This one is NOT a lie: "The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school."

[Trumpdumper]

Kavanaugh is absolutely correct about this one. He was in high school from 1979 to 1983. Only in his senior year was the drinking age raised from 18 to 21 in Maryland.

[kentuck]

1. I think a bigger question may be?

What is he drinking today?

[TheBlackAdder]

50. He turned 18 on February 12, 1983. Maryland raised the age to 21 in 1982. NEVER LEGAL!

.

I think your question is even more pertinent.

.

[DURHAM D]

2. So he was drinking illegally when he was 15, 16 and 17? nt

[awesomerwb1]

9. Well, yeah, but no, but yes but no...

Thank you for your post. Made me laugh.

(and facepalm for the OP)

[yardwork]

64. Correct. Including the "skis" on July 1, 2018 that he acknowledged.

And if Devil's Triangle and boofing refer to drinking, then he acknowledged drinking while under age during his testimony to Congress last week.

I LIKE BEER!

[jmowreader]

70. Boofing only vestigially refers to drinking

As far as anyone here can tell, Devil's Triangle is a sex act, not a drinking act.

[yardwork]

72. I know that.

[Shrike47]

3. Although the statement is true, he is implying a lie. He was 17 that year and couldn't drink legally

[SharonAnn]

59. He was always drinking illegally. 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18

[MineralMan]

4. All of that time before his senior year, he was under even the 18 year old

drinking age. I didn't turn 18 until the summer following my senior year. I doubt that there was ever a time when it would have been legal for him to drink in high school.

[jcgoldie]

5. Yes but he wasn't 18 until he was a senior

So any drinking he did in high school would have been illegal. Not that underage drinking should disqualify anyone from a job, but it is deliberately misleading when he brings up that the drinking age was 18 when he was in HS because the drinking age was NOT 18 when he was 18.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

22. Which means he wasn't grandfathered in which he claimed he was.

And anyone that missed the cutoff would remember that. I made the cutoff in Minnesota in the 80s. My friends that didn't would not think they were grandfathered in 30 years later.

[Demsrule86]

6. During the time in question when he was 17, it was not legal for him to drink...only those born in

64 were grandfathered in when the law changed.

[Atticus]

7. Lawrence O'Donnell states it simply and accurately:

There was not a single day when Kavanaugh was in high school that he could have legally consumed alcohol. Period. the

[dchill]

30. That's right.

[mikeysnot]

8. law went into effect 1982

He was born after the grandfather clause. He lied.

Grandfather clause was from June 30, 1964 and before. He was born February 1965.

Enjoy your stay.

[mikeysnot]

10. Link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._history_of_alcohol_minimum_purchase_age_by_state

[pintobean]

11. I don't care

Most of us drank underage during high school. Making a big deal out of that is a hard sell.

[Hoyt]

13. Yep, that's not where his problems lie.

[DURHAM D]

14. I did not. My school mates did not.

How do you get "most" out of that.

[pintobean]

16. You think you're in the majority?

[stonecutter357]

31. Do you ?

[triron]

34. Same here. This is misleading ('most' did not imo).

Depends on who you hang around with.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

23. Making a big deal out of the fact that he lied about it (and other things) isn't, though.

He lied about a lot of things, apparently. This is just one of them. No SCOTUS justice should be confirmed if they overtly lie to the committee.

[pintobean]

24. Meh, that's the DU take

'He was mistaken about when a law went into effect 35 years ago' is probably a good enough explanation for most people.

It all rides on whether the people believe he's a sexual predator, or not. Trying to claim he lied on some insignificant details is weak.

[dawg day]

28. It's about deliberately lying over and over to make himself look "better"

Why not just say, "Well, yeah, I did that. I drank underage. I've grown up and regret that now."

No, he has to lie about the drinking age. Why? Because he is incapable, it seems, of taking responsibility, just like his patron Trump.

That's really weird in a JUDGE. You know, the one who forces all the rest of us to be responsible, to the point of imprisonment, for what we do.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

29. As someone who was alive at the time and remembers the grandfathering clause

you remember. You don't look back and go "oh, yeah, I guess I wasn't actually able to drink until I was 21." This isn't a "did that happen in 82 or 83" kind of thing. It affected when you were able to go to the bars with your friends. And, sure, some people don't make that a big deal. At least for sure at that time, he was a big drinker. He'd remember if he was grandfathered in or not. If he had to use a fake ID or hope not to get carded for 3 years or if he was legal.

Lying is lying. And this is just one of many lies we know about.

Remember Bill Clinton? Republicans impeached him for a stupid lie.

[Hortensis]

71. Exactly. Kavanaugh knew the same way we all did that

we were underage, not the slightly need to read the statutes or know when they were enacted.

The national audience watching were rolling their eyes at this ridiculously stupid, obvious, seemingly totally unnecessary lie. From a sitting appellate court judge! We fought his nomination to that court for 3 years, for important reasons that didn't even include sexual violence and teen drinking.

[triron]

35. That is BS.

[kcr]

60. Meh, that's the honest person's take.

Liars and dishonest people te d think everyone is like that. Honesty is not a DU thing.

[SunSeeker]

67. It is not an "insignificant detail."

His underage drinking is a key component of his sexual assault of Dr. Ford.

He knew damn well it was illegal for him to drink in high school. It shows his disrespect for the truth.

As Jill Winebanks just said on Lawrence O'Donnell, a lie under oath always matters.

[JonLP24]

68. He has lied so much

All the drinking and behavior including Mark Judge back up her story while he lies so much it is hard to keep track.

[LiberalFighter]

25. Most of us did not drink while underage.

I drank once when I was about 10 or so. But it was legal in my state as long as parents or guardian. The next time I drank was on my 18th birthday at a dinner party which was legal in 1972.

[mercuryblues]

36. You are correct

some of us, during that time period did drink. I always made the cutoff dates, my best friend always missed it.

That, in and of itself, is not a deal breaker for the SC. It is his lying about it this week, under oath that is the problem. A lie so easily exposed. I would not care if he was an underaged drinker. It is his lies about, under oath, for the highest court in America that is the problem.

[bigtree]

44. his drinking problem goes directly to Dr. Ford's claim

...that he was extremely inebriated when he assaulted her.

That's also the reason Kavanaugh and republicans who are dismissing the relevance of his drinking are attempting to downplay the significance of his LIE about whether he had ever drank excessively.

It's also a defense against the suggestion by Dr. Ford that Kavanaugh may well have 'blacked-out' during the assault which caused him to not remember pinning the 15-year old to the bed, covering her mouth so she couldn't scream or breath properly, and groping her.

[EffieBlack]

45. Seriously?

There are people in prison across the country - mostly African-American men - for doing things that they could say "most of us" did at one time or another. That is not a defense, at least for them. Their behavior WAS a big deal to the justice system and they are paying for it while people like Brett Kavanaugh - coddled by enablers - just shrug and say, "So what I constantly broke the law. So WHAT?"

What you are describing is the essence of white privilege in America.

[ehrnst]

54. Did you lie about it under oath? Then it's nothing like "most of us" is it? (nt)

[Amimnoch]

55. I see your statement has raised some heated discussion.

Speaking for myself, I found it thought provoking, and decided to do a little research.

2 websites seemed to have some good, fairly solid statistical research behind them:

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm

https://www.projectknow.com/discover/high-school-alcohol-use-trends/

A few observations:

I can very well see where this statement may be contentious. Depending on the state or region a person grew up in, it's very feasible that, based on each of our on cultural background, could very well have experienced very large differences in how common/uncommon such behavior was.

Another interesting observation is the variance in timeframe a person went through high school could likewise have a large impact on view. The one graph showing that into the early 90's it was indeed more than 50% of the male population, and a bit under 50% of the population, but since then has really trended downward.

It would make sense that younger persons would have NOT seen the same alcohol related incidents in high school that older generations might have.

[Ms. Toad]

58. I didn't either

And very few in my crowd did.

(Although, from a confirmaton standpoing, the problem isn't underage drinking - it is making misleading statements to imply it was legal - and lying about how frequently he drank, and about how he behaved while drunk)

[alphafemale]

73. The point is he lied under oath.

It does not matter how minor the lie is.

Someone that will tell a small lie cannot be trusted

[OliverQ]

12. Kavanaugh was 17 when the drinking age was changed to 21.

He lied.

[mainstreetonce]

17. And he would be 20

When the story of throwing ice in a bar happened. The drinking age was 21.

[leftynyc]

15. IT IS A LIE

He intimated he was 18 when the law changed so he was grandfathered in - he was only 17 and therefore NOT grandfathered in. HE LIED.

[Enoki33]

19. Again and again.

[LakeSuperiorView]

27. He may have implied that he was legal, but he didn't not say that he was legal.

IMO, he carefully worded that statement. Technically it isn't a lie. Most of the time he was in high school, the drinking age was 18. Some seniors (but not all) were legal to drink. In those statements, he does not say that HE was legal to drink. He purposely avoided saying that.

[leftynyc]

32. Fine - HE BROKE THE LAW

Feel better now?

[LakeSuperiorView]

38. I agree that he broke the law. But he provably did NOT lie with that statement.

Falsely claiming that he lied about the drinking age weakens the argument that he is not suitable to sit on the Supreme Court. He did not lie about the drinking age, but he illegally drank while he was in High School.

Getting angry rarely helps one's case...

[leftynyc]

52. I agree that his whiny, pathetic, hissy fit

didn't help him at all.

[Demit]

53. He explicitly said that the seniors were legal, to create the impression that b/c HE was a senior,

he was legal. I remember that distinctly. It's devious.

[LakeSuperiorView]

56. Devious, yes. But NOT a lie.

He clearly did not say >I< was legal to drink, he said >seniors< were legal to drink. Which in itself has issues as not all seniors are 18, so in his freshman through junior years SOME seniors were legal to drink. In his senior year, no 18 year olds were legal to drink.

The main point is that he never claimed to be legal, and arguing that he lied on this is a losing distraction. We should be pointing out that he was drinking illegally, not that he lied about it.

[Demit]

62. Oh for heaven's sake. Okay, it's only an example of deliberate deception.

He didn't lie with words, he lied by the omission of them, in such a way that his audience would draw the obvious inference. Most of us think that, as lies go, it's a distinction without a difference.

But okay, we'll cross it off the list of his outright lies. You can award yourself the point, whatever you think such a nitpicky point is worth.

[LakeSuperiorView]

63. Look in the mirror for nitpicky. I'm not having to use weasel words to try to bend reality.

Feel free to to award yourself for inventing things to complain about, when Kavanaugh has created a wealth of outright lies to fault him on.

[LanternWaste]

37. Studious avoidance of the relevant is yet still a lie.

Lies are not merely limited to A v. -A. Except to minds attempting rationalize the irrational... then it's a useful, if not logically valid, tool.

[LakeSuperiorView]

47. "A v. -A"?

What does that mean? Google doesn't know...

Please cite what about his statement that the drinking age was 18 for most of the years that he was in high school is a lie. He was incorrect in saying Seniors were were legal to drink when only some of them were as not all seniors are 18.

He never legally drank alcohol in high school. He has certainly lied. A lot. But he did not claim that he legally drank beer in high school.

[sl8]

66. I think that's "A versus ¬A" or "A versus not A" n/t

[tenderfoot]

18. The Reagan/GOP threatened state funding if the drinking age wasn't changed to 21

Extortion is the only game they know.

[rampartc]

49. they talk a great gederalism game as well.

[karynnj]

20. True, except there was not one minute where he was 18 and the drinking age was 18

I agree with you that that sentence as quoted is true, but in context it is misleading because the intention is to suggest that in his senior year, they drank and it was legal to do so. In fact, in the time in question, the summer before his senior year, he was 17 -- making it a moot point whether the age was 18 or 21.

What is true is that he drank illegally in his senior year and before -- and at Yale, where, if I interpreted this article correctly, he would not have been a legal drinker until his 20th birthday in February 1985. So, for the first year and first semester of the second, he was drinking illegally -- and it was his freshman year when he is accused of being often drunk by his roommate and when he was accused of assaulting Ramirez.

[Merlot]

21. Was he 18 years old for the 4 years he was in high school?

Most people are close the the age of 18 when seniors or graduating. Maybe he was some strange 18 year old freshman and didn't age again until he graduated?

[LiberalFighter]

26. I would identify his senior year of high school as the first day he attended school

as a senior. Drinking age was raised the July before he attended school as a senior.

[stonecutter357]

33. #facknews !

[WeekiWater]

39. What it shows is that he was a drunk from an early age.

I imagine an angry drunk as well. Self entitled angry little drunk with a wake of female victims in his path.

[EffieBlack]

40. So, it was never legal for him to drink in high school.

[brewens]

41. He turned 18 in February, so had only four months to legally help drink those 100 kegs.

It was like my state a couple years later. 18 year olds before July first when the 21 age took effect remained legal.

When our age got jacked up, a dude on my softball team had an incredibly obnoxious girlfriend that was 18, the previous drinking age was 19. She turned 19 on July fourth and missed it by three days! She tried to sneak in to a couple places with the team which probably would have worked if she was cool. Not a chance! I ratted her off myself! I kind of had to actually. I worked for the Budweiser distributor and was friends with the bar owner that sponsored our team. I would have been in trouble with him and my bosses if they found out I knowingly let a minor come in with us.

[Maeve]

42. Half the truth is a whole lie

HE was never legal to drink in high school.

[Adrahil]

43. But it was 21 100% of the time he was 18 NT

[underthematrix]

46. Kavanaugh was born Feb 12, 1965

In 1979, he was 14 and not eligible to drink. In 1980 he was 15 and not eligible to drink. In 1981 he was 16 and not eligible to drink. In 1982, he was 17 and not eligible to drink. The drinking age was raised to 21 in July 1982. In 1983, he was 18 and not eligible to drink. So the whole time he was in high school he was not eligible to drink.

[Hortensis]

48. Notably, even if it HAD been true, his statement would

have been patently dishonest in saying all seniors could legally drink. Only if they were all 18 before school started.

An appellate court judge who just can't keep from spouting lies that are both incredibly obvious and also incredibly unnecessary. Who'd have imagined this?

He has be removed from the judiciary, period.

[fob]

51. The "drinking age" was whenever you drank, the "LEGAL drinking age" was always beyond his reach

KavaLiar

[pnwmom]

57. It's deliberately DECEPTIVE because he's pretending that that made HIS drinking legal.

And it didn't. By the time he turned 18 the age had already been raised. He wasn't eligible till he was in college, when he turned 20.

[kcr]

61. He was implying that it was legal for him to drink, which wasn't true.

Using a technically true statement in order to lie is still a lie.

[Blue_true]

65. He tried to rape the 15 year old Ms. Blasey when he was 17.

So, he was drinking underage. He still lied about underage drinking.

[manicdem]

69. When to purchase or drink

I'm a bit confused on this one. Can anyone verify that the law in question is minimum age to drink or to purchase? I believe most states have min age to purchase an no minimum to drink.

[SoCalDem]

74. unless you are caught

14 yr olds drink..

kids get older folks to buy their beer

It's illegal to consume or purchase, but that rarely stops determined teens