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Oct. 5, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
26:50
Kavanaugh Did Nothing Wrong
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So today is the day of the Kavanaugh vote and unsurprisingly the FBI found absolutely no evidence to support the claims against Kavanaugh.
So naturally the Republicans are happy with the investigation, the Democrats saying the investigation didn't go far enough, complaining that the FBI didn't interview Kavanaugh or Ford and just generally saying this wasn't enough time and the investigation couldn't be done thoroughly enough.
But again, what are you expecting to find?
It seems that all we're going to have either way are people saying, I think he did it, and other people saying, I don't think he did it.
That's the entire thing.
And unfortunately for the Democrats, if it's just one person's word against another person's word, we are going to presume the man is innocent until we can prove him guilty.
And if we can't prove him guilty, we're going to treat him as if he is innocent.
So the vote will be done today, and I don't know what's going to happen, obviously, because I'm recording this ahead of time.
But the BBC believe that it's going to come down to three Republicans and two Democrats who are undecided.
And the Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate.
The Guardian believes it's going to come down to two Republican senators.
As they say, Kavanaugh's fate appears to rest with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.
And she's reviewing the evidence along with Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Because I imagine all of the Democratic senators are going to vote in line with their party.
After all, they have already made up their minds whether there is any evidence or not.
And as Trump pointed out on Twitter, this is the seventh time that the FBI have investigated Kavanaugh.
And if he made it 100, it will still not be good enough for the obstructionist Democrats.
Well, he's not wrong, is he?
I mean, have the Democrats even asked themselves, what would they require from Kavanaugh for him to prove his innocence?
How could he prove to them that he is actually innocent?
Because at this point, again, it's just pathological on the left.
They need this to be true.
They need the allegation to be the proof to advance any of their agenda.
And this is putting us in a terrible place.
And again, they're making Donald Trump the voice of reason.
Well, I say that it's a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of.
This is a very, very, this is a very difficult time.
What's happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
It really does.
You could be somebody that was perfect your entire life and somebody could accuse you of something.
Doesn't necessarily have to be a woman, as everybody says, but somebody could accuse you of something and you're automatically guilty.
But in this realm, you are truly guilty until proven innocent.
That's one of the very, very bad things that's taking place right now.
Well, he's not wrong there at all.
I mean, the Democrats are being so extreme and so unreasonable that they are making Trump the voice of reason.
Yes, we should indeed apply the benefit of the doubt and presumption of innocence to the person being accused.
And I know the Democratic response is, yeah, but it's not a trial, it's a job interview.
Okay, if it's not a trial, why are you bringing criminal charges against the man?
And I would say the Democrats are supporting this with evidence, but they're not.
And I would say they're supporting this with corroborating witness testimony, but they're not.
They're taking this on faith that he did this, and it's the only thing they seem to have.
Look at the difference between Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein when talking about this issue.
The fact is that these allegations have not been corroborated.
None of the allegations have been corroborated by the seventh FBI investigation.
We will not be hoodwinked by those who have tried hard to smear this good man, to drag him through the mud.
And when that didn't work, they turned on a dime and started claiming his real sin was that he spoke up too forcefully in defense of his good name and his family.
It looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited, perhaps by the White House.
I don't know.
But the White House certainly blocked access to millions of documents from Judge Kavanaugh's record.
I know that.
And ensured that 90% of his emails and memos weren't available for the Senate or the public in the hearings.
It now appears that they also blocked the FBI from doing its job.
The difference in substance there is like night and day.
Mitch McConnell says there's no evidence.
You've provided no evidence.
The FBI investigation has turned up no evidence.
We are going to categorically assume this man is innocent.
And Diane Feinstein is basically like, well, I'm not sure, but it really activates the old almonds.
I mean, this is really not how I would have thought the nomination for a Supreme Court justice should go.
Surely the Democrats must understand that there should be some basic rules by which we organize a society.
And presumption of innocence is one of those rules.
We're not going to get rid of that because this isn't technically a court case and because it would benefit you to scrap it.
And another thing is by the way that the left has been treating Brett Kavanaugh's emotional testimony.
Apparently the man isn't allowed to get upset after being effectively accused of being a rapist without any evidence in front of the whole world when we're supposed to be talking about his record as a judge.
And how do people react to it?
Oh, we've got absolutely no time or patience for Brett Kavanaugh's tears.
You've got lots of time and patience for Christine Ford's tears though.
I saw many variations on this meme going around as low quality as this one is.
Cool as a cucumber for 11 straight hours of questions.
Shouting and crying in the first 20 minutes of questions.
And they say women are too emotional to handle important political jobs.
Well who says that?
I mean the problem with Hillary Clinton isn't that she's too emotional.
The problem with Hillary Clinton is she's a fucking corporate psychopath.
We came, we saw, he died.
Did it have anything to do with your visit?
No, I'm sure it did.
Are you really sure you want to compare Kavanaugh to Hillary?
Because from what I've seen, Kavanaugh seems like a regular, honest, moral guy, whether I disagree with him or not.
Whereas Hillary Clinton seems to revel in certain people being murdered.
Why they're going on about the amount of times he mentioned beer during the hearing is beyond me.
Regardless of Kavanaugh's motives, there's one thing we can all actually agree on.
Kavanaugh fucking loves beer.
Okay.
All right.
If that's meant to make me think he's a bad guy, it doesn't.
I happen to quite like beer myself.
Like, it's amazing that you're turning this man into some kind of martyr for being a guy.
Oh my god, Brett Kavanaugh once got into a fight about UB40.
How dare he?
He threw some ice at someone in a bar.
Okay.
Again, that sounds like Brett Kavanaugh being a guy.
Just a regular dude who, through his youth, ended up getting to a few fights and scrapes.
And you may have used a bit of foul language, something like this.
It's not making me think he's awful.
John know what I think sounds awful.
We have heard that a half a million children have died.
I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima.
And, you know, is the price worth it?
I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.
The New Yorker, the tears of Brett Kavanaugh.
Well, what happened to the left being the side of empathy?
Also, the New Yorker, the rage of the incels.
Incels aren't really looking for sex.
They're looking for absolute male supers.
Alright.
All right.
It's not that they're total fucking losers who can't even get laid.
It's that they're male supremacists.
Got it.
And again, I just want to reiterate, I'm not saying that Kavanaugh did nothing wrong, even though that's probably going to be the title of this video.
He did undoubtedly lie under oath about the amount that he drank.
I wasn't able to watch the testimony.
I was in an airplane, but I read the testimony the next day and I was struck as I was reading it that I know Debbie and Debbie Ramirez.
And I know from my experience with her that, at least from my perspective, there is zero chance that she is making up this story.
And I heard Dr. Blasey Ford's, or I read Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony, I heard some of it later, and I believe that she's telling the truth, but then when Brett started saying things about his drinking and his use of certain words, sexually oriented words, I knew he was lying because he was my roommate.
Well, sure.
You know, this is a time not long after Animal House was shown, and people drank a lot.
He went to parties and drank beer.
Many, many people did.
But there were even within that environment, there were people who were loud drunks, who were sloppy drunks, who were belligerent drunks.
But even by those standards, my memory of Brett was that he was on the far edge of this.
He was notably heavier in his drinking than other people.
But where Kavanaugh was undoubtedly lying about his alcohol consumption or the rudeness of the terminology he was using to describe women, it's not like Christine Blasey Ford wasn't also lying.
So an ex-boyfriend of hers claims that Ford helped her close friend prepare for a polygraph test.
And despite Ford's statement to the Judiciary Committee that she had never given tips or advice to anyone preparing to take a polygraph test, apparently in the six years that the two dated, Ford did not express a fear of flying or a fear of closed quarters, tight spaces, or places with only one exit.
Apparently he broke up with Ford when they were dating long distance and he found out that she had been unfaithful while she was living in Hawaii and she had continued to use his credit card that they'd shared nearly a year after the breakup.
So again, if we're taking allegations we haven't got any proof for as some kind of evidence about someone's character, it looks like now we're all standing knee-deep in shit.
They are both lying on some things.
It's very interesting how the polygraph keeps coming up as if that's some kind of reliable measurement of telling whether someone's telling the truth or not.
It's not, which is why we're not going to use it to determine innocence or guilt.
And once again, I have to laud Lindsey Graham for saying exactly the right thing.
You've humiliated this guy enough and there seems to be no bottom for some of you.
So it would all be over, Senator.
So why don't we document water and safety floats?
I found it strange that Ford had already apparently taken a polygraph test, which he apparently passed.
Which, again, doesn't surprise me.
I mean, she's a psychologist.
She seems to have coached people on how to pass polygraph tests for some reason.
And she's there taking one and passing it because she's just such an honest person.
And then this person's like, well, it'll all be over.
There was a polygraph test.
That is in no way a persuasive line of reasoning.
We are not going to believe one story or another based on the polygraph because it's not accurate.
It can be fooled, which honestly is the reason I think you're trying to push it.
The New York Times published an opinion piece saying that the Senate should not confirm Kavanaugh signed by over 2,400 law professors.
And so you're imagining, well, this is actually going to have an actual argument in it, isn't it?
They're actually going to give me some examples of what Kavanaugh has done wrong so the Senate and the public can make an informed opinion on whether Kavanaugh would actually be a good pick.
Right?
Wrong.
All they want to do is talk about his temperament when he was being interrogated like he was in some sort of goddamn witch hunt.
The question at issue is, of course, painful for anyone, but Judge Kavanaugh exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry.
Instead of being open to necessary search for accuracy, Kavanaugh was repeatedly aggressive with questioners.
Even in his prepared remarks, Kavanaugh described the hearing as partisan, referring to it as a calculated and orchestrated political hit, rather than acknowledge the need for the Senate faced with new information to try and understand what transpired.
Honestly, come on.
What new information do you have?
Nothing.
All you have is unsubstantiated allegations.
And that's all you're going to have, even after the FBI inquiry, which of course was not good enough.
There is nothing that you're going to be able to pull up that's actually going to prove this case one way or another.
So all you can do is go on about how you didn't appreciate his tone and demeanor when he was being grilled on whether he was a rapist or not.
You guys know you're accusing him of being a gang rapist, don't you?
I mean, you realise, you know, what are you getting so offended for?
I'm only saying you're a serial gang rapist as the meme goes.
The idea that he shouldn't be upset by this is crazy.
As you know, under two statutes governing bias and recusal, judges must step aside if they are at risk of being perceived as or being unfair.
As Congress has previously put it, a judge or justice shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be reasonably questioned.
These statutes are part of the myriad of legal commitments to the impartiality of the judiciary, which is the cornerstone of the courts.
We have differing views about the other qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh, but we are united as professors and scholars of judicial institutions in believing that he did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament required to sit on the highest court of our land.
Well, I thought it wasn't a fucking trial.
It wasn't a trial and he wasn't the judge.
And yes, this was disgusting political maneuvering.
And frankly, this letter seems to be as well.
Again, you're not talking about anything that he's actually done.
I don't know whether he's good or bad at this point in time because of what's been printed here.
Again, you are appealing to pathos and not Logos.
And I'm sorry, that's not how I make my decisions.
CNN reissued an article that they'd written back in, I think it was June, about Kavanaugh's particular positions and judgments and histories.
And to be honest with you, on most things, he just seems to be fairly centre-right.
He seems to choose his words quite carefully and doesn't seem to go too far off script.
The main concern I would have is, as the Hill points out, his views on privacy, and as again the memes go, the only thing that he's molested is the Fourth Amendment.
But again, I'm not an expert on his judicial history, but this is the closest thing I found to something that's deeply concerning.
And the thing is, they're trying to make Kavanaugh out sound like he's a deeply unreasonable man, and frankly, I'm not sure that he is.
He penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying, I'm an independent, impartial judge, but yes, I was emotional last Thursday.
I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, a husband, and a dad.
And yes, I can understand that.
He wasn't there as a judge.
He was there as Brett Kavanaugh.
He was there being judged on something that he was alleged to have done when he was 17.
And whether or not he likes beer.
He says, a good judge must be an umpire.
A neutral and impartial arbiter favours no political party, litigant, or policy.
As Justice Kennedy stated, judges do not make decisions to reach a preferred result.
In my country, that's not true.
But anyway, judges make decisions because the law and constitution compel the result.
Over the past 12 years, I've ruled sometimes for the prosecution and sometimes for the criminal defendants, sometimes for the workers and sometimes for businesses, sometimes for environmentalists and sometimes for coal miners.
In each case, I've followed the law.
I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.
I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge.
I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge.
I am a pro-law judge.
Now, again, I can't tell you whether that's true or false, because unfortunately, I don't know his history well enough, and all of this is going too fast for me to be able to spend the time to go through his entire legal background and do the required reading to understand what the hell was going on.
But I don't see anyone contradicting this.
In fact, this seems to be the general view of Kavanaugh.
He's actually not bad.
So what is the effect of this?
Well, apparently more people bleed Ford than Kavanaugh, probably due to a mass media campaign saying that she did nothing wrong in his telling the truth, whereas he lied about everything and is obviously a drunken rapist.
Because every time you think you've reached the bottom of the left-wing smear machine, they just keep going deeper.
NPR believes the results represent a shift from 91, where apparently the same thing had happened previously.
Clarence Thomas was the Supreme Court nominee then over Anita Hill and Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment in the workplace and 58% believed Thomas Moore as opposed to the 24% who believed Hill.
I don't actually know this case well enough to be able to give you any kind of information on it but I don't even know if that represents a necessary swing.
Maybe it was that she was particularly unconvincing and he was.
Unlike Kavanaugh and Ford apparently.
But the stupid thing that this is doing with the Democrats is probably going to counter their blue wave because what they have done in approaching Kavanaugh in this way and instead of actually trying to argue against what he's actually done as a judge, trying to argue against his personal life and his history as a young man, which seems to have been a pretty regular documentation of a young man to be honest, is got the Republicans out in force.
So a Republican pollster said that what the Kavanaugh controversy has done is to increase Republican voting intensity so that it is approaching Democratic intensity which is already through the roof.
Republicans perceive that Judge Kavanaugh is a man who has led an upright and honourable life, certainly as an adult, and feel like his reputation is being trashed and his nomination being railroaded.
Well, are they wrong?
How are they wrong?
Neither side appears to have told the utter truth during the Senate hearing, but really Kavanaugh seems to have nothing on him.
Nobody has actually proven anything.
He's got many character witnesses to the contrary.
Who am I supposed to believe?
So Matt Schlab, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said that Democrats don't just disagree with Trump.
They hate him and want him in prison.
The Kavanaugh confirmation is the personification of that.
You can't argue with that.
The Democrats absolutely do hate Trump.
They would love to see him in prison.
And yes, they do see this Kavanaugh confirmation as a kind of proxy war in order to continually wear away at Donald Trump's authority as president.
So are the events with Kavanaugh helping Republicans' midterm chances?
Well, this is an article by someone called Nate Silver at 538.
I don't actually know how useful this kind of analysis is going to be, but given how polling has been remarkably unreliable in the past few years, I guess this is as good information as any.
So the way this analysis is done is by aggregating polling and then extrapolating a forecast from that.
He says, Republicans have been favoured to keep the Senate all along, but their position has improved quite a bit over the last week in all three versions of our model.
Our classic Senate forecast, for example, Republicans are now 77% favourites to hold the chamber up from 68% before last week's hearing.
Again, I don't know how useful this is, but all I'm letting you know is there are voices who think that this might actually be aiding the Republican cause because the Democrats appear to be belligerent, lying snakes.
I can't imagine that it's not helping the Republicans because the things that the Democrats and the Democratic supporters are saying are just absolutely fucking disgusting and way beyond the realm of normalcy for any political party.
Why is a Georgetown University professor tweeting about castrating Kavanaugh supporters?
Come the fuck on!
I'm getting absolutely sick of the left just assuming that the allegations are credible.
This is published in The Atlantic.
The wrong question for Kavanaugh.
Everyone wants to know, did he do it?
But there's something more that people should be asking.
Ford's story is highly credible.
Kavanaugh denies it.
This is where we are.
On what grounds is it highly credible?
Because you fucking say it.
Not because she's got any evidence or any corroborating witnesses or even the details of when it happened.
Her story is not credible.
This appears to be a political setup.
Avenati has been planning this for ages, according to a leak from a few weeks ago, it was a few months ago.
Doesn't look like it is credible.
I'm really sorry.
And basically, this boils down to: does he empathize with women enough?
I mean, idiot celebrities like Amy Schumer are now going out leading protests and getting their dumb fat asses arrested.
Hi, Zola.
I'm here with your mom.
She loves you very much.
I think we're going to get arrested.
And we're so proud of you.
idiots They don't have a single argument They have, I don't like Kavanaugh because he's not on our team.
That's it.
That's all they're saying.
Look at those signs.
Apparently, hundreds of these morons have been arrested protesting him.
But I'm sorry, right?
There is no proof.
There's a reason I don't go around saying that Hillary Clinton was part of a conspiracy to murder Seth Rich.
Because as funny as the meme might be, there's no fucking proof of it.
In the same way, I don't go around talking about Petergate.
There's no proof of it.
The Kavanaugh thing, there's no proof of it.
And yet, here are thousands of people with hundreds getting arrested, protesting nonsense.
Something that they just believe on faith because vagina.
With what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?
100%.
Cancel Kavanaugh!
And of course how can gamergate figure into this?
Well, it turns out Mark Judge, the man accused of being in the same room as Kavanaugh when he was allegedly raping or molesting Christine Ford, was connected to Gamergate in some way.
According to Variety, he is a Gamergate supporter who argued that feminists want to ban men from having sexual fantasies.
Well, that's true, isn't it?
In 2015, Judge had criticized Anit Sarkeesian, labelling her arguments as overly broad, while suggesting the harassment campaign against Sarkeesian was disgusting, sad, and intolerable.
I agree.
He quickly pivots to how gamers absolutely demolished her points, citing Mr. Rebcion as one of the sharpest gamers to respond to her.
Good job, man.
And again, he did another one this year.
Why do feminist video game critics want to ban male fantasies, focusing on Sarkeesian?
But let's be fair, banning male fantasies is her entire platform as a feminist.
This is sexualizing women.
It has to stop because reasons.
Mark Judge has also woke on the idea of virtue signaling, and I tell you what, he sounds like he's a proper shitlord.
And then people started complaining that Donald Trump was mocking Christina Ford because her testimony he found unconvincing.
Okay, what's wrong with that?
Is there something wrong with political satire all of a sudden?
Are you going to explain that to Matt Damon and Saturday Night Live?
And to be honest with you, I actually thought Matt Damon's portrayal of Kavanaugh was pretty good.
I was really quite entertained by it.
The rest of the cast and crew, insufferable in every way, but Matt Damon was actually pretty good.
So Jonah Goldberg published this about the moral panic at National Review.
And again, he's right.
This is just a moral panic.
There's absolutely no grounds for any of this.
This is no different to the Christian right saying, ah, Satan's everywhere in Dungeons and Dragons and video games.
I mean, look at these stellar arguments from Jennifer Rubin.
With him screaming and interrupting senators.
Come on.
He didn't scream, did he?
I could imagine him putting his hand over someone's mouth.
Oh, my almonds are so active.
My noggins are jogging.
Is that how we're doing this?
You look like the kind who would probably drown her own baby in the bath.
I can just really imagine it.
Not very fucking fair, is it?
Not a very nice thing for me to say.
But you, 38,000 fucking likes on that.
Like, Jesus Christ.
What is wrong with you people?
I'll tell you what, we're gonna look at some of the things that the left is doing at the moment.
This is where the left is.
It might be time to retire the buzzword toxic masculinity.
Why?
Because all masculinity is fucking toxic.
And white people are such fucking racists that they prefer other white people on dating apps.
But apparently that could be changed, as Study says.
And let's be fair, if white people want to have sex with other white people, we have an ethical duty to make sure it's changed, don't we?
But careful out there, ladies, because apparently everyone is just getting raped everywhere all the time.
And so you really need to start thinking of other options.
Like, what if we have a 9pm curfew for men?
What would women do?
I mean, I've always thought, what would we do if we had a 9pm curfew for women?
It's something that's always on my mind.
I'm basically like, wouldn't it be better if a handmaid's tale wasn't just fictional?
Ladies, a question for you.
What would you do if all men had a 9pm curfew?
Dudes, read the replies and pay attention.
Hashtag me2, hashtag Kavanagh, hashtag Cosby, hashtag feminism, hashtag male privilege, hashtag shut the fuck up.
Oh my god, the mind reels.
Go dancing, take a walk, open the front door without fear.
What is wrong with you people?
You are living in the safest places in the safest time of all of history for women.
They've never had more rights and privileges than they do now.
And you are sat there acting like you need a fucking curfew for men because otherwise your lives are unbearable.
Honestly, you guys are going to justify bringing back patriarchy.
I swear to God.
And as the New York Times frankly amazingly printed, for once I am grateful for Trump.
In the president, one big bully stands up to others.
Because let's be honest, that's what this is.
The left has been bullying people like this in these kind of pack tactics for some time.
And it takes a twat like Trump to stand up to it and say, you know what, I don't give a shit, you're pricks.
I'm going to mock you back.
That's why Trump is such an important force in politics.
I'm grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy, and dangerous standard setting deployed by the opponents of Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.
I'm grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying.
I completely fucking agree.
That is wonderfully worded.
Because that is exactly what is happening here.
This is a great point as well.
I'd rather be accused of murder than sexual assault.
And this is what I was trying to say in the last video.
This is their nuclear option.
This is the option of last resort.
This is the one that they feel can't be beaten.
And this is why it is more important than ever that we have to say with firm moral conviction, because of the complete lack of evidence, the inconsistency in the allegations, and the total lack of witnesses or corroborating accounts,
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