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October 06, 2018 02:25 PM UTC

Boulder's Deborah Ramirez Condemns Kavanaugh's Confirmation

  • 47 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (left) meeting with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) in late July.

With the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court taking place today, Deborah Ramirez of Boulder, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct while the two were students at Yale University but whose allegations were swept under the rug during the FBI’s pro forma investigation, released this updated statement:

Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh. As I watch many of the Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is US Senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior. [Pols emphasis] This is how victims are isolated and silenced.

But I do have corroborating witnesses speaking for me, although they were not allowed to speak to the FBI, and I feel extremely grateful for them and for the overwhelming amount of support that I have received and continue to receive during this extremely difficult and painful time. There may be people with power who are looking the other way, but there are millions more who are standing together, speaking up about personal experiences of sexual violence and taking action to support survivors. This is truly a collective moment of survivors and allies standing together.

Thank you for hearing me, seeing me and believing me. I am grateful for each and every one of you. We will not be silenced.

To the victor goes the spoils.

Personal views of this epic struggle and its end in victory for Kavanaugh will vary sharply, but predictably along partisan lines. An important but as-yet unmeasurable exception to that rule will be how independent women voters in particular respond to this outcome. Kavanaugh’s outlasting of the serious allegations against him places partisan team sports cheerleading in direct conflict with deeply-held apolitical values about respect for women–and about believing women who have been victims of sexual violence. The betrayal of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez by a Republican-controlled Senate that never wanted to acknowledge their story is a lesson that millions of women who followed this battle can never forget.

For all the talk of this pitched confirmation battle energizing downtrodden Republican base voters ahead of the 2018 midterms, the voters expected to form into a Democratic wave this November should if anything find in Kavanaugh’s confirmation all the more reason to turn out. There’s certainly nothing that happened here to demotivate voters for whom the upcoming election is a referendum on Donald Trump.

In the end, Justice Brett Kavanaugh is just another inevitable consequence of the 2016 elections.

If that makes you angry, start by never letting what happened in 2016 happen again.

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47 thoughts on “Boulder’s Deborah Ramirez Condemns Kavanaugh’s Confirmation”

  1. This from a New York Times reader on the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP

    Dan

    NJ14m ago

    Times Pick

    We'll, that was stupid.

    I mean, really. Kavanaugh is the absolute best the Republican party could force into the court? They dug deep for their best and brightest and found… him?

    It's obviously not within them to be embarrassed, but they should be. Gorsuch, while problematic as an obvious partisan, displayed none of the childishness that Kavanaugh evinced. If he is all they could muster, the well of conservative intellectualism is running dry as bone.

    1. yep – uniquely qualified: 
       
      He was the only one on the lists* who:
      – was on the Starr team 
      – wrote a memo that says the President cannot be supoened or indicted
      – knows how to undo Roe
      – can end organized labor
      – doesn't care about Russia

      *Heritage and Federalist

      It’s just meaningless bonus that the Rs think he is payback for the Clintons. Somehow

  2. Here in Colorado, it is crucial to not let what happened in 2014 happen again.

    In 2012, Democrats won the top of the ticket race, for President, with 1.323 million votes. Republicans got 1.185 million.  There was no Senate vote, but the aggregate House vote was Democrats 1.080 million, Republicans 1.143 million.

    In 2014, Democrats

    • won the Governor's race, 1.0 million to 0.938 million,
    • lost the aggregate Representative vote, 0.936 million to 1.0 million, and
    • lost the Senate race, 0.944 million to 0.983 million.

    All those who voted for Obama in 2012 and did not come out for a Democratic Senator contributed to this outcome. At the top of the ticket, Republicans lost 0.202 million votes and Democrats lost 0.379 votes — almost twice as many.

    1. 2014 was the first year of mail-in balloting which probably helped somewhat (it could have been much worse).  I think turnout should improve even more this year.  But the biggest factor that should swing many races is this current trend:

      Last month, Democrats picked up 14,029 registered active voters while Republicans gained 6,411, according to the latest figures. At the same time, 28,039 Coloradans registered as unaffiliated voters in the past month.

      As of Sept. 30, there were 1,007,948 registered active Democrats in Colorado and 979,204 registered active Republicans. There were also 1,236,592 unaffiliated active voters registered. All active registered voters will get ballots in their mail for the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Those ballots will begin hitting mailboxes on Oct. 15 and will include the race for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, Congress, and the legislature, and more. Voters will also get to weigh in on 13 questions asking whether they want to change state laws or the state Constitution.

      Related: The 13 big questions on your November ballot

      “It’s clear evidence that voters are rejecting the GOP agenda — especially when you combine these numbers with today’s poll showing unaffiliateds swinging heavily Democratic,” says Eric Walker, spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party. “But we’re not taking a single vote for granted — we’re going to work hard every day to turn out the vote and elect Democrats up and down the ballot in November.”

  3. Last month, Democrats picked up 14,029 registered active voters while Republicans gained 6,411, according to the latest figures. At the same time, 28,039 Coloradans registered as unaffiliated voters in the past month.

    Far more Colorado voters registered as unaffiliated than Republicans and Democrats combined. This abandonment of the parties has been going on for some time. Further evidence of the apparent disgust of the general electorate of the two major parties.

    And well deserved.

    1. With open primaries, there isn't really a need to declare for one party or the other any more if you aren't an activist.  Our caucus system has always been mainly for the most committed party members, so I'm not sure your point is all that valid in the face of no viable third party in Colorado.

      I'll take the 60/40 split in Democratic candidates' favor when the final unaffiliated votes are tallied.

      Should there be a new third party for disaffected voters to rally around?  Perhaps, but you might want to ask that of the flood of former Republicans (including my wife).

      In fact, hey Gerbils! Surely you can explain the phenomenon of the Incredible Shrinking GOP, right?

          1. With Kavanaugh's elevation to the SCOTUS, the court has now drifted far from the mainstream of the citizenry, as well as sacrificed a measure of legitimacy.  The reason?

            Donald Trump won just under 46 percent of the popular vote and 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. And Judge Gorsuch was confirmed by a vote of 54-45. According to Kevin McMahon of Trinity College, who wrote all this up this year in his paper “Will the Supreme Court Still ‘Seldom Stray Very Far’?: Regime Politics in a Polarized America,” the 54 senators who voted to elevate Judge Gorsuch had received around 54 million votes, and the 45 senators who opposed him got more than 73 million. That’s 58 percent to 42 percent.

            If fate were to hand President Trump one more opportunity to put a justice on the court before 2021, it would almost certainly again be a bitterly contested and close vote, and it would probably leave us with a majority of Supreme Court justices, five, who were confirmed by senators who received a minority share of the vote.

            Republicans are doing to the Supreme Court what they have already accomplished in Congress. There, through aggressive gerrymandering, they’ve muscled their way to a majority even as their candidates have sometimes received collectively fewer votes than Democrats. And now they’re doing it to the court, by breaking the rules (Merrick Garland) and advancing nominees who are confirmed by legislators representing minority support.

            The leaders of today's GOP don't care about Democracy ("the mob"), only raw, naked power.  In the 18th century, injustices such as these resulted in bloody revolutions.  Fortunately for us, we can have our own revolution every 2 to 4 years, using the ballot box, which may be just as lethal to those who abuse their power.

            1. Do you think nominating Hillary was a mistake? 

              Presidential elections are binary choices, my vote for Ross Perot notwithstanding.  Many of the Trump voters would have been more kindly disposed to consider a Dem candidate who was less obviously a crook and apologist for her rapist husband.

                1. Max Boot of the Washington Post paints a true portrait of Trump and his cynical apologists like Andrew Carnegie:

                  It is too early to conclude that Donald Trump is the worst president ever. But it’s not too early to conclude that he is the worst person ever to be president. Two stories that broke within hours of each other on Tuesday make that clear. One is about how far he will go to achieve business success, the other about how far he will go to achieve political success. In neither case will he let morality, ethics or even the law itself stand in his way.

                  For the GOP, loyalty to its odious leader trumps everything else, even the most basic dictates of humanity. Trump has forfeited our trust, and his Republican enablers have forfeited their right to rule.

  4. We all need to take that pain and anger and channel it into voting these clowns out in November..

    Yes, it's like a slap in the face to have Ramirez and Ford ignored and disbelieved. We just have to shake it off and come back fighting. If you haven't  volunteered for your local Democratic party or candidate, what the hell are you waiting for?

     

     

    1. MJ:

      They were not ignored.  It was determined that their stories as to Justice Kavanaugh were not more believable than his denial of the same. 

      If you name four or five witnesses including your lifelong best girlfriend and none of them back up your story, claim you are unable to fly, but in fact flew out for a polygraph, sit on this story for 35 years without identifying Kavanaugh, do not provide the committee with your therapist notes or records from the polygraph you flew out for etc,etc, not believing her is a rational conclusion.

      If making an accusation is the end of the inquiry, we are all in trouble.

      2. Always with the "What about Clinton…" distractions, AC. Whatever horndog Bill did or didn't do, Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with it.

        The allegations against Clinton were all very aggressively investigated by Kenneth Starr, assisted by Brett Kavanaugh.

        Back to the issue at hand:

        Trump limited the FBI's scope of investigation, leaving out key witnesses, including:

        Brett Kavanaugh – why wasn't he put on a polygraph? And, by the way, Ford sent the Judiciary Committee the full polygraph report, as well as asking the FBI to interview the polygraph operator.

        Christine Blaisey Ford – why didn't the FBI re-interview her, as they would have with any other accuser?

        Others that could have corroborated Deborah Ramirez' accusation.

        So let's posit you are correct about the sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. What about the perjury accusations against him? What about the missing memos about torture and coverup of same under Bush/Cheney? What about his clear lack of judicial temperament and obvious partisanship?

        These will undo your boy when Democrats retake the House. Peaches gonna fly everywhere.

        As usual, you have nothing….except your transparent trolling attempts at psychological warfare.

        1. Whatever horndog Bill did or didn't do, Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with it.

          True, but 25 or 30 years from now, the right will still be saying that. And because people did not want a woman who was married to a horn dog as president, they voted for her opponent – who was a horn dog himself – to avoid that problem. 

           

      3. Andrew Carnegie: 

        Those voting for Kavanaugh were not convinced by the assault accusations and the limited investigation into them.  They were also willing to "not be convinced" about his lying under oath. And they apparently didn't see anything wrong with the naked partisanship and conspiracy theory advanced in his second appearance before the committee.

        Justice Kavanaugh will carry the narrow confirmation with him. Before he starts work tomorrow, there were "credible" ethics complaints lodged with the Chief Justice from the DC Circuit.  There will be additional consequences to the legitimacy of narrow decisions, a drop in confidence in the Court, and in all likelihood, efforts to mitigate the problem when there is a Democratic majority in the House and Senate and a Democratic President.  Which will likely trigger further drops in the population's confidence in the Court.

        So, looking forward — any suggestion for improving the process of selection and confirmation?

        1. I would suggest that with such potentially catastrophic accusations it would have been beneficial to bring them to light during the normal confirmation hearing schedule. Holding the information till the end illustrated a politicalization of the accusations and made me feel as if the Dems were using it for their purposes rather than her best interests. It put a strain on the process for what appeared to be nothing more than delay, as there was no reasonable explanation why it would not have been brought up, even if under confidential circumstances. 

             

          1. For once I happen to agree with you, Negev. By holding back until the last minute, Feinstein really opened the door to the Republicans challenging the credibility of the allegations.

            I know, I know, Blasey-Ford wanted her name kept confidential. But there isn't much that can be done to investigate an anonymous allegation. Imagine if they tried to block his confirmation with only secret accusations?

            Feinstein should have encouraged Blasey-Ford to come public sooner. And maybe the other women would have come forward sooner as well.

          2. Or maybe the vetting of Judge Kavanaugh was incomplete, and when this stone was turned over it revealed the true character of someone deeply unfit for the position for which he was nominated (sort of like the President that made the nomination)

            Justice Stevens said he came to the conclusion reluctantly, changing his mind about Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination after the second round of the judge’s confirmation hearings last week. Judge Kavanaugh’s statements at those hearings, Justice Stevens said, revealed prejudices that would make it impossible for him to do the court’s work, a point he said had been made by prominent commentators.

            “They suggest that he has demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the court that he would not be able to perform his full responsibilities,” Justice Stevens said in remarks to retirees in Boca Raton, Fla. “And I think there is merit in that criticism and that the senators should really pay attention to it.”

            “For the good of the court,” he said, “it’s not healthy to get a new justice that can only do a part-time job.”

            1. One can only wonder if this was the Democratic plan all along. Surely they did not expect, with the evidence on hand, that this was as strong "case" so to speak, and crucial evidence such as the witnesses provided by the accuser not corroborating her testimony certainly did not help. The witness herself failed in my opinion to support her own lifelong fear of closed spaces by flying to the hearing (among many other flights) and gave ample, recent and confirmable doubt of her credibility on at least the issue of lasting trama. 

              My guess is the Dems expected him to drop out after the allegations and it blew up when he did not. Kavanaugh was forced to defend himself in a job interview, an unlikely and unconventional setting to do so. However, if he were the defense lawyer on the Scottsboro boys case he would have gone down in history as a hero with that testimony, and if you took the political posturing out of the mix this outcome, legally, is one that all sides can, or should, agree upon. 

              That being said, the Dems have created a lifetime appointed enemy. I agree that at this point it would be difficult to suggest Kavanaugh will not be biased against Democratic influence in the courts. however it seems that they (Dems) are perverting the rule of law for political gain and perhaps should be viewed with prejudice after this performance. 

              It is also notable that the Dems exploitation of the #Metoo movement for political gain has set the movement back a half century. 

              1. That's some mighty concern trolling right there. Kavanaugh will be sunk by his own lies. He has perjured himself so often, and so casually, that as a judge he will have zero credibility.

                Kavanaugh was not the defense lawyer on the Scottsboro case, and would never have touched anything that risky or poorly paid. You do love those impossible hypotheticals in your logical card houses.

                The #Metoo movement will be just fine. You might spare your concern trolling for the Supreme Court.

                1. Logic would suggest that if perjury charges were more supportable they would have been used in place of rape allegations to deny confirmation.

                  If you support a man's guilt based solely on the word of his accuser you are complacent in the lynching of civil liberties and have reverted to the pre civil rights mentality of the Democratic party. You really wanna go there? 

                  Let's see how the Dems support Ms Ford moving forward. My guess is they drop her like a hot rock.

                  Based on your response you already have… 

                   

                  1. The problem with that theory, Negev, is that the most obvious perjury occurred during his post-Ford tirade before the committee.

                    Example: "have you boofed yet?" refers to flatulence.

                    No, it refers to anal intercourse.  

                    everybody farts.  Do you really believe even a 1 6 year-old would ask "Have you farted yet?"

                    He lied .  Needlessly.

                    2. My apologies V, I thought you were referring to the 2004-2006 stolen Democrat emails.

                      I had no idea what boofing was before this and the urban dictionary states that it also refers to the abuse of a substance via insertion into ones rectum. Butt-chugging.

                      I am no doctor, nor lawyer, but I would think if you shoved beer up your ass it would cause flatulence. No prior experience on that but if you chug beer you tend to belch, I can't imagine it being different the other side, but my point is, there would be adequate correlation between boofing and flatulence to cast reasonable doubt. 

                      Not saying its right but if  you think there is a case for a justice to be removed for not going into detail about shoving beer up his ass in high school, man I am with you and will enjoy every minute of it.  

                       

                    3. In the course of only 20 short years, Kavanaugh has helped bring public discourse from debating whether a blow job is sex to whether "boofing" means farting or butt fornicating. And investigating who was lying about each topic.

                      Where is Daniel Patrick Moynihan today when we need to redefine deviancy downward.

              2. One can only wonder if this was the Democratic plan all along.

                Never attribute to duplicity what can easily be explained by stupidity. It was not the "plan all along."

            2. That is a given, Davie. Even the Federalist Society – which now does the vetting which the ABA use to do – didn't have him on its original list from which Trump was to select judges. I wonder why…..

              1. They didn't include him because he is tempermental and highly partisan and they know it.

                My advice to the folks in DC who are pursuing this guy is to keep it up…in fact, ratchet it up. He blames all this pushback on a Dem conspiracy…why argue about that? Just keep up the pressure on the weasel until he loses his cookies again and shows himself for the partisan hack that he is.

                Maybe he will take anger management classes and do his job without animus towards Dems and liberals. His judicial records indicate otherwise.

                I do have a question for our legal eagles…can he be disbarred by the ABA, and would that have any significance RE possible future action by congress?

                1. 1.  The Bar Association can't disbar anybody.  Each state has it's own bar.  In Colorado and elsewhere, I assume, the bar is regulated by the state Supreme Court.  Bar associ ations are trade groups, not regulatory bodies.  Don't confuse the bar association with the "bar" , those legally authorized to practise law in a given state.

                  2. Even if Kavanaugh was disbarred, he would stay as a voting member of the court.  You don't actually have to be a lawyer to be on it. It is a lifetime appointment and only Congress, through the impeachment power, can remove a justice.

                  3.  Trump stinks.  Great god almighty, Trump stinks.

                  2. American Bar Association isn't a disciplinary body, but more like a nearly impotent BBB.

                    It might sting a bit if the DC bar and the Federal (Supreme Court) bar came up with a statement kicking him out and giving him a censure, but it doesn't impact his presence on the Court.

                    There are ethics complaints about his testimony deemed "credible" to a Federal Circuit judge (Garland recused himself on the decision). They've been passed on to Chief Justice Roberts … and I have yet to read that such things have happened before or how they were resolved. Kavanaugh lied on big things and small during his testimony — but I have a hard time imagining a Senate committee holding a hearing, let alone being able to pass a resolution urging prosecution, and even a harder time imagining such a measure would be taken to the floor or passed.

      1. Elections are stolen at the margins. The Republicans have gerrymandered their way to finally achieve the destruction of the New Deal and the return to American Apartheid  ..something for which they have striven for nearly a century. Rule by a minority is their goal. Pennsylvania may be a turning point

        This MUST NOT be a close election. Speak up. Organize…Vote!! 

         

  5. Now Cory Gardner's playing the victim.

    He claims that his wife received a "beheading" text – and that the names and addresses of his family members were published.

    Problem:

    1. The "beheading" videos out there are all being spread by right wing sites, to promote anti-Muslim policies. Some are ISIS / Daesh propaganda videos.  Our @resident has posted similar ones. Carnegie posted one on here, as I recall. Notice that Gardner didn't say whether the text + video was just a normal everyday Tea Party post. Because we live in a world, now, in which our leaders and our “conservatives” routinely post enemy propaganda videos for political purposes. 🙄

    2. Cory Gardner's Yuma address and phone number are all public information, published in local phone directories. I'm not going to repost them here – but it's not exactly top secret stuff. I don’t think you get to complain about “doxxing” when your home address and phone are in the fricking phone directory.

    If I’m wrong, and these are actual threats made because of his votes, Gardner should absolutely ask the FBI to investigate them. The FBI will do a good job, because Cory is, after all, a white male Republican, so he deserves the best that the Bureau can offer.

    So put away the tiny violin, Cory Gardner. You're not the victim here.

     

    1. mamajama55 … just how many "Gardner" families are in Yuma? I have a hard time imagining there would be much mystery. Wikipedia has his spouse's name and that there are 3 children. His own bio page on the House web site includes " He lives in the same house his great-grandparents lived in. " His bio concludes "He lives in Yuma with his wife Jaime and their three children: Alyson, Thatcher, and Caitlyn."

      1. There are 20 Gardner listings in the directory I have, mostly in NE Colorado, not all in Yuma.  I have no idea if they're all related, but probably, most are.

        It's just Cory playing for sympathy. I'd bet money that the "beheading" video came from a right wing poster – every once in a while someone sends me that crap, trying to convince me that all Muslims are evil.

    2. Isn't he the sameone who claimed his family insurance cancelled or increased premium by like 1000% back when – but turned out it was a big fake lie

  6. Actually, I think the huge uptick in those registering as unaffiliated doesn't have to do with "disgust at the major parties," as much as the constitutional amendment from 2016 that allows unaffiliateds to vote in party primaries.   If you're not an activist, why bother to choose a party…leaves you the capability to pick which primary you wish to vote in.

    I opposed that amendment (on the philosophy of "if you want to have a voice in who a party runs for office, then join the party), and have to laugh that there were unaffiliated who complained that they couldn't vote in the caucuses.  Gosh! 

    1. From canvassing for more than 40 years I have found few U with any philosophical underpinnings. Seems I'm often checking an 'undecided' box, even yesterday when election is only a month away U is 'undecided' re Tipton and Bush. But, I won't deny there may be 5% of them thinking about primary. And, another 20% who, even before '16 decided both parties suck

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