is something I pointed out with Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.
Secondly, many court cases are not decided based on definitive proof, but just on what is not likely. For instance, OJ Simpson is a key case of this.
And Thirdly: Myths are persistent. And as Ray Donovan said, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
It’s telling that that was also a case launched in New York State and which saw a followup effort from the Feds.
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/donovan-raymond-j-investigation
Funny enough I believe it was MSNBC that had some woman on talking about the decision. She said when it came out she and some other women around her looked at each other and said “I can’t believe it.” Said it was a moment of sisterhood and, to a degree, brotherhood. Gimme a break.
No doubt whomever plays Carroll in an upcoming film directed by some award friendly director will get nominated for an Oscar.