Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JoshuaFH]

Surprising noone, I'm sure.

[smjjames]

I don't think that's what he said, the actual quote seems to be that he saw Kavanaugh drunk to the point where he could easily be passed out. Not quite the same as definitively saying yes he's been blackout drunk, but still contradicts Kavanaugh.

Also, earlier today, Trump went and contradicted his own nominee on drinking.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Since alcoholism and the effects thereof is something that Trump actually has a deeply held belief on, he is certain to fuck this up.

[Folly]

I never had a glass of alcohol. Can you imagine if I had? What a mess I would be. I would be the world's worst.

Some scary part of me is actually hoping that someday we get to see drunk President Trump.

[smjjames]

More specifically, it was his younger brothers battle with alcoholism that shaped that belief.

I have to wonder just how much Kavanaugh actually told Trump about his drinking habits and I have no doubt that Kavanaugh is aware that Trump is a teetotaler. If there is evidence that Kavanaugh has a handle on not drinking too much and doesn't have an issue with alcohol, I can see Trump forgiving past issues with alcohol.

edit: Oh hey, they said something about breaking news about Kavanaugh being involved in a bar fight in college. I'm guessing possibly the one mentioned here

"Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker," Ludington said in a statement Sunday. "When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in a man's face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail."

Unless it's one that Kavanaugh got arrested in.

Yep, it's the one I just mentioned. How exactly that's 'breaking news' when it's been around for at least a day, I don't know, maybe it's breaking because it's confirmed by police reports. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/politics/kavanaugh-bar-fight.html

[nenjin]

I'm glad this is happening, to be honest. People in the public eye always talk about their lives being under a microscope, but rarely do I feel like their personal histories get weighed and evaluated to this degree. And I want more of it. If people are running for office I think they should be squeaky clean or as close to it as someone can humanly get. And if they are squeaky clean and then decide to be a piece of shit when they get in to office.....well at least they got there before being reprehensible as fuck. I want more of people's words being held against their actions.

[Dunamisdeos]

I have met very few folks who do not have a "got so drunk I forgot parts of the night" story. I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't, now that I try and think about it. I'm pleased to say that noone I know got drunk and then sexually assaulted someone, which is the alleged incident in question with Kavanaugh. The real issue is whether that occurred or not. There's no issue with having a judge that got drunk decades ago, even one that got in drunk fights.
 
I think we're about to get into Bill Clinton territory, where we just sort of harry the defendant in question until they lie outright about something, then use that to ruin them politically. It's possible in this case that those tactics are being used correctly, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

Like don't misunderstand me, if this guy is a sexual predator as everyone seems to be trying to insinuate then he definitely shouldn't be in a position of leadership to say the least, and absolutely I do "want more of people's words being held against their actions.". But I don't think this kind of microscopic scrutiny should be normalized in all cases. The idea is to prevent people who will abuse their position from entering office, not punish people we disapprove of.

[smjjames]

I have met very few folks who do not have a "got so drunk I forgot parts of the night" story. I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't, now that I try and think about it. I'm pleased to say that noone I know got drunk and then sexually assaulted someone, which is the alleged incident in question with Kavanaugh. The real issue is whether that occurred or not. There's no issue with having a judge that got drunk decades ago, even one that got in drunk fights.
 
I think we're about to get into Bill Clinton territory, where we just sort of harry the defendant in question until they lie outright about something, then use that to ruin them politically. It's possible in this case that those tactics are being used correctly, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

The problem is that there are already discrepancies between what he said to the commitee and what people are saying, and those people are also saying that Kavanaugh isn't being accurate. It's not that they're harrying the defendant until they make a lie, Kavanaugh has already lied without the Democrats even trying to harry him. He might not even remember the bar fight or not feel the need to talk about it, but AFAIK, nobody has directly asked him whether he's been in any bar fights. The fact that he got into a bar fight or that he didn't say he got into one ( to be fair, he never said he 'never got into bar fights' either) is pretty irrelevant, what is relevant is his credibility and honesty.

Like don't misunderstand me, if this guy is a sexual predator as everyone seems to be trying to insinuate then he definitely shouldn't be in a position of leadership to say the least, and absolutely I do "want more of people's words being held against their actions.". But I don't think this kind of microscopic scrutiny should be normalized in all cases. The idea is to prevent people who will abuse their position from entering office, not punish people we disapprove of.

I saw one article saying that one GOP strategist or whoever said that this is like using nanotech, which I guess is a pretty apt descriptor. Also, Gorsuch didn't go through this, it only came up when the sexual allegations came up and things got hyperfocused on Kavanaughs drinking.

I agree that it's way too hyperfocused since college sheneinighans are usually ignored and drinking habits are ignored unless the nominee actually does have a drinking problem. Normally the hyperfocus would be on their record.

[Starver]

I have met very few folks who do not have a "got so drunk I forgot parts of the night" story.

I have been <fastshow>'very, very drunk'</fastshow> on perhaps one occasion in my life. I've been impaired many other times (from a couple too many) and was spinning behind my eyes/not brilliant in the morning¹, but this one time was knowing that others expected me to get visibly drunk, and I went along with it.

I never passed out/blacked out/lost memories², if you don't count when I eventually went to bed (my own bed that was an actual bed, and on my own, that night) to actually sleep, which followed abortive attempts to operate a computer (keyboard coordination was shot, though screen-reading and knowing what I should do was satisfactory) and not a little involuntary regurgitating (that probably saved me from the full dose of fruit-sourced ethanols - shoulda stuck to the grain stuff!).

I was probably as incapable of being a serious sexual threat (or even conveying the possibility) as I was of getting password from brain into the networked beige box the second time (the first attempt happened before quite so much of the dose had gotten into my system, giving me a slightly false sense of capability), but I never did get so drunk as to have to ask others what I did (or did not).

Maybe I didn't try hard enough? But I think I got a good enough anecdote out of it anyway (the details of which go far beyond the hints I'm leaving here) and I am 'happy' with the quantities imbibed. Not I an "a half of shandy and I'm anybody's" person (though nowhere near the William Hague levels of apparent habituation, neither). But do count me as boringly unrepresentative by your above measure.


¹ Compared with the normal, sobriety-influenced, "not brilliant in the morning" hangunders.
² Again, compared with normal foegetfulness.

[JoshuaFH]

-

[Doomblade187]

-

You okay Joshua?

[smjjames]

He had a post and then deleted it, don't know why. *shrug*

[Frumple]

But I don't think this kind of microscopic scrutiny should be normalized in all cases. The idea is to prevent people who will abuse their position from entering office, not punish people we disapprove of.

In all cases, no. For a fucking SCOTUS seat, or position of similar power, maybe yeah.

Same sentiment for the convict comparison. This isn't some kind of basic job being considered, nor something necessary for someone's survival, or anything even remotely along those lines. This isn't a "good job" or "good home." This is a consideration for literally the fucking highest judicial position in the country, and to an arguable extent by dint of it being the US's highest position the highest on literally the entire goddamn planet.

The standards. Should. Be. Real. Bloody. High. Yes, we should probably be holding significant drinking problems in their late teens/early twenties against them, because we don't fucking have to excuse shit like that. We can say, hey, you know, maybe you stick to being an appellate judge and we find someone who didn't spend their formative years thinking that was okay. We have that option. We probably should take it.

... beyond all that, it's way past the point we should stop peddling the line that shit like getting blackout drunk is just "college shenanigans", particularly when that bullshit is being used to attempt to excuse attempted or explicit rape. Shit isn't something that "just happens", it's something we as a people have been tolerating and in many ways encouraging, and giving how many people that ends up varyingly literally fucking maybe just maybe we're due to knock that shit off a bit harder.

[Egan_BW]

I suppose if we're picking one person from everyone in the country who has judicial experience, for a position that lasts till the person dies or resigns, we can afford to be a little picky?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I suppose if we're picking one person from everyone in the country who has judicial experience, for a position that lasts till the person dies or resigns, we can afford to be a little picky?

I agree wholeheartedly, and that's why I've humbly chosen to accept this nomination

(by the way nothing about the Supreme Court's makeup or structure is defined in the Constitution except for that it exists and Congress decides how it exists, prepare to go hog wild)