SIO158: Why Skeptics Should Believe the Kavanaugh Accusations

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, and this is 158 I'm Thomas Smith and I've got some ranting to do. I've been just so mad and upset and angered and everything about this Kavanaugh stuff. Every time a new part of the news thing broke, I'd think, oh, I wanna cover this, I want to talk about this, and then I think, you know, it's everywhere, we're saturated with it, so I took to the Facebook group, and by the way, if you're a supporter of the show, you get to join the exclusive Facebook group and answer questions like this. I, I just asked the group and I said, hey, hey guys, you being my employers and all, essentially, would you like an episode like this, or is it something you've, you you know, you've kind of heard elsewhere. You don't need to hear more of. And pretty universally, everybody said they would enjoy an episode like this.

0:01:17 Thomas: And I'm glad because I also, I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again in case you haven't heard me say it before. I think I said it first around the Krauss accusations, the Lawrence Krauss acquisitions, which I covered on the show. This is something that I think a skeptic movement would be perfect for. If we had a nice, healthy movement of skeptics who did a great job of separating fact from falsehood and using evidence and evaluating sources of evidence and what kind of thresholds of evidence we might need for certain claims, depending on what the claim is, all that good stuff, all the stuff that good, solid, old-fashioned skeptic-y stuff, like just stuff you do, you know, when you're evaluating a conspiracy theory or a, or just a story or someone's testimony or a criminal investigation, whatever it is.

0:02:08 Thomas: It's epistemology, essentially, is just evaluating what is reasonable to believe in these circumstances. And I think that's perfect for the skeptic movement to do. It is a perfect thing for skeptics to aspire to. So, you know what? I am going to give it a shot myself. I think in the U.S., a lot of the online, anyway, the online skeptic movement is a dumpster fire, a lot of it. But, you know, maybe try to be the change I want to see in the world.

I want to just take a stab at it and tell you what I think and why I think it and what what I think are reasonable conclusions we can draw based on the evidence we have in the Kavanaugh situation.

I also want to separate some things conceptually, because that's the most frustrating thing about, well, it's not the most, the most frustration thing is that we've gotten attempted rapists, but one of the more frustrating things about all this stuff is due to how politically charged everything is and, you know, with good reason, I don't even think that's a bad thing, like with how awful Trump is and the setbacks to women's rights and gay rights and all that stuff. We should be fighting every way we can. But when it comes to sorting these things out, these discussions are too intertwined. So like about this incident, the political question versus the ethical question versus maybe the criminal question. Those are all they're all quite separate.

I mean, obviously they're intertwined, but they I think they they can and should be separated, especially when we want to look to the future and how we should deal with these things. If you know if it comes up in some other context, If next time it's not a Supreme Court nominee, but somebody else, you know, how would we think differently? So that's another thing I want to try to add that I haven't seen a whole lot of people doing.

0:03:55 Thomas: Who knows? Maybe they are. But I just thought it would be something I could add, which is trying to separate these arguments more so than people are. I think in all the chat shows and the MSNBC and the Fox News and all this, and I've had to absorb quite a lot of this, and it's very frustrating on one side, but even on the liberal side, oftentimes, you know, they have to.

I'm not even saying I necessarily blame them if it's a liberal senator, if it'S a politician. They're trying to use everything they can to just stop damage and to just Stop this nominee no matter what. And I don't know that that always does justice to the separate ethical questions. So that's kinda where I wanna begin, I wanna just come clean, I'm sure you all already know this, but just in case, I want to come clean and just say, if the question is, do I think that Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court, the answer is unequivocally no, but it was no last week, it was no two weeks ago, it wasn't long before any of this, and so I wanna separate that out. I don't think Gorsuch should have been on the court, I think the conservatives stole a pick from Obama, I don't think that pick should have happened.

Now, we didn't have the power to stop it, but if we're talking, you know, morally in the universe, where should we be right now? I do not think that either of these men should be on the Supreme Court.

We can even separate that out, so lets pretend the Gorsuch thing, that's, that went a different, lets pretend that's Merrick Garland right now, and now President Trump has nominated Kavanaugh, let's say, We'll I realize I'm facing a difficult thing when I think, oh, would there be a justice Trump could have nominated where I would have said, like, yeah, I'm good with them being on the court, because if we're honest, if us progressives and liberals, I think are honest with ourselves, the answer is pretty much no,

0:05:40 Thomas: I mean, actually, and a big part of that reason is because the conservatives have so, uh, Unilaterally brought, I don't know, a gun to a knife fight, I guess, when it comes to jurisprudence, because what they did is they formed the Federalist Society, they got everybody on the same page in terms of this just horrendous, and you can listen to opening arguments for all this stuff, I'm not going to go too much into it, because I'm, I mean, I am not trying to do the legal stuff here on the show, but the fact is that the conservative movement is so, in my opinion, just ruined in terms of jurisprudence because of the way that they find justices. So I'm virtually never going to support a Supreme Court justice because, a conservative Supreme Court Justice, because that pretty much means, there's no such thing as like a moderate one, you know, like that pretty Much means they want to do away with Roe v.

0:06:36 Thomas: Wade. That pretty much Means they want To do away With gay rights. Maybe not. Maybe that's an issue that, okay, maybe there would be a more moderate conservative who would understand, you Know, somebody like Kennedy, I guess. But when I think about it, really, a conservative justice that would have made sense would be Merrick Garland.

Like, Merrick is actually pretty middle-of-the-road, conservative jurisprudentially, as they say, that's somebody who I would support, you know, because there's a certain amount of it that's like, well, when the country voted a certain way for the president, they decided that they wanted that person, more people, well... more people. More... We'll be right back.

Landscape slash people units in like Montana or wherever the hell, more of those things that make up the electoral college wanted Trump, that's what actually happened, not more people, but that's the system we have, so there's a certain amount of it that's like, well, if the other side does win, They get to have their say, and then if we win, we get to our say when it comes to a Supreme Court justice. All this is to say, and I, I should have gotten to the point sooner, but all this is to say that Kavanaugh, there's no world in which I want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

So it's, I, I'm going to admit that, and I'm not going to pretend as though it's like, oh, well, he would be for, yeah, I would support him, but he's got this accusation. So therefore he's unqualified. We got to get him out of, no, I mean, for me. I wouldn't ever support, like, there's no world in which I would support him. So I'm admitting that now, and then what I want to do is I want think about a hypothetical.

I want to imagine that this is President Hillary Clinton, maybe, and that this person is not Kavanaugh, but it's a very, very liberal justice in the same circumstances, who has incredibly liberal credentials and supports all the cases that, you, they're going to protect gay rights,

0:08:30 Thomas: They're going protect Roe v. Wade, they are going to try to fight back against this war on women, this war of Roe v. Wade, that kind of stuff. They aren't going to allow Christian bakers to do whatever the hell they want because they believe in a magic sky god that they think tells them that they can hate gay people, all that stuff. Like, it's somebody that I would think of as just, this is a great, and, you know what, it's like, it very much relates to the Al Franken case, now that I think about it. We don't, we almost don't need a hypothetical, because the Al Al Franken thing happened, and I covered that extensively. And at the time, I supported Al Franken after it was one accusation with, I don't even, I forget if there's a name attached to it at first, and there wasn't a picture or anything. And it was 1 person. I said, well, I do not think he should resign just yet.

0:09:16 Thomas: That is a little too, I feel like, you know, that could very easily cynically be a conservative doing it or whatever. And then the minute it was more than one and then Then there was picture evidence in one, and there was a woman who said she supported Franken still, like she would have voted for him even though he definitely did this. It became so clear that these women would have no reason to make all this up. That, ultimately, I'm glad he resigned.

Now, bring it back to my hypothetical liberal justice. So, with that as the setting, I'm just gonna give the quick basics of what happened so that we're all on the same page.

I keep going back and forth where to start exactly and how to go through it, whether I go chronologically in terms of the words of the victim or what, and you know what I think I'm going to do is just go based on what I don't think anyone is disputing, let's start with the facts from the testimony, from the letter, from what the victim has said, and by the way, she's a professor, she is distinguished, she She's very trusted. She's impeccable credentials. I'll get to that in a minute because she has, to my mind, way better credentials of honesty than Kavanaugh. So we'll more on that later. But Christine Blasey Ford is her name.

And what I don't think anyone is disputing is that in 2002, she married her current husband and her husband said that even then, and in fact, even before then, sometime in their their early relationship, since they were married in 2002, we can assume it was a little before then, she said that she had been the victim of...

A physical abuse are the words used in the Washington Post interview, an article, so it, whatever happened affected her enough to where it was an issue for her and she told her husband that early in their relationship.

0:11:10 Thomas: And as if that weren't bad enough, 10 years later, they're in therapy, and it's such a weight on her, it's been so detrimental to her well-being, now, of course, she's accomplished a lot in life, and, and its incredible, she once again has a position of stature, she is a professor, she has been written in peer-reviewed articles and all this stuff, so she has accomplished a a lot. But it sounds as though from her testimony that this affected her a tremendous amount. So something significant happened to her. Again, I'm just going on based on facts. I don't think anybody's arguing. Something very significantly traumatic happened to Her. And it's been an issue for this long. And she told her husband when they first got together, she in therapy in 2012, she reveals what it was.

0:12:00 Thomas: Now, of course, this is where people will disagree, but we can at least say that these facts are corroborated. So in 2012, in therapy, she finally divulge the details of the attack, she says she hadn't tell anybody until then, and she provided, the therapist, well, the therapists provided, with her permission, provided the notes from that session in 2012 to the Washington Post, they've been reviewed, and they don't mention Kavanaugh by name, but she, She says it was him.

She presumably didn't have any reason to have the therapist know the name of the person, but she said she was attacked by somebody, said it was Kavanaugh, somebody she was worried would become maybe a Supreme Court justice down the line, because at that time he already was a federal judge, so that's a pretty prominent position, especially It makes sense that she would have taken notice and been worried that he could someday be on the Supreme Court. Now let get to, what she alleged actually happened, and I'm realising as I am going through this for the 10th time, what's she doesn't remember has been, I think, wildly exaggerated, because if you just kind of absorb this story from multiple, you now, media sources of whatever, I was under the impression that she couldn't quite remember, you know, which summer it was. She couldn't remember where it was, that kind of thing.

But really, all she doesn't remember is whose house it was and that seems pretty reasonable. She says she believes it's in 1982, the summer of 1982. Now, you Know, she's not a hundred percent on that, but she says she believes that that's when it was when she was 15. And she says that, you know, people, this was a culture of high school, something I can't relate to at all, because this was not at all how my high school experience was, maybe it was for some people, but this weird private school, like drinking is kind of okay, plus it was, you know, 1982, so drinking was really not as frowned upon as it is now in high schoolers and, and that kind of thing. And in fact, there's even somebody said there's... there's even like yearbook photos where like the students are holding alcohol in yearbook, that kind of thing. So different time.

But she knew Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge as friendly acquaintances in these private school social circles, and they, she often spent time, she says, in the summer, in that summertime at the Columbia Country Club pool in Chevy Chase, where, So, again, at first when I heard she didn't remember, like, where it was or whatever, now I'm reading it again, she said she doesn't recall who owned the house, and that, I mean, that strikes me as a totally natural thing in the course of, you know, I remember my college partying days when you're kind of walking around, you've had a little bit to drink, and you end up, someone's like, ah, let's go to this other person's house, well, okay, sure,

0:14:48 Thomas: And then you end walking into somebody's apartment or something, I can imagine that kind of thing, where she legitimately doesn't know whose house it was, but that doesn't make it any less less likely that she's remembering a real thing that happened. So I just want to point that out because even, you know, me in reading all this, at first I had a totally different impression of how much she remembered, but it sounds like she just doesn't know who owned the house, but she She might not have even knew. So she says this was just a small party in like a small family room where she, it's her, according to her, it was her, Kavanaugh, Judge, which is so confusing because he is a judge, but Mark Judge is a friend, and two other people, now this is interesting because I haven't, as of right now, as a recording, nobody that I know of has found these people or they haven't responded because as of this Washington Post interview where she first became public about this.

0:15:46 Thomas: They said they contacted these other two people who she named, but they didn't respond. Be interesting to see if those people end up breaking their silence, again, as of now they haven't, but that, that would be interesting, but anyway, and then she says that, uh, she can't remember if they followed her up the stairs, or if they were already waiting for her, I don't But she says she went up to use the bathroom which was upstairs and at a certain point, I don't know, she doesn't say if it's before or after she used the bathroom, but they were upstairs and they pushed her into a bedroom and then onto a bed and with loud music playing, they turned up the volume and Kavanaugh held her down with the weight of his body and tried to take her clothes off but was super drunk and Judge was across the room laughing, laughing maniacally she said Here I'll just read.

She said she yelled, hoping that someone downstairs would hear her over the music, and Kavanaugh clapped his hand over her mouth to silence her. At one point, she said Judge jumped on top of them and she tried unsuccessfully to wriggle free, then Judge jumped onto them again, toppling them, and broke away.

She says, she said she locked herself in the bathroom and listened until she heard the boys going down the stairs, hitting the walls, she said, that after five or ten minutes she unlocked the door and made her way through the living room and outside, she isn't sure how she got home.

Also said she was worried that Kavanaugh might accidentally kill her, so she feared for her life, she was terrified, she knew she would be in trouble with her parents, she was only 15, so she would be in struggle with her friends, so she couldn't tell anybody, she didn't want to tell anybody, she just kept it to herself and tried to just look as though nothing had happened. I'm trying to stay on track with this storytelling, but put a pin in this because I just can't help it.

0:17:31 Thomas: There's so many, there's so many different and really unnecessarily cruel ways that a lot of Republicans and everybody, but, but a lot are mainly Republicans are just discounting the experiences of women in all of this. And it's one thing to say this didn't happen, or she has the wrong person, which I'll, I'll get to in a second. That's one. I still disagree, but that's one thing. And then there's another, and it's even unnecessary. It's pointed out very brilliantly in this article.

This is a Slate article by Lili Loofboro, who I wasn't familiar with, but it's a brilliant article, it's called, I think it's tongue-in-cheek somewhat, but, Men Are More Afraid Than Ever, it is in Slate, I'll throw the link in the show notes, but she talks about the fact that, like, Republicans could just stick to the, nah, didn't happen, like that could just be their thing, nah didn't happened, nah did not happen, I would still disagree, but at least that would be their thing, nope, didn't happen, but unnecessarily, Several Republicans have decided to not just do that, but also say, also, it doesn't matter if true.

Essentially, even if true, it's not serious. There's words like horseplay. Ah, just some horseplay, horseplay that traumatized a woman to the fact, to the extent that she was in therapy in 2012. So that, that would be what at the time, 31 years later or so, 30, 31, years later, she's in therapy about it. Like that's, that's not horseplay play. This slate author points out I think rather brilliantly that it's not just enough for some people to deny this happened, because that would almost see ground that like it is a serious thing.

0:19:14 Thomas: If it did happen, they want—that's not enough for them. They want to fight the fact that it would even be a serious things. So that's why you get these things like horseplay. And then here's a great quote just quickly from, From Franklin Graham, saying, this is, this, this mind-blowing, here's his quote, Well, there wasn't a crime that was committed, these are two teenagers and it's obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away.

0:19:41 Thomas: Wow, that's the, I mean, this is honestly the kind of thinking, I'm not normally the, you know, check out this right-wing idiot saying this show, like, I, I think maybe we should, we all should be, because they're in power and there's too many right- wing idiots saying stupid things, but, like, imagine not even listening to the woman's statement, it's, this so mind-blowingly patriarchal and sexist and misogynist, I don't, I can't even deal with it. Lots of people have been tweeting, a lot of women have been tweeting, and actually men too, that are just like, I don't know how women aren't just constantly in a rage at all times about this, and yeah, I agree. I don's know how women aren' just slapping people all the time when you see some of the stuff.

0:20:27 Thomas: So asshole Franklin Graham says it's obvious that she said no and he respected and walked away. In what, where is that coming from? There's not, there's no version of the story that's that, there's no, it's not like he put, because Kavanaugh flat-out denies that this even happened, that he was even there, now, none of this happened, but so he's just making up, that's the level, that's patriarchy level, misogyny level 99, like you've maxed out your misogyni when you, you, yeah, it's not even like, no, it didn't happen, it's that you, you rewrite and come up with a different version of a woman's own story and just tell it like, well, here's what's obviously what happened, is, you know, she, he's obviously, she said no and he's respected and walked away, even though that, that information is nowhere in anyone's story. Amazing.

0:21:25 Thomas: Here's another one from Fox News columnist Stephen Miller, saying, the accusation was drunk teenagers playing Seven Minutes of Heaven. I don't think in seven minutes of Heaven the girl later goes on to need therapy decades later and be haunted by the experience and have, you know, anxiety and some PTSD symptoms, that's, no. No, once again, just taking a version that's nowhere and just deciding that that's what actually happened. Okay, now back to what happened, because I told you about the 2012 thing. So, then, in July, July, late July, when Kavanaugh's name was in the mix, I think it was just before he was nominee, but opening arguments, Andrew knew it was Kavanaug, but when his name was was in the mix for the next Supreme Court justice after Kennedy retired.

0:22:18 Thomas: So she contacted the Washington Post through their tip line in early July, as I was saying, and... And... also sent a letter to Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee. In her letter, she said she wanted to be anonymous, and she didn't want her story, she wanted her story to be kept confidential, so, that's what she told the post, that's what she told Feinstein.

And it's important because another focus of Republicans right now, of some Republicans, mainly Fox News Republicans, is this idea that this is some play by Democrats, which it's actually not. Furthermore there also is this guy for the intercept, not Greenwald, but another of the intercept people, who wrote that Feinstein was like withholding evidence from the committee and all this stuff, and it turned out, and actually it was because of this reporting, Someone leaked it, eventually enough details got out, despite the fact that the victim, Christine Ford, said, I don't want to be public with this. And can you blame her?

Look what has happened now, again, sorry, jumping in time, but look at what's happened now, she's had to move out of her house because of death threats, because that's what happens when you get abused by somebody who is powerful, is you then get abused again just for maybe thinking about telling somebody, left having been branded as the side of outrage, you know, whether it's Nike signing Kaepernick, and therefore people on the right lose their minds and pass laws, they pass laws and, like, ordinances banning Nike, and yet the left is supposed to be the side of outrage.

0:24:06 Thomas: And when a well-respected professor of psychology with a spotless record and who's been peer reviewed and who has a family and all this stuff, when she, again, against her will, because she was outed by the press, when he tells her story of being abused, sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh, she has to leave her home because of death threats. And yet the left is the side of outrage. Unbelievable. Anyway, people gave Feinstein a lot of crap for her handling of this, but Ford has said that Feinstein did what she wanted her to do, so Feinstein is right, and anyone else is wrong, because she did what the victim wanted, and that's what's important, that's what matters, because, can you blame her?

I mean, Christine Ford, she decided, she made the calculation that this isn't going to make a difference, she, she decide, you know, they they have the numbers anyway, this won't change the proceedings. This won't change whether or not he becomes a Supreme court justice. So how about I avoid the part where me and my family have to freaking relocate because we're facing death threats. She decided it's not worth it. Can you blame her? I absolutely do not blame her in any way.

I mean, maybe if like, maybe if this would make some difference, you know, or if she knew it would make a difference, even then she's under no obligation to subject her and her family to that. But this is why one of the tweets I saw early on that I retweeted, this is why I think she's a she's a hero. I mean, she she knows she's going to get destroyed online and by these all these Trump a-holes for this.

0:25:45 Thomas: But, you know, she's courageously going to battle through it, and all for probably nothing. So it's courage, and it's not even for, it's not for her personal gain. That's the thing that so many people, I don't understand why they, they still can't get it into their skulls that there's nothing in it for women to make a false allegation like this. But that's what happened, it was going to just stay confidential until reporters, uh, somebody leaked it, again, not Feinstein, so somebody else had access to the letter, at least enough to give details that then led people to track down her and suspect her identity, and she said that once somebody came to her house and, like, stopped her after class, that's when she decided, okay, well, the story is being told wrongly now, in public, so now I guess I have to come out, and talk about it, even though I didn't want to.

0:26:42 Thomas: About why I believe this story pretty overwhelmingly, and I want to kind of go through, I've gone through a few things already, but the fact that there is the therapist notes from 2012, the fact the husband testifies, I keep saying testifies, then nobody's testified, yeah I probably shouldn't have said that, the husband attests, I should, that's a better word, that she told her about this abuse before 2002, and then again in therapy, and the notes corroborate what she said. And there's just no reason for her to make this up. There's no reason. And by the way, this angle that, even if you want to believe this hard right-wing angle that this is a Democratic play, you know, what will these Democrats think of next?

0:27:29 Thomas: She said she didn't want to go out on the record. And then why would Feinstein, the Democrat, have kept the letter secret here's another thing. There's no chance that we can stop this proceeding if indeed this were fake. So, like, imagine this was nothing, imagine it was totally made up, which it's not, but just pretend in the idiot Tucker Carlson world, the The Democrats just, we found an actor to, you know, who did a great job, real method actor, got into the role, you now, became a professor, had an esteemed career for years. Now she's activated. We've activated her. You know, some beeper goes off in her brain or something.

0:28:15 Thomas: Democrats need you to activate, to take down a spotless Boy Scout in Kavanaugh. And then And furthermore, this operation is it's not that, you know, she's going to make an allegation, make it, by the way, make it more serious than it was, make it so that he was older, you know, so that it wouldn't be easy to say, oh, well, he's 17, you know, that kind of thing, by the way. And the story includes his own friend. So this is something people point out that I think makes a lot of sense. Why, if this was a made up thing, why would she put is the really the only witness to the actual event was his friend who could exonerate him, really. That's not something you would do if you were trying to make up an accusation.

0:29:04 Thomas: And disregard the fact that we decided not to act, we, I guess we lost the button that activates, uh, Christine Ford for her, this, this Manchurian role that she's playing, we forgot about it during Gorsuch, by the way, we just forgot, oh, whoops, did we have a button, oh man, I forgot about that button where we could activate somebody, or, or maybe, we didn't have a, a sleeper in his, you know, past, so it has to be some, we had, the Democrats must have activated enough of these sleepers that are, that are in these people. It's just, this is so mind-blowingly stupid. I mean, I was just kind of playing it out just for fun, but I can't even, you can't even do it. Like it's so beyond unbelievable that, that this would all be made up. But anyway, the point I was trying to get to, which I didn't get to yet, was even if all that were true, we can't do anything.

0:29:55 Thomas: It doesn't matter. They can still just confirm him on like Thursday or next, I think, what is the scheduled. Next Tuesday or something. Next Thursday. Whatever. A week. We're not even close to where we would somehow need to get to to like stall this out. The theory is, oh, we can delay this past the midterms. Well, Even if we did that, there's the lame duck session, there is no way we are going to delay this until January, once again, if it were made up, you know, like, if presumably this is all nonsense, Democrats do not have the power to do that, like maybe you could argue that we are able to delay a couple days because Republicans know how bad the Anita Hill thing was, on some level, by the way, maybe I'll get to that.

0:30:46 Thomas: Some Republicans don't. Laura Ingraham doesn't understand how bad that was. She, I saw a video where she talked about that as just a, you know, asking the tough questions to Anita Hill. Like that's how she presented it. Asking the tough question. Oh my God. It's amazing to me when you go down the rabbit hole of actually watching these conservative assholes for a minute and you see just how backwards they still are. And yeah, we're both in echo chambers.

They're They're in an echo chamber, I'm in an echo chamber. Why? Because it's unpleasant to try to go outside of that and see people who think that the, you know, 12 men who asked Anita Hill whether she was a spurned lover or whatever, were just asking the tough questions and absolutely didn't treat her with dignity or respect and ruined her reputation, by the way, and allowed Uh, Clarence Thomas to testify before and after so that he could easily just have the last word and make it just as though she was totally off base, as though that was just asking the hard questions is absurd. So, I, this may come as a shock to some people, but I hope, I hope you all realize that no matter what with this, we're not stopping this, it's not happening, the, the best case scenario is they just withdraw Kavanaugh, nominate somebody else, and it goes through, and that goes through.

And it, and, it'll be somebody as bad or, well, you can't get much worse, honestly, they keep, people keep presenting it as though, it, it sort of like the Trump-Pence argument, like, well you can impeach Trump. Because then we would have president Pence. And my answer has always been, yes, Pence may be worse in certain ways, but first off, I don't care. What I care about is what's right. And what's right is Trump shouldn't be president.

0:32:30 Thomas: He just should not. He is, uh, for many reasons, but not to go down that road. And the same thing applies here. I don't believe somebody who attempted to rape someone and doesn't seem to care about it or acknowledge it or whatever. Uh, I don't think they should be on the highest court in the land, even though that means the next nominee could be just as bad. But I don't think the next nominee could be much worse. It's actually not possible.

That's something the mainstream media, in my opinion, with my experience over on Opening Arguments, I don't believe the mainstream is that good at putting into the proper context how bad these conservative justices are. They're all horrible. Like, everybody on that list is a a handpicked originalist from the Federalist Society who probably thinks the world is 3,000 years old for all I know, who's going to allow cake makers, Christians to do whatever they want and refuse service to anybody who's gonna try to get rid of Roe. I mean, that's just, whoever it is is going to be that. So honestly, the marginal difference that there could be, like, oh, let's take a Kavanaugh because the next person could be slightly worse in some respect. I don't, I, that's not, that's not the important question. The important question isn't what should we do to get the best bad person on the court, or should we ignore sexual assault because it'll be slightly better for the court. No, the question is, should you be able to get on the highest court in the land with this on your potential record? And if true, my answer is no.

0:34:13 Thomas: I'll talk more about that later. So that's what I care about. But the best case scenario, again, is just that he, they withdraw his name from consideration, and then it goes to somebody else. We're not, I hope no liberal listening is under the impression that we can stop a nominee. We can't. We don't have the numbers. We needed to vote in 2016, and we didn't, so we can't do anything. That's the harsh truth. And I'm not even talking about Hillary.

Even if we just voted the Senate to be 51 senators, then we could have done something. We could have gotten Merrick Garland through, and then if we wanted to go real nuclear, we could've decided Trump doesn't get any Supreme Court picks. Or, well, rather, Kennedy probably wouldn't have retired in that case. But anyway, the point is, we blew it. We'll be right back. So, back to why I believe this story, the strongest defense, and the one that I think some Republicans have been using, and I imagine eventually it'll be probably what Kavanaugh will say, if he's indeed forced to say anything, I don't know if he will be, but I think the strongest defence is that she has mistaken him for someone else, mistaken identity, and you think, on the surface, you think well, it's been 36 years, is it something like that? 36 years? Makes sense. 36 years ago, a drunk night, potentially drinking. Who knows? She could have just mistaken, got the wrong person. Maybe somebody else did it. And at first when I was thinking about it, I was like, it's hard to argue with that possibility.

0:35:46 Thomas: And then I was thinking about it. And I came to my senses and realized there's 0% chance that she has the wrong person. I really, I really do think so. You know, I'm thinking back to the first time I ever got drunk, and it's been almost 20, probably 15 years at a stupid, you know, party full of teenagers, and I can remember just about everybody I interacted with at that party, and that's, the first I got drunk as a kid not really even knowing how that worked or what, you you know, how, how to hold my liquor or do any of that. And nobody freaking attacked me. If I had been attacked, I would never forget who it was. And maybe, you know, I'm bad with names.

0:36:34 Thomas: Maybe I'd have to refer to the yearbook to kind of remember who was there and be like, oh yeah, it was that person. But you have a yearbook. She has a year book. She used it to remember some of the other people at the party, I think. And I would never forget. You would never ever forget who that was. I think there, you know, at first it was interesting. At first I did think like, oh, well, you you know, that's, it's reasonable to think it's been 36 years. How could she remember? And then, you know I've, the truth is I've just never had a trauma like that. And now that I'm reflecting on it, I think you absolutely would remember. You would know who it was. She knows who it was and she's not remembering. Here's the thing. People are, people are approaching this as though she's thinking back to a random night 36 years ago and trying to remember details.

0:37:19 Thomas: Like if somebody somebody asked you, Hey, what happened 36 years ago? That's older than I am. Actually, I'm only 32. But if somebody asked me even like last year, I wouldn't remember, but let's say somebody asked me, Hey in 2005 or six or something in college, or maybe in high school, 2000, I was like the two thousands. What happened on this night at this party? I'd be like, I have no idea. I don't remember that, but that's not really what's happening. It goes the other way. It works the the other way. You remember these significant events, like somebody attacking you and you fearing for your life and you locking yourself in a bathroom for 15 minutes and being traumatized for, again, your entire life. You Remember that and you remember who it was.

0:38:05 Thomas: And then you might not remember exactly whose house it was or something, or exactly the names of certain people, or how you got home, or like precisely what day of the week it was, maybe you don't remember all that, but you remember what happened and you remember who it was. I think that is the line of defense they will go with. You know, because it's the way to kind of, you know, sort of s- respect the victim, but still say she's wrong.

Like, it's a way to say, not that she's making it up, but oh, you now, she's just got the wrong guy. I'm sure that all happened to you, uh, Ms. Ford. I- I'm- I am sure that was very traumatic, but you got the right guy. It's a kind of way to go part way. So that's what I imagine the official line will be. Thank you for watching.

But I don't believe it, and it's ultimately a he said, she said, and the weird thing is, normally, when you've got a Supreme Court Justice or a federal judge, he's currently a federal Judge, lest we forget, versus someone we don't know, usually, reputationally, it's easy for the judge person to say, well, you know, I have a sterling reputation, this other person is, you You know, they're not known. They're clearly whoever they are. But in this case, we know that this guy, Kavanaugh, was a drinker and a partier. And his friend, who is the other witness, the key witness in his defense here, says, I don't I didn't see any that. I don't remember that.

That didn't happen. This Mark Judge guy. Meanwhile, he wrote a book about his recovery from alcoholism called Wasted, Tales of a Gen X Drunk. Here, I'll read the little thing here, which described his own blackout drinking in a culture of partying among students at his high school.

0:39:48 Thomas: And he even had this character referenced called Bart O'Kavanaugh, who very clearly seems to be based on Kavanaugh, who puked in someone's car and passed out on his way back from a party. So people we know, and by the way, even the Brett Kavanaugh's own quote of like, "What happens in whatever my jack off rich white guy school stays in my jack of rich white guys school," that quote, you know, we know this was like a frat boy drinking blackout partier kegger, like all this stuff we know, this is not even in dispute, it's not in dispute by anybody.

So, on one hand, we have an impeccable witness in Christine Ford, who, again, has done nothing but live a respectable life as a professor of psychology, teaching at a, at a university, and uh, has no reason to do this whatsoever, and it took on great personal risk, didn't want the story to get out, the story got out beyond her will, she has corroborating notes from a therapist, she knows exactly who did it, she would remember that forever. That's on one hand. On On the other hand, we have Bart O'Kavanaugh, a drunk, and his friend, the key witness who was also there, who wrote a book about how he used to get blackout drunk. So here's the question. Why wasn't the answer from Mark Judge, why wasn't it the answer, no, I don't know? That's an important question. Imagine, now I'm thinking back to that party.

0:41:20 Thomas: Think back to the party that I told you about, it was the first time I ever got drunk. If somebody asked me, hey, Thomas, somebody at that party who is now going to be a Supreme Court justice somehow, that's never happening. It's in shit town USA, but I would pretend that that's happening. There's an allegation that they assaulted somebody at the party. You know what my answer would be? Even if it was somebody I was good friends with in high school, my answer Would be crap. I don't know. I don't know. You know why? Cause like, I do remember several things that happened to me and what I did and a few people who interacted with me. I have no idea if when I, you know, after I was blackout drunk, which I don't think I was, but who knows, uh, if when I was blackout drunk, pretend I was blackout drunk at that party.

0:42:11 Thomas: I have no idea what would have happened. Like you can't affirmatively say, yes, definitely. I was blackout drunk and this definitely didn't happen. That's just not an answer you can even, that's not a real answer. It strikes me as a little suspicious. Now, I know it can always be written off as, you know, he needs to just circle the wagons for his friend, Republican's gonna Republican, and he's gonna just defend his friend. But still, when you ask a guy who's on the record, and this Mark Judge guy, who's one the record of writing about his blackout drinking experiences in high school and beyond, and you ask him about his friend doing something, I mean, he was allegedly there, but either way, how could the answer be no, definitely didn't happen? Couldn't the answer be, I hope that didn't happen, you know?

0:42:57 Thomas: Side note, I haven't even mentioned the polygraph test because I think this is something we skeptics and we liberals, I hope we're not using this to our advantage, polygraph tests are not really reliable, so I think it is a little bit of evidence that she felt like she could just go do one and pass it, because I don't, you know, I think in popular conception they do something, something, and this is a side topic we don't need to get into, but they do do something, they are reliable but not infallible, so that's kind of the key, like, people can beat them, a regular person, like it's probably gonna work because most regular people do get nervous when they lie, but if you come across somebody who doesn't get nervous while they lie, well then it's not gonna work, so in her case I think it probably is good evidence, but I don't even think you really need to rely on that part because whenever there's a polygraph test that goes the way that we don't like, we're like, wow, those aren't reliable.

0:43:53 Thomas: And then when it goes away, we do like, you know, everybody's like, oh, it's quite about that part. So no, I'll stick to my guns. I don't think they're particularly reliable. I think in her circumstance as just unless she turned out to be some depraved, unfeeling, unflinching liar, I assume it would work, but I don't even think we need that evidence.

Although I think it is notable that she felt compelled to do that and wasn't worried about it at all and just did it and had an FBI, I think a former FBI agent administer it. So back to the characters of these people involved, so I guess I was on Mark Judge, I'll finish that up and then I'll go to why Kavanaugh can't be trusted at all, but Mark Judge not only has he written about his blackout drinking, he's also kind of a misogynist.

Here's some choice quotes from Judge, uh, "When my high school buddies and I got together and exchanged memories of that time, we found ourselves genuinely shocked at the stuff we got away with," Or he wrote this called, Hard Case Crime, The Beauty of Male Passion, Today's Social Justice Warriors Don't Like a Sexy Damsel in Distress, oh my gosh, here's the quote from that one, as if it already wasn't bad enough with just the title and subtitle there.

We've all climbed up window sills, driven all night, and gotten into fights over a girl, of course, a man must be able to read a woman's signals, and it's a good thing that feminism is teaching young men that no means no and yes means yes, but there's also that ambiguous middle ground, where the woman seems interested and indicates, whether verbally or not, that the man needs to prove himself to her, and if that man is any kind of man, he'll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty of uncontrollable male passion.

0:45:37 Thomas: Hold on, I gotta clean up some barf. Final thing on Mark Judge, he's not going to testify. Here, let me read the beginning of a Washington Post article that covers this well. Mark Judge sent a letter saying, I have no more information to offer the committee, and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford's letter. End quote. This article says the committee could still subpoena him and force him to testify if it wanted to. Thank you.

But Lindsey Graham, bullshitter that he is, is just making up stuff about why this is not, why they're not doing that, Lindsey Graham said, no reason to, he's already said what he's going to say, I wanna hear from her, hasn't she already said, what she's going say by that logic, but anyway, I want to hear from if she wants to speak, and I want hear from him, meaning Kavanaugh, and the Washington Post article said, this is really not how it works, Judge can deny Ford's allegations all day long publicly, and never be held legally accountable for his words. The only setting in which denials must be accurate at risk of jail time is if he's testifying in a courtroom or to Congress. Getting him on the record and under oath would seem to be good as a matter of course and when it comes to bolstering Kavanaugh's defense. So that's why Mark Judge isn't a very reliable witness, and I don't believe him. But now let's talk about Kavanaugh.

Kavanaagh is a liar. We know he's a liar, we have documents indicating he's a liar, he's lied in his testimony on a few counts. He lied in the first words ever to us as a nominee when, and people have pointed this out, you know, they pointed this on Pod Save America, I think, and elsewhere, but it's so true.

0:47:12 Thomas: It was such a small thing, the minute Trump announced him, he decided to lie in saying that no president has ever consulted such a broad list of people to consider for the Supreme Court nominee. And it's just not, we all know that's not true. It was like lying about the, uh, the sky is purple today. It's like, why did you say that? There's no, you didn't need to say it.

And we all know that's not true because Trump just uses the list that's given to him from whatever the Heritage Federalist nonsense conservative group that decided all his nominees. That's, that's where a guy, he didn't, Trump doesn't do anything. He just takes a list and then, you know, decides from there. A little bit of a white lie, it's still ridiculous, and he shouldn't have, it is weird to start your relationship with the American public in this capacity on a lie like that, but whatever, this is, to me, another minor one, but in this exchange between Kamala Harris and Kavanaugh, when she wanted to ask him about Cass with this law firm, I just love his lying here. It's so transparent. I absolutely love it. Let me just play it.

0:48:25 Clip: Have you discussed Mueller or his investigation with anyone at Kasowitz, Benson, and Torres, the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, President Trump's personal lawyer? Be sure about your answer, sir. Well, I'm not remembering, but if you have something you want to... Are you certain you've not had a conversation with anyone at that law firm? Kasowitz, Benson, and Torres, which is the law firm founded by

0:48:57 Thomas: Love this bullshit lie, this is like if someone asked me, Thomas, have you had a conversation with anyone at Puzzle in a Thunderstorm LLC, whatever, podcast group, and I'd be like, uh, I don't, ugh, and then I was trying to lie about it, I DON'T REMEMBER, HAVE YOU HAD A CONVERSATION WITH ANYONE AT PUZZLE IN A THUNDERSTORM, and I didn't even know what the thing was. This is his good friend's law firm, like he, that he works for. He knows who Kasowitz is, he knows these, this firm, this idea that he's like, Kas, oh, what, oh. Oh, what are the, hmm, I don't, oh golly, I, don't.

0:49:44 Thomas: It's a, it's an absurd act. Now, those first two lies are the least important, I just thought this illustrated what a dumb liar he is, but, uh, those are the least important because we don't, you know, we, nothing really ever became of that Kamala Harris exchange. Um, it might, uh, who knows, but she, she, what ended up happening was she had reason to believe he had had a conversation with the Katz Kasowitz attorney. Uh, and, but I guess maybe there never was proof. Maybe it was only rumors. And she was just trying to get him to go on the record and say no. So that if somehow the evidence came out, then he would later be shown to be lying, which is good. Senatoring, by the way, that's what you should do is get them to say stuff on the record.

0:50:29 Thomas: So then later you can say they were lying, but, uh, I never, the followup to this was in the next day of questioning, or maybe it was a couple of days after she asked him again, he just said no. So I guess somebody got their story straight or figured it out. And maybe he figured out that there wasn't any risk of someone finding out or who knows, but it didn't end up being a big issue, but It just was funny for him to like, feign that he didn't even know the law firm that he obviously would know. And by the way, he could have just said, oh no, oh, I said that I'd had conversation with other judges, and his reasoning was he needed to know everybody at that law firm in order to know whether or not he had a conversation, but he already said that he hadn't had a conversion about the Mueller investigation with anyone who wasn't like a judge, so that's pretty easy.

0:51:17 Thomas: Easy. Have his lying about saying Roe v. Wade is settled precedent, there's these emails that were released by, I think it was the Cory Booker ones, where he says, I'm not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as settled law, so he contradicted himself there. I am kind of going in ascending importance of lies. This is actually a huge one, at his 2004 confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee, I think this was first federal judgeship, he denied any involvement in the vetting of a controversial judicial nominee while serving as one of President George W. Bush's White House lawyers, that nominee, William Pryor Jr., had among other things called Roe v. Wade, the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history, and then we come to find out that Kavanaugh was absolutely involved, we got emails from the time, that time period showing that he was on the emails and he was involved.

0:52:10 Thomas: So he lied in his original confirmation for the federal judgeship, which, by the way, is why not only he shouldn't be, a reason he shouldn't be approved to the Supreme Court, but he also should be impeached as a federal judge, in my opinion, we should just do that, too.

And then perhaps the biggest lie, I'll just read from this New York Times article, in that 2004 hearing and again in 2006 when he was, oh, sorry, okay, that was the 2004, the 2006 one was when he, when he being considered for the federal appeals court seat, Mr. Kavanaugh told Congress under oath that he knew nothing about the extensive theft of secret strategy documents from Democratic senators' computers by Republican staffers.

As it turns out, he did in fact receive those documents or summaries of them, but he now claims that he had no reason to believe that they had been stolen, even though one email he got had the subject line "spying" and began, "I have a friend who is a mole for us on the left." So he's a liar. Fire. Conclude this part of it, yes, in the case of he said, she said, I trust the impeccable woman with nothing to gain and everything to lose over the lying, liar, sexist, drunk, blackout-drinking duo frat boys who definitely did this, that's where I am, I think it's incredibly reasonable to be very certain that this happened.

I want to clean up a couple things here, miscellaneous things I don't have a good place for, but there has been a little bit of fake news in this that, you know, I never want to fall for fake news, I actually, this one I had absorbed through the Twittersphere, but it turned out not to be exactly true.

And you might have fallen for it or heard it as well, which is, you know, this initial 65 women who signed this letter, by the way, great tweet on this was, I definitely didn't sexually assault anyone, here's 65 women signing a letter saying I treated them great, wait, why do you have that?, oh, no reason, I thought that was a great tweet that someone did, I saw over the weekend, but anyway, you might've seen in the news that it was reported that only two of the women of that 65 people, uh, in that letter still supported Kavanaugh. And that was actually misleading.

So this guy, Daniel Lipman of Politico, what he did was he tried to contact those 65 women and only two responded to say they stood by him. The rest either didn't comment or didn't respond. So, that's honestly pretty frustratingly inaccurate and misleading to say, only two said they still stand by him, yeah, well, you didn't talk to all of them, so that, that, honestly,

0:54:59 Thomas: That is fake news, that bad, you know, and that's kind of a liberally fake news so, I don't spread that falsehood, that's just a matter of someone not finishing their job, you know, and they, that person, Daniel Lipman, updated it to say okay, now five have gotten back to me, that like, like, yeah, I don't care. Maybe they don't want to talk to you. You know, that's not really accurate. It's it, when you were making the claim, it sounded like 63 women had changed their mind, which would have been a, a, in a huge story, but really it's just, they haven't gotten back to you, so that was a bit misleading, and then also, you know, there was this classmate, uh, who said, who kind of chimed in, in, uh in a post and then deleted it. This is from mediate.com, Um, uh, and I just want to comment on this Ford classmate claims Kavanaugh incident happened then deletes Facebook posts.

0:55:49 Thomas: And here's what they captured. I, somebody got it before they deleted it, but it said, "I graduated from Holton Arms and knew both Brett Kavanaug and Mark Judge. Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me. I remember her. I signed this letter supporting Ford, uh." In a now deleted tweet, the incident was spoken about for days afterwards in school. Kavanaugh should stop lying, own up to it and apologize." And then there's, there's more to, oh, that was a tweet.

And then this was a Facebook post. She said, "I did not know her personally, but I remember this incident did happen." She wrote, "Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details." So I think this is actually bullshit. Um, people are spreading this as though it's corroboration. Actually, I don't believe it because Ford says she didn't tell anybody, you know, she says she didn't tell anybody the details, and not only that, she says it happened during summer, so this person is saying that like they found out about it and then it was a buzz at school, uh, so honestly I don't, I don't find it, I mean it's possible, like maybe, maybe it wasn't through Ford telling people, but someone else knew, but then also it survived the summer of drama to be talked about the next school year.

Nah, I'm not, I've really not buying it. I kind of think, and the fact that they deleted the post, I kind of feel like they were maybe capitalizing and kind of bullshitting and not. So I don't believe that personally. I mean, maybe you believe it, but I don't.

0:57:21 Thomas: Um, so I, I personally don't believe that. I just want to throw that in there. I think that is also misleading and we probably shouldn't share it as though it's, uh, the gospel, especially when the person doesn't even want to stick by their words and deletes the tweet in the Facebook. Geez, I've rumbled on a long time, but there's more I wanted to get to. I wanna talk about the if-true argument. So, I think, I think it's very clearly true, in my opinion.

I think, it's the, the weight of the evidence for me. Again, this isn't a criminal trial, this is a public opinion thing. I think we can all be very reasonably assured that this happened. So then, I guess we transition to this idea, and it's not an insane question to ask, well, if somebody did something bad in high school, should they, you know, not be able to get this Supreme Court, well, by the way, they, they phrase it like should they be punished for it forever, you know, and meanwhile the dude is a federal judge, he's, it's it's a great, it's such a great thing, it's more brilliance pointed out by a lot of the the feminist authors I've, I've read in this. I think this one was from the Slate post that I linked. Again, check these out in the show notes. They're well written.

But the Slate article where she was saying the idea that there's just this assumption that he has this right to not only, not only like, it's not like he's trying to get a job at a Burger King, you know, he's being appointed to the highest court in the land, to a lifetime appointment. And he's already in a lifetime employment.

0:58:52 Thomas: So even if he doesn't get this lifetime appointment. It'll just be, oh no, he has to settle for the other lifetime judgeship on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. So this idea that white men just are entitled to power, and if you stop them, then you're depriving them of something they should have had. For me, I think it's very easy to say that somebody who clearly has so little regard for women, that he did this, and doesn't even, either doesn't remember, maybe he doesn't, or doesn't care, or would lie about it, or, by the way, here's another thought that I haven't seen anyone suggest, why wouldn't the next, say maybe this was just a drunken mistake, never mind the fact that, by the way, my wife saw a tweet that, that really resonated with her where it said, oh, he's drunk.

0:59:46 Thomas: It wasn't his fault. And oh, she was drunk, it's her fault, you know, is the kind of thing we do as a society. If a, if a dude's drunk and he sexually assault someone, well then, you know, it wasn't his fault. If, uh, if, uh, if a woman was drunk and therefore couldn't really consent, well, she was drunk, it was kind of her fault, so that's one point. But then let's pretend that it was, let's pretend there was a 17-year-old, even though I do not believe I could ever be any amount of drunk personally that would involve me covering someone's mouth as I'm assaulting. That's creepy assault. I just refuse to put any drug in me, any alcohol, anything. I don't, short of some crazy hallucinogens or something, I do not see how that could possibly ever happen.

1:00:33 Thomas: That's a, that's a rough thing. Holding someone down, covering their mouth. That's not a mistake, you know, but, but even if we were to grant that the next day, why wouldn't he have tracked her down and just said, oh my God, I can't believe what I did. I think I might've, did I, whatever, apologized at the time, tried to make it right. Tried to do anything, you know? Over the years, any time been like, oh, my God, I think I did this when I was drunk. I'm so sorry. Did anything, did anything, made any effort. But no, I'm not saying that would have made it better. It might have probably would have been marginally better. Like having having someone acknowledge they did something I think helps a little bit.

1:01:19 Thomas: I'm not saying it would have solved it, but the idea that he didn't even do that, it didn't even try to do that means that he doesn't care at all. And if he doesn't care about women enough to do that, he doesn't get to fucking decide to take rights away from women and the highest goddamn court of the land. That's easy for me. Yes, this disqualifies you. He shouldn't be Supreme Court justice. Now let me pretend for a second, again, I'll go back, I started this with the hypothetical, now I want to do it, let's pretend that this is just this super liberally person who's going to do everything we want to on the the Supreme Court. And this is, this is President Clinton, Hillary Clinton nominates this person. And then, uh, the same accusation from the same person surfaces with the same credibility, all that.

1:02:10 Thomas: I, as a liberal, I would say, well, you know, I don't, I don't think they should be Supreme Court judge nominate someone else say this is a little too troubling. I think it's okay. People, this is the exaggeration that's so funny. Oh, can you believe that all it takes is one accusation from somebody who has a fuzzy memory, doesn't even know what happened. Your life is ruined. And it's like, again, no, there's only nine Supreme Court justices. There are, what, 320 million people in this country.

If we think, we can find nine people who aren't, credibly accused of having sexually assaulted someone in their lives, I, think, that's a reasonable, for the highest up, now, again, we're talking, Burger King shift supervisor, you know, maybe, maybe the, oh, I was 17 defense, well, maybe that works, and, and you know what, I actually, kind of, mean that seriously, because I do believe in rehabilitation for actual, for felons, for people who were, were, you know, did something when they were younger, but serve their time and want to be a part of society. I actually do believe they should be able to get a job, you know, but that's not this. We're not talking about that.

We're talking about the highest court in the land, a prestigious lifetime appointment. I think it's safe to say we can find somebody who isn't very credibly accused of sexually assaulting someone in their lives. I don't think that's too much to ask. And as another, I know I reference all these tweets, but there's just great great takes that, that you see, uh, throughout the Twitter sphere. The one that was, well, if people are a little afraid that if they sexually assault someone in high school, they won't be able to be Supreme court justice.

1:03:50 Thomas: It's kind of fine with me. I, I don't see why that's a problem. You know, you don't bummer. You don't, you can still be president by the way. Apparently you can, you Can do a lot worse than be president, but hopefully let's, you know, let's fix that someday. And let's also make it so you can't be Supreme Court justice. I think that's reasonable. I think it comes right back to Al Franken. I loved Al Franken, I loved his book.

God, that's one of the most disappointing things to me. I would love to be able to talk more about his book because I found it so compelling. You know, it's just this story, I read the crap out of that book, I don't remember, let's see, it was about a year ago or so, and it was at least a couple months before the accusations came out, and you know, I almost would still recommend it, I mean, as weird as that is, or maybe with there's, there's probably, you know, maybe there's another person who's written a book that does a similar thing that I could find, but just this, his tale of going from comedian to getting involved and becoming a Senator and doing actual good. And he did as a Senator, Al Franken did good things. Uh, and anybody who did those things without also, um, you know, molesting people, that would be great. That would be good, but it would have been good.

It would have been a lot better if he could have done those good legislative things while also not being a creep, but it seems as though he was also a creep. But yeah, let's get rid of all the creeps in government, you know, in Congress and the Supreme Court, these should be prestigious, they should be high standards of conduct, and so, yes, if you are credibly accused of something like this,

1:05:25 Thomas: No, you'd, sorry, you'll have to, once again, you have to settle for an incredibly prestigious position as a federal circuit court judge, and by the way, I, if we had the numbers, if can, I think you should be impeached from that for lying about the stolen documents and all that. That stuff. So, I know that was kind of long, actually, and ranty, I didn't know it would be that long, but I just, I'm really fired up about this whole thing, in conclusion, fight, fight fight, do what we can, I don't, you know, she doesn't really want to testify, oh, actually gosh, I am not done, I want to say one more thing, what I think is going to happen, and what I think Republicans are trying to do, is they are trying set up a slightly less shitty version, only slightly, but a slightly less shitty version of Anita Hill, where what they do is they let Christine Ford testify.

1:06:15 Thomas: Then they have Kavanaugh jump on afterwards, say, I didn't do any of that. And they say, oh, well, okay. Well, I guess that's that. And then they confirm him because, but I think it's interesting that most of them, including even Trump, I think at times when he was coached, other times he said some stupid things like, oh. Oh, I feel so bad for Kavanaugh. Oh, poor guy. Yeah. I wonder why you relate to Kavanaugh so much to relate to the, to the sexual assailant. Interesting that that's the person you feel so badly for. Not the, not the accuser who is getting death threats, who was just a professor who has kids and a family and all that. Nope. The, uh, the guy who did the things, but anyway, uh, they're being pretty careful. And I think on some level, these, these Republicans, Not on Fox News. Fox News is so out there, and some of the crap I had to watch for this, again, is awful.

1:07:05 Thomas: But I think congressional Republicans are being pretty careful, pretty careful to say, well, no reason to attack her, you know, we know reason to, you know, but I just think she's, as Orrin Hatch said, she's just mistaken vaguely. And I think the reason is because they know they can get away with it. So they don't need to risk going down in history as the dudes who asked her whether she was a spurned woman or whatever, you know that kind of thing. I think they've learned like a 10% lesson of history, you know, about Anita Hill. They haven't learned a full lesson, but they've learned enough to know, okay, we shouldn't make it look bad, but what we can do is put her up there, ask her the question, you know, well, they would probably even be respectful for the most part, although I imagine it would be interesting to see if they stepped in it, but they would probably try to be respectful.

1:07:59 Thomas: Then, as I said, they would put Kavanaugh up there. He would say, "Nope, wasn't me." And then they would confirm him. And that would be their way of getting their justice in there and not being the villains in their minds that the Anita Hill people might've been, that's what I think they're doing.

Now, Christine Ford has said, "I don't even wanna do that, just have the FBI investigate," and I don, again, I dont blame her, and people are probably gonna be mad at her for not testifying if she doesn't, and, I, I dunno if she will, what, what is, what has to be gained, in that world that I just outlined, which is my theory, again this is just my speculation, but in that word, which I think is pretty reasonable to expect, that her testimony won't do anything, and she'll be on live TV, and they'll be grilling her about this crap, and she'll, you know, she doesn't remember, there will be things she can't say, you know, they'll ask her stuff she can't remember, it'll make her look bad to some people, not to me, but to some people, and it'll put her face to it, it'll put her family through it, you know, why would she do it?

I don't blame her for not doing it, I really don't, and we'll see what happens, but I think we should do, as Democrats, fight all we can, but be prepared for this to go through anyway, because they can. They have the power. We gave them the power by not voting. So that's a consequence of giving evil people the power.

Alright, well, now I think I've covered everything I wanted to cover. Thanks for listening. Make sure to send me some voicemails. I think that's probably coming up in, let's see, a while. It might be two weeks, it might be next week, depending on, I don't know, the calendar's weird. But make sure to

1:09:41 Thomas: Do those voicemail, the numbers in the show notes. Thanks listening, thanks for supporting the show, and I'll see you next week. Week.