Discussion: VA Lt. Gov. Fairfax Hired Kavanaugh's Law Firm. His Accuser Hired Blasey Ford's

and of course …Blasey Ford’s team will win this time because fairness…
or Dem accused
or something

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The law firm that represented Kavanaugh, eh? Sorry, you may be innocent but why would you hire that firm, being a Dem after what Barf’s confirmation did to a lot of the nation? Poor, poor choice.
Always believe the women. It’s the same story with the men, they always deny it.

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I don’t “always” believe anyone based on their gender, religion, politics, race, etc. Sure, in most instances of these assault cases the woman is being truthful. But “always”??? No chance, there have been plenty of cases where the woman lied, this is established fact. I will say that you “always” take the accusations seriously, that’s a definite.

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Virginia’s Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax,… has retained the same law firm that represented Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Hey they got their last guilty client off!

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Valid choice based on past results, I guess, but once again, not a good look. Virginia Democrats at the top seem to be an unusually tone-deaf bunch.

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Bad optics. Ok…really bad optics. Fairfax displays a kind of nervous aggressiveness when he doesn’t have to. His over aggressive reaction to the initial story is what prompted Prof Tyson to come forward. Had he shut his mouth and then gave a more humble statement that acknowledged the incident but maintained his innocence and expressed regret for how she felt about the encounter he would be in a better spot.

In addition, I actually don’t know why he needs to lawyer up like this. If you read her statement in a careful, abstract, coldly analytical way, her statement aligns to his. By itself that statement does not prove sexual assault or rape. Prof Tyson would need a lot more than that, and she’d probably have to amend that statement.

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Gosh, I can look back to the good old days of, like, last Saturday, when many here at TPM were saying things like “Oh, Northam can resign and we’ll get a better person in. The Lt Gov is a real progressive”.

It’s just amusing to watch the progressive attitudes. When a Purity Reign of Terror is going, no one is safe, and all kinds of crap comes out.

Ah, wonderful. It’s the old “Has he stopped beating his wife?” approach. It’s also called “kafka-trapping” - any defense against a clearly worthless, crappy, stupid accusation is simply taken as a demonstration of the truth of that accusation.

I am just amused at the inability of Purity Dems to consider, even for 1/10 of a second, that some accusations are crap, top to bottom. Like this accusation.

The accusation is clearly not crap, because both admit to an encounter. The issue is whether what Tyson describes regarding the issue of consent is accurate, whether Fairfax’s view is accurate, or whether it was simply grey. If I were Tyson’s lawyers, I’d be worried that her statement leads to ‘grey’, which means it would be tough to prove that case without more.

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No. I think women should be given the benefit of the doubt until their story is verified. But this sweeping attitude of believe the women is incredibly naive and sweepingly wrong. Women are just as capable of lying as men.

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Things that happen in sexual encounters, where both people enter into the situation voluntarily, are indeed difficult to judge. What is not difficult to judge is the number 15. That is the number of years since this occurred. If this was a problematic situation in which anything questionable occurred, it needed to come out, in 2004, when some investigation could be made. When 15 years pass, no, it was not a problem.

Sorry. Statute of limitations, in actual fact, has passed. I’m not talking legally - I’m not a lawyer. I’m talking about reasonable thinking. Retrospective re-evaluation of a situation cannot result in a change in one person’s thinking after 15 years. It simply is wrong to do this. It’s an assassination of Fairfax.

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It’s definitely a hit job on Fairfax, but is it undeserved? Probably not in the broad scheme of things. I think Tyson knows she can’t prove rape or sexual assault under the present legal standard, and she’s giving Fairfax a dose of #metoo to publicly shame him for what she believes was bad, disrespectful, overly aggressive and yes ‘rapey’ behavior. The last part is arguable, and Fairfax would probably win a case on those grounds (meaning it’s not provable, not that it didn’t happen), but that’s exactly Tyson’s point.

Men blow past lines and find convenient ways to use privilege to shield themselves from responsibility for conduct. Women are sending a message to men, that the law and society may protect you, but women will shame you if you step over the line. This is intentional public shaming on the part of Tyson and Fairfax has no defense to it, because he was involved in a sexual experience with Tyson that did not go well.

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And, a woman would want to come forward to be scorned and called a liar for what reason? Maybe I’m naive, but what’s to be gained by making these charges up. It’s not as if any women that get this kind of national attention are going to benefit in any way. Look at what happened to Dr. Ford. She went through hell and for what? She was trying to do the right thing to keep a very flawed character off the SCOTUS and that didn’t work out so well for her or us.
@trumpdog

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Anything where you wait 15 years to bring a charge is undeserved. This entire notion that anyone is vulnerable to any comment from some other person about things that happened 15, 20, 25, 30, 50 years ago is simply crazy. It’s like adults who sit there complaining about how their parents treated them as kids. The past is dead. If there was no police report, and the situation is he-said-she-said, I am very dubious.

Now, of course, some will say “what about sexual abuse of children by priests? What about the current issue of nuns being sexually abused by priests? Don’t those fall into the question you are raising?” Yeah, I’m troubled by that. When priests abuse children, that does take time to come out, and the same with nuns. The whole thing about nun abuse is totally new. They are talking about nuns getting abortions, having children. That’s amazing. There are clearly issues to be discussed there.

Razor says (to me):

  1. ego & impunity, 2) consciousness of guilt.
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Except she got more than $1,000,000 from go-fund-me. I’m sure that’s a consolation.

Yuck. She and her family receive daily death threats to this day and I still don’t think she’s been able to return to work due to being in hiding from credible death threats. Some “consolation.” She has to hire private security. You are acting like scum.

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Go Fund Me contributions to Dr. Ford so is $647,610, not $1,000,000.
Thank you.

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It’s a case by case basis. Saying unilaterally that women are to be believed is indeed naive.

As to why lie - I don’t know the motivations for lying. Some can do it for spite or for money (like the right wing group that offered money for women to come say Mueller sexually harrassed them).

And then there are instances of perspective, like the Anziz Ansar incident.
That’s why I think it’s wrong to kneejerk say ‘believe the women’.

As to this case she could very well be telling the truth, I don’t know. But he has a right to defend himself, as Kavanaugh did.