Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

Chuck Grassley Has Sent Multiple Requests to Brett Kavanaugh's Accuser for Testimony, She Isn't Responding

The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape nearly 40 years ago, Stanford professor Christine Blasey Ford, isn't responding to requests from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley to testify about her claims.

"We still haven't heard from Dr. Ford, so do they want to have the hearing or not?" Grassley said during an interview with Salem Radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning. "We have reached out to her in the last 36 hours, three or four times by email and we have not heard from them. It kind of raises the question do they want to come to the public hearing or not? The reason we're having the public hearing is obviously, well number one, accusations like this deserve consideration and looking into and that's what the purpose of the hearing is. We wouldn't be having the hearing if Dr. Ford told the Washington Post and other people publicly she wanted to testify."

"We're delaying the vote strictly to get all the facts out on the table," he continued. Yesterday, Ford's attorney said her client was willing to testify under oath. As of this writing, she has not accepted the invitation by the Committee to do so.​

So is Christine Ford not going to show up now to testify? That will put the final nail in this, if she doesn't.

 

From the bastion of unfettered liberalism ... The Wall Street Jounal

Kavanaugh, His Accuser Will Testify Before Senate Committee

 

Where do you find your news sources. Most of the MSM are saying she will testify next week.

 

The mass media are saying that, because Ford had previously said that she wanted to testify. But now that the date has been set and the invitation extended to testify on Monday, she is apparently not responding to Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley's office, who is in charge of all of this.

Maybe she will respond later today. But so far, radio silence.

 

Shouldnt they be contacting her lawyer?

 

It's not that it isn't "decided science" when it comes to psychotherapy, it's pseudoscience. The history of psychotherapists implanting false memories in their patients speaks for itself. The theories behind psychotherapy suggest that people with certain problems have them due to childhood sexual abuse and once the patient has been given the suggestion that something like that must have happened and that they repressed it, their mind creates a story to fit that narrative.

A 2007 study by Elke Geraerts showed that memories "discovered" in therapy are considerably more likely to be false than memories recalled outside of therapy. The reason for this?

According to the American Psychiatric Association Statement on Memories of Sexual Abuse, 1993

Now while it's true that there's no absolute consensus on accurate repressed memories being "discovered" by psychotherapy, the two basic sides in the community are those who point out that there is virtually no scientific evidence to demonstrate the authenticity of repressed memories that return and the other side is those who are true believers in the psychotherapy. So it's sort of a small group of clinical psychologists that think they are miracle workers vs all of the other clinical psychologists and essentially all of the research psychologists who are looking at it rationally.

You'd do well to read The Myth of Repressed Memories: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Elizabeth Loftus if you'd like to learn more on the subject.

 

They have been. No reply, at least not yet.

 

She's probably being pressured to not show up by Democrats. They don't really want her to tell her story, they want to delay the confirmation and if she tells her story on Monday, it won't significantly delay anything.

 

Well, this is her chance.

 

Yeah, I agree with txtony, I don't think this is something that can be replayed by a bad actor.

It's not the most fair of things but part of this whole metoo thing is about women getting the courage to speak up. There usually is no evidence for things like this, hard evidence, and that sucks but...it is what it is.

 

You pick that book out of a library book shelf out of pure curiosity?

I tried googling "repressed memory ford kavanaugh" to see why you guys are talking about young kids' child abuse. (Wasn't she 15 year old - a "young kid" might be overreach). Nothing in the mainstream media about it... Is she really referring to it as a repressed memory? Serious question. How come articles don't mention it when discussing who will be more believable like the latest wapo article here ?

On a separate note, this Kavanaugh dude seems very controlling and questionable in his tactics to use explicit sex related questions for the president on behalf of american people:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/kavanaugh/releases/kavanaugh8.15.98.pdf

Can you help me understand his line of reasoning in his memo above? Specifically, how does such precise explicitness of the sexual behavior by the president help the American public to understand better that someone had a consensual oral sex in the oval office? What precise logic (or a repressed complex?) is driving Kavanaugh in such a zealous way? I fail to grasp it.

At this time, I don't feel any sort of pity for republicans or Kavanaugh for any underhanded tactics used against them. What aboutism works both ways I guess and in this case seems a pretty mild case of it to boot.

 

They seem to think that it's okay to jam through unpopular people like Kavanaugh and I don't think they are quite prepared for the reaction of it. The whole idea that some of them have of "Dems better take it or you're going to get someone even more conservative!" Is funny to me because they think some religious wingnut getting on the court helps their party?

Since Kennedy retired I've dared the GOP to put in someone eager to start stripping away civil rights from women, LGBT+, and Minorities...I think they honestly underestimate the reaction of this country when you start overturning cases or even threaten to overturn cases that have been settled and celebrated.

 

From 1993, I provided the APA's statement directly from the site.

Says it is possible, rare, but possible and they also say that more research and study is needed.

It's also mentioned that a good therapist would ask for corroborating evidence associated with the memory and try their best not to fill in the blank.

Well, that's just your feelings on it. It seems like it's a controversial subject in the field and neither you or I have the degrees or experience to get to the bottom of it in this thread. I just posted the link to show that it is a thing, that it can happen, and that it isn't pseudoscience.

 

I've long been a skeptic of the more, let's call it "mystic" nonsense that gets thrown in the mix with psychology....or really anything else for that matter.

When it comes to this specific instance, 6 years ago she entered couple's therapy for some kind of trouble she was having in her marriage and that's when she was "helped to discover" a repressed memory of an attempted rape. Sometimes when she told the story she was in her late teens and eventually it became when she was 15. When she first told the story there were no names to go with her attackers....then years later eventually she decided or was convinced that it was Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.

As to why some articles skip over the fact that we're talking about a "repressed memory" that was "discovered" in therapy.....well, I guess that would be an example of media bias wouldn't it? When you state the facts as we know them, you are forced to come to the conclusion that there is no credibility to the allegation....and not every paper wants their readers to come to that conclusion.

 

Yes, "rare but possible" could be used to describe many, many things. What we do know is that repressed memories are insanely rare but false memories stemming from psychotherapy are incredibly common.....so do the math.

The practice of "discovering" true "repressed memories" through psychotherapy is pseudoscience in that you'd be more likely to stumble upon a true repressed memory on your own or by having a mushroom induced spirit dream than you would in psychotherapy.....

I noticed that you skipped over the part about how there is virtually no scientific evidence to demonstrate the authenticity of repressed memories that return....that makes the practice of recovering "repressed memories" via psychotherapy a pseudoscience.

Like I told you before, do some more reading on the subject, it'll change your mind if you are open to it.

 

There are a lot of details in here that you state as facts. May you kindly provide a link that you gathered that info from?

I read the original letter and it seems pretty scarring experience for a teenager to forget about it fully. So I find your assumption of faded/funny memory pretty questionable. It is also funny that you believe one psychologist (Loftus) over others. Whatever APA says easily overrides what Loftus says. And since you call them "mystic", I would just ignore what they say altogether and take the woman at her word as well as the people accused at their words and then make the judgement. And only do so, while all parties are under oath. But that's me.

 

And yet that's her story. She claims to have completely repressed it until she "discovered" it in psychotherapy. She then gave inconsistent reports of it to her couple's therapist missing or having conflicting details and then gave a highly specific and detailed account of it to her congresswoman.

You seem to be confused as to what I'm saying when it comes to psychologists, I'm not saying that they all buy in to the more "mystic" nonsense that you can find some therapists believing in, I'm only calling out the hypnotherapists or the psychotherapists who believe that they can uncover repressed memories of childhood abuse to explain current behavior flaws. Most psychologists reject that kind of nonsense.

As to "believing her", it's not that I don't believe her. I think it's very possible that she believes the story....that's the problem with false memories. I could give you literally dozens of cases where people have gone to therapy and become slowly convinced that they were molested by their parents or others when it simply didn't happen. As I pointed out in previous posts, you are MUCH more likely to end up with false memories through psychotherapy than you are to "recover" a true repressed memory. You'll absolutely believe the false memory, but it'll still be false.

That's why an accusation centered around a "repressed memory" that was "discovered" in psychotherapy inherently lacks credibility. Could it be true? There's a small chance, sure, but nearly all of the time it'll be nothing but a false memory constructed to explain current behavior flaws. That's why it is so important to have solid evidence to go along with the allegation....and in this case there's absolutely none. Her story would be more believable if she said that she discovered the memory while taking peyote at burning man than her discovering the memory in psychotherapy.

To be clear, I'm not saying she's lying, I'm saying she's most likely recounting a false memory constructed during psychotherapy.

 

Link that is not to Hannity?