Around Town

Is Professor Ford still receiving death threats[portion removed]?

You have GOT to be kidding me! An award for something that to this day has been completely, utterly unsubstantiated? [Portion removed.]

It is a sad day when we hold someone up with nothing to back it. A road we should never travel.

Bravo for Dr. Ford!

Standing up to power and telling the truth - we learned just how the horrible judicial temperament should have disqualified that candidate.

I think it is sad to see that in a case of he said/she said where there is no "proof" on either side we put more credence on one rather than the other.

I still am open minded on this. It is still not possible for the truth to ever be discovered. Youthful indiscretions and misremembered drunken parties by those too young to be drinking that took place over 40 years ago, should not be front page news or awarded Courage Awards or indeed be the subject of death threats. I personally would like to know exactly what those "death threats" constituted as they sound quite vague in description.

In a society where we can change the name of a school, take down judges for doing their jobs and award Courage Awards to a very successful college professor who obviously did very well after her sad encounter, it is sad to me to discover that being able to prove innocence is more important and guilt in the court of public opinion is enough to condemn an individual for life, even after death in the cases of Terman and Jordan.

Listen to his testimony/rant. All the evidence you need.

No temperament.

That the new members of the planning commission voted for a chairman who missed 7 of the last 15 meetings, shows that the fix is in. Expect to see much more office development and for the worker/resident ratio get worse. In my memory - not sure how long, that ratio has increased from 2.8 to 3.2. As long as uncontrolled office development is allowed, we will continue to have ABAG requiring far more housing than Palo Alto can actually build.

And now the council is considering lifting the cap on office development downtown. The only reason I can see for doing this is to reward the developers who have given so many campaign contributions to the pro-development council members. Since I assume Allison Cormack voted for the new planning commissioners, who clearly support Mr. Alcheck, a real estate attorney, it means that she is already voting with the pro office development council members. I am so disappointed although it was predictable given her strong support from Liz Kniss, who has supported office development with almost no restrictions throughout her time on the council.

I support most of the efforts to change zoning to increase housing. However, until it is built, office development should be constrained, except in the Stanford Research Park. There should be no zoning changes to enable more development and all existing zoning requirements, especially parking requirements, should be enforced.

I also support changing zoning in and around Stanford Research Park to allow more housing closest to the area with most of the jobs.

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I would have thought that all the Planning commissioners would have thought that Mr. Alchecks "ethical problems" and his attacks from the dais on both staff and the public at times would have been disqualifying for a position leadership.

Likewise would have though that Mr. Riggs poor attendance, he missed at least 1/3 of the meetings is often late and lack of enthusiasm for the body he is yriveldged to serve on, and the "outburst", quoted in the story above would be disqualifying for a leadership position on theCommission.

It is disappointing to say the least that on the first day of the two new commissioner's service that they apparently put political ideology above personal integrity.

Mr Kavanaugh probably did as Ms. Blaisy-Ford said, but that was 30 some years ago. Things happen, and he seems to have changed. He did not need to lie about it though, or maybe he did have a blackout or she was another insignificant female which is unfortunate.

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Christine Blasey Ford courageously did the right thing.

Republicans did not, and seem to be allergic to doing the right thing
these days.

For over two decades instead of working together in a bipartisan way, as
Americans want from their government, Republicans have declared war
and eschewed even a hint of compromise and gone with the scorched
Earth political policy, as more money, more power gets sucked up into
fewer and fewer hands.

This is not governing, this is a virtual neo-Confederate counter-revolution
by corruption, terror and force.

First not allowing President Obama's Supreme Court nominee to come
up for a vote was bad enough, though Obama's nominee was himself a
compromise candidate, Merrick Garland, that Republicans had even
supported previously. Garland was apparently no vicious enough for
what Republicans have in mind now.

Second, important permanent positions like Supreme Court Justice should
ALWAYS be confirmed with a super-majority, never a simple majority, that is
the way of the CHECKS and BALANCES that our country used to function with
when it worked.

Finally, Christine Blasey Ford's claims were not given an investigation, and
that implicitly means that the Republicans knew an investigation would show
Kavanaugh to not be suited for the Supreme Court ... as his performance
in his confirmation hearing showed EVERYONE. Going ahead with that
confirmation was VIOLENCE and CONTEMPT for our country and the
SPIRIT OF THE Constitution.

Republicans seem to know that they ultimately cannot retain power by
means of describing any vision, and they know they cannot retain power
by telling the truth, so the majority of the government ( Republican side )
is now engaged in legistlatively shifting massive amounts of money to
their loyalists and appointing people to the government to tear it down,
and having their loyal media entities lie for them and support their lies.

When this finally comes to a head and eventually gets resolved in favor
or the people and democracy as the arc of history always proves out,
those responsible for setting this up and carrying it out need to be
stripped of their wealth and power and punished, as was not done
after the Civil War. We would not be here in this mess today if it
had have been.

Dr. Ford is the definition of courage. Bravo.

Why do people continue to claim there was no corroboration? There are therapy records that go back years! She somehow knew that he would one day be nominated and planned this entire thing? Dr. Ford was subjected to horrible attacks and threats of harm for standing up and doing what she did. She was the most authentic person I've seen testify before Congress. The GOP congressmen didn't even have the guts to ask her questions. This woman is a hero. Brava, Dr. Ford. Thank you!

Honestly, I just cannot believe people are still promoting, much less even supporting, Blasey-Ford! Not ONE substantiated claim, not ONE.

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Pasting copyrighted material without attribution? The whole thing? No link to the original post?

***

Here's the correct way:

American Jesuits withdraw Kavanaugh endorsement: "The Editors: It is time for the Kavanaugh nomination to be withdrawn"

from - America: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture

Web Link

"While we previously endorsed the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh on the basis of his legal credentials and his reputation as a committed textualist, it is now clear that the nomination should be withdrawn."

***

As demonstrated above, even Brett ("I love beer") K's biggest fans recognized he lacks judicial temperament. Perhaps you may want to go with gut feeling and rely upon a phony story allegedly from a woman who claims to have been a heavy drinker in college, instead.

Your choice - but it reflects upon YOUR temperament, as well.

You mean like this one? Web Link

Or this?
Web Link

will be very interesting to see if this post stays or is deleted.

Politics of Mountain View.

I was one of the people able to read your post before it was removed and it was exactly what I have been trying to say since all this came out. I understand that it was not accredited and possibly classed as hearsay, but that does not mean it should not be a message that society needs to hear.

Thank you for posting it and hopefully the message gets heard another way.

There are many other qualified candidates who took a stand against these types of sexual-related misdeeds...Anita Hill, Stormy Daniels, Monica Lewinsky etc.

An awarding as a group should be considered.

@Resident, thanks for the response. I don't understand why it was deleted, even if it's not from a "proven source" (and nowadays what exactly is that anyway? Wikipedia? Biased 'news' sites?)...even though it may not be 'proven' it absolutely spoke to the feelings and impressions most of the country had about the whole situation.

And @Anon there are MANY who do not agree that he has an issue with temperament, just because you link to an article where someone opined this does not make it fact. Quite frankly he held his temper far better than most would given the baseless accusations that were coming at him. His record for the past 20+ years has been impeccable, that's not something someone with "poor temperament" would present.

"A Group Award" from Barron Park.

Monica Lewinsky was quoted as saying she went to Washington to earn her Presidential kneepads.
Her name belongs nowhere near this discussion.

--
From the LA Times January 28, 1998: (here) Web Link

PORTLAND, Ore. — A high school drama teacher who said he had a five-year affair with Monica S. Lewinsky said Tuesday that the former White House intern boasted of having oral sex with a "high-ranking person in the White House" and phoned him up to five times a day with news of her adventures.

Andy Bleiler, who presented the details of his years with Lewinsky through his attorney, said there was no indication of who Lewinsky was referring to, although his wife said that when Lewinsky first left for Washington, she vowed "to get my presidential kneepads."
--

Stormy Daniel's "career" is made up of sexual misdeeds she chose to participate in.

What Kavanaugh was accused of was sexual assault and attempted rape - not in the same ballpark as Lewinsky or Daniels.

Not only that but he was all over the map in his testimony and former Supreme Court Justices and others of high reputation had said that he had not the judicial temperament to serve on the high court.

Further, there are plenty of judges and other legal scholars who could have served on the court with distinction that would not have been controversial. I find it unacceptable that the Republican have to bend the country to their will based on the slimmest of votes and in most cases technicalities. In fact what they are doing is undermined the spirit of the Constitution and declaring war on 2/3's of the country, mostly because of the money stream. It has wrecked the country for working and middle class citizens, and they don't care a bit as they lie and cheat to continue to make it worse.

Republican's behavior shows constant repetition of known falsehoods by online right-wing voices, and that is is allowed if not encouraged here at Palo Alto Online.