Another Yale classmate has come forward to say that Brett Kavanaugh had a drinking problem at college, but he might not be interviewed by the FBI as the White House and the Senate are limiting the investigation to only the four people who were allegedly at the party where Dr. Blasey Ford says she was assaulted by Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge. Two other classmates have come forward to say that Kavanaugh was “belligerent and aggressive” when he drank too much, which apparently was not a rare occurrence. They are not on the list to be interviewed. Nor are his roommates, who said that he frequently puked in their bathroom because of his drunkenness. (Kavanaugh said at the hearing that he has a sensitive stomach.)
WASHINGTON — A Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accused him on Sunday of a “blatant mischaracterization” of his drinking while in college, saying that he often saw Judge Kavanaugh “staggering from alcohol consumption.”
The classmate, Chad Ludington, who said he frequently socialized with Judge Kavanaugh as a student, said in a statement that the judge had been untruthful in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he had denied any possibility that he had ever blacked out from drinking.
Mr. Ludington said that Judge Kavanaugh had played down “the degree and frequency” of his drinking, and that the judge had often become “belligerent and aggressive” while intoxicated. Other former classmates have made similar claims.
“It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges,” Mr. Ludington said, adding that he planned to “take my information to the F.B.I.”
Mr. Ludington, a professor at North Carolina State University who appears to have made small political contributions to Democratic candidates, said to The New York Times on Sunday that he had been told by the F.B.I.’s Washington, D.C., field office that he should go to the bureau’s Raleigh, N.C., office on Monday morning. He said he intended to do that, so he could “tell the full details of my story.”
It is illegal to lie to Congress. But it was unclear whether the F.B.I. would add Mr. Ludington’s accusations to the newly reopened background investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh, which has been limited in scope and time by the White House and Senate Republicans.
The White House had no immediate comment about Mr. Ludington’s accusations.
Even before Mr. Ludington’s statement, Democrats in Washington reacted with anger on Sunday as the narrow scope of the new F.B.I. background inquiry became clear, warning that it threatened to become a sham…
Democrats have cast the initial list of those to be interviewed as falling short of a full examination of the allegations. The four witnesses are Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh’s; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of one of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers, Christine Blasey Ford; and Deborah Ramirez, another of the judge’s accusers.
A lawyer for Dr. Blasey, who riveted the nation on Thursday as she recounted before the Judiciary Committee what she said was a rape attempt by a drunken Judge Kavanaugh when they were in high school, said on Sunday that she had not been contacted by the F.B.I.
“We have not heard from the F.B.I. despite repeated efforts to speak with them,” Debra S. Katz, the lawyer, said in a brief telephone interview Sunday morning.

“Democrats have cast the initial list of those to be interviewed as falling short of a full examination of the allegations.”
So what about Democrats like Manchin and Donnelly? Are they too demanding a more thorough investigation? Or are they going to join their true brethren (the Republicans) and use the FBI “investigation” [sic] as a cover to vote to confirm?
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Probably they will join far right wing enabler Republican Susan Collins who has never seen a far right wing judge she doesn’t like and has never seen a far right Republican filibuster or blocking of any vote that she won’t embrace. Susan Collins is the reason Merrick Garland never came up for a vote.
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Susan is nothing more than a self-serving opportunist.
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may she be looking directly at the end of her career should she fall in line on Kavanaugh: the waking of the female zeitgeist is happening right there in full view — she can see it, or pretend it will not come for her
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Reminder: the word Kavanaugh sends your comment to moderation
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ahhhhh
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i like beer do you like beer
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I don’t like beer.
I do like margaritas, however
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I enjoy an occasional bitter, dark beer like once a year and then I share the “small” bottle with a friend so I only drink half of it. I don’t drink enough to get even a slight buzz from the alcohol.
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Lloyd: Okay, I had to put my two cents in. “I’d rather eat ice cream!!!!”
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Well, since you brought up ice cream – if someone offered me a choice between my favorite beer, St Bernardus Abt12, and a slice of vegan chocolate cake or vegan apple pie, the cake and/or pie would win every time. I’m a chocoholic and my favorite desert is apple pie. I only mention vegan because I’ve been one since 1982 and don’t want to mislead anyone as to the type of cake or pie I’d take over a bottle of my favorite beer. I don’t drink beer to get drunk. I drink it to enjoy the taste. Since I only drink half a bottle about once a year and eat a lot more chocolate and apple pie during a year, we now know the winner.
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Another dog and pony show. The old boys club will have their wishes granted soon enough.
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I read earlier today (don’t remember the source) that Trump tweeted it wasn’t true that the FBI was being limited. The author of the piece wrote that because Trump is president that means the FBI could ignore any written or oral orders they had before the official Tweet from President Donald Trump.
I hope its true. LOL
Trump is probably the first leader of a country to rule through Twitter and hopefully he will be the last.
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He’s evil.
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What’s worse than evil?
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Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
NBC News incorrectly reported (as usual) that I was limiting the FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, and witnesses, only to certain people. Actually, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion. Please correct your reporting!
12:36 AM – Sep 30, 2018
85
68 people are talking about this
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The POTUS’ rule by impulsive tweet may be his undoing if the FBI pursues this with the vigor described in Jim Comey’s op ed piece in the NYTimes…
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If the FBI doesn’t reach out and interview more than four people, the investigation will be a farce. Trump has devoted nearly two years to browbeating the FBI and undermining its independence
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Lloyd, I’ve sent the Trump Tweet that you mentioned. Of course, it is in moderation. Trump: “I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate”….
It would be great if the FBI can ignore any written or oral orders that came before this official Tweet. Nobody with this important a job should be stupid enough to have to ‘rule by Twitter’.
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Hey, at least you know that if he’s tweeting, there is something that needs to be covered up somewhere else. Not only is he a liar, but he is a better distractor. What happened with the letter written by someone on staff?…..HMMMM….could it have been written for the purpose of distraction from the BK hearing?
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BOTYOM LINE: I don’t want an alcoholic, let alone a person whose character is in BIG doubt to become a Supreme Court Judge…period. “Kraven”augh is UNFIT. To approve him is to approve defecating on Our Constitution and its founders. Sorry, but the Supreme Court is NOT high school, and certainly not a private, preppy high school for rich kids.
https://www.evergreendrugrehab.com/blog/obvious-alcoholic-drinking-behaviors-hard-ignore/
So much that goes on in politics in America make NO SENSE and is criminal, like having others do time for one’s crime (surrogate punishment) like Chris Christy and Dick Cheney. This is so wrong.
To say I am concerned about this country called the USA is “putting It lightly.”
I have jokingly and also sarcastically referred to this country where I live as Ameri-DUH. Hope I am wrong.
Vote! And vote like your life depended on your one vote…because it does.
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Yes, voting is SO important at this moment in our nation’s history.
Our congressional district (NY 19) is one of the swing seats that could turn the House around. I’ve done whatever I can including going out canvassing for Antonio Delgado, the Democratic candidate. His opponent, incumbent John Faso, is an empty, corporate suit who, for example, cast one of the deciding votes against Obamacare. (Meanwhile, he “represents” one of the poorest corners of Upstate New York.)
Any and all support Delgado can get, along with other challengers to G.O.P control, is much appreciated.
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“Kraven”augh is on a “job interview” in frint of this nation, and as a citizen, I say, “NO!”
Pardon my misspelled first word..BOTTOM.
IMPEACH that orange-haired idiot. Dump is giving America to Putin chunk-by-chunk, while the oligarchs put back in place Jim Crow via charter schools and vouchers.
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Typo…“front”. Why we are even discussing k for Supreme Court is nothing short of CRAZY.
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Kavanaugh has lied about sooo many things. He lied about his drinking. About blacking out. About “Devil’s Triangle” and “boofing.” About being a Renate alumnus. About the geographic locations of the houses where he and Dr. Ford lived.
But he also lied about being a neutral arbiter of the law. As Steve Pearlstein noted in The Post six years go in a case that involved EPA pollution regulations.
“But in reading the 60-page opinion by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, you’d have no clue of this historical, political, economic or health context…You’d have no idea that hundreds of dedicated, highly trained scientists, analysts and statisticians at the EPA might have spent more than a decade devoted to the extremely complex task of figuring out how much of the ozone or sulfur dioxide in the air in Rhode Island originated in Indiana.
“You’d have no idea that legions of government lawyers and economists might have spent a decade listening to, and negotiating with, state officials, industry groups and environmental advocates on an equitable formula for reducing pollution in the least costly way….You’d have no idea that, in earlier decisions, the same court had found it a reasonable formula resulting in reasonable compliance costs, but sent an earlier version back to be reworked because it didn’t make the air clean enough.”
Instead, what you get is 60 pages of legal sophistry, procedural hair-splitting and scientific conjecture….You find a judge without a shred of technical training formulating his own policy solution to an incredibly complex problem and substituting it for the solution proposed by experienced experts…You find an appeals court judge so dismissive of the most fundamental rules of judicial restraint that he dares to throw out regulations on the basis of concerns never raised during the rule-making process or in the initial court appeal.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-judicial-jihad-against-the-regulatory-state/2012/10/12/d9eb080c-13ca-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html?utm_term=.f29b265feb33
This is what judicial “restraint” looks like to conservatives like Kavanaugh. Just make things up. The same thing Scalia did in DC v Heller, when he basically rewrote the Second Amendment.
Kavanaugh also lied about his knowledge of the sexual proclivities of Alex Kozinski, ousted form the federal courts for sexual harassment and prolific use of pornography on federal court property. In fact, Kavanaugh hired Kozindki’s son as a lwa clerk, even though he didn’t have the kind of academic record that usually accompanies such a hiring.
As The Guardian reported,
“The decision to hire Clayton Kozinski, son of the now disgraced judge Alex Kozinski, smacked of the kind of cronyism that is rife in federal courts. It was especially common for Kavanaugh, who not only had a reputation for hiring ‘model-like’ female clerks, but also the children of powerful friends and allies…The move also marked the culmination of a decades-long professional and personal relationship with Alex Kozinski – the first high-profile judge to be forced to resign in the #MeToo era – that had helped launch Kavanaugh’s career…serious concerns about whether Kavanaugh lied under oath have also been raised – publicly and privately – on a topic that has received far less attention in the national spotlight: his insistence that he was shocked when he discovered last year that Kozinski, his mentor and friend, sexually harassed more than a dozen clerks in decades on the bench.”
“People who knew Kozinski have privately – and in some cases, publicly – challenged that statement, saying Kozinski’s abusive behavior, which ranged from kissing clerks to showing them pornography at work to making sexist remarks, was known throughout the judiciary. There were also public signs of his inappropriate use of pornography at work…Individuals who knew Kozinski and spoke to the Guardian on the condition that their names be withheld, for fear of retribution, described Kavanaugh’s testimony as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unbelievable’.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/01/kavanaugh-clerk-hire-casts-light-on-link-to-judge-forced-to-resign-in-metoo-era
What the nation saw with Brett Kavanaugh’s arrogant, aggressive, abrasive, lie-filled Judiciary Committee statement, was what Kavanaugh truly is, especially when he’s alcohol-fueled.
Republicans don’t care about truth, or the Constitution, or women’s rights or voting rights, or the environment. They care about raw power and money, and they will subvert all – every one – of the republic’s core democratic values to get and keep them, even if it means using Russian intelligence agencies to do so.
Republicans are – in fact – a clear and present national security danger.
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Unfortunately, I will not be surprised if this FBI investigation is about as thorough as the one the FBI did when they learned that the DNC computers had been hacked in 2015.
You might recall that the FBI agents did an investigation that consisted entirely of leaving a message on the IT help desk voicemail so that whichever low level staffer at the IT subcontractor’s office had the job of listening to the help desk voicemails could be their point person in their “comprehensive” investigation.
Trump doesn’t need to put limits on the investigation if he just demands the very same agents who “investigated” the DNC computer hacking by leaving a help desk voicemail are the only ones allowed to do this investigation.
No doubt any FBI agents working under Trump’s directions will be similar to the ones whose definition of “comprehensive investigation” is leaving voicemails on computer help desk phone numbers.
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“saying that he often saw Judge Kavanaugh ‘staggering from alcohol consumption.'”
Unless this person says that Kavanaugh “blacked out” from drinking, I don’t see how this shows Kavanaugh lied about his drinking. Kavanaugh conceded that he sometimes “had too many” drinks. I thought “staggering” was the universally understood definition of “having too many” drinks. Unless the dispute is over “often” versus “sometimes”?
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I won’t argue the legalities of what he said with you, I realize I’ve got less ammunition, but tend to sympathize with Shakespeare’s advice. In my opinion, K’s statements would even have denied “staggering”. Based on his testimony, his drinking was always a jovial, friendly, social affair and hr only got slightly tipsy. “Staggering” is something he implicitly denied throughout.
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Chad Ludington, a Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s who said he often drank with him, issued a statement on Sunday saying the Supreme Court nominee was not truthful about his drinking in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
Here is the full text of the statement:
I have been contacted by numerous reporters about Brett Kavanaugh and have not wanted to say anything because I had nothing to contribute about what kind of justice he would be. I knew Brett at Yale because I was a classmate and a varsity basketball player and Brett enjoyed socializing with athletes. Indeed, athletes formed the core of Brett’s social circle.
In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, I cringed. For the fact is, at Yale, and I can speak to no other times, Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.
I do not believe that the heavy drinking or even loutish behavior of an 18- or even 21-year-old should condemn a person for the rest of his life. I would be a hypocrite to think so. However, I have direct and repeated knowledge about his drinking and his disposition while drunk. And I do believe that Brett’s actions as a 53-year-old federal judge matter. If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences. It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges.
I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth.
I felt it was my civic duty to tell of my experience while drinking with Brett, and I offer this statement to the press. I have no desire to speak further publicly, and nothing more to say to the press at this time. I will, however, take my information to the F.B.I.
Charles (Chad) Ludington
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FLERP!,
K most certainly committed perjury in his false characterization of the Renate club as a positive thing.
“One of our good — one of our good female friends that we admired and went to dances with, we had her name on the yearbook page with the term “alumnus.” That yearbook reference was clumsily meant to show affection, that she was one of us. But in this circus, the media has interpreted the term as related to sex. It’s not related to sex.”
This is absolutely contradicted by Renate’s own first reaction when she heard about the club as well as the song that K’s pal and fellow Renate club member posted. “You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate.”
That is not just “showing affection”. If K wants to argue during his perjury trial that he hopes very much that his own two daughters’ high school experience includes a group of boys who treats them exactly as he and his friends treated Renate, including dedicating yearbook posts to being “alums” of them and posing for a group photo as “alums” of his daughters, because nothing about those were “related to sex” but instead was their nice way to honor a friend, then let K make that claim at his perjury trial. I cannot imagine his wife and daughter’s reaction as Kavanaugh explains that he wishes his own daughters could be honored the way and he and his friends “honored” Renate. I wonder if he would sacrifice his own daughters to his desire to be Supreme Court justice. I suspect he would. But would anyone believe him?
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Kavanaugh was asked about the word “boof” in his high school yearbook.
He said it was an innocent reference to flatulence.
He lied.
The definition in the Urban dictionary cannot be reprinted on a blog with standards of decency.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Boof
See this article at Vox for the entire discussion:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/9/27/17905818/brett-kavanaughs-yearbook-boof
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It’s ironic that Trump selected the excessive drinker, Kavanaugh, given his disdain for what alcohol did to people he knew personally.
Has a Supreme Court Justice ever entered rehab for substance abuse?
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Few professions have rates of higher alcoholism than the legal profession.
I’m not aware of a Supreme Court justice ever entering rehab. I think that would be very, very big news if it happened. It was big enough news when Justice Ginsburg said publicly that she fell asleep during one of Obama’s State of the Union addresses because she was drunk.
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Interesting story I just pulled up.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2005/09/rehnquists_drug_habit.html
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Thanks for the article. The author attributes silence about the justices’ mental impairment to “class bias”. Justices should be drug and alcohol tested for fitness on a regular basis.
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I suppose we shouldn’t stop with judges. Presumably the President of the United States should have to submit to regular, random tests for drug and alcohol use — after all, unlike Supreme Court Justices, the President doesn’t have summers off and may have to make critical, snap decisions at any moment of the day or night.
Who else?
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Who else?
We can review the correct number to test in D.C. political circles, after the amount matches the number of employees that corporations test. Lindner’s son, in management at his father’s company was, like other managerial staff, exempted from the corporate drug testing. He was found to be a user while on company business. The situation defines both class bias and absurdity.
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To the extent your real point is that employee drug testing is in general abusive and far too widespread, I agree.
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Is there evidence to suggest that the President and U.S. Senate were aware of Rehnquist’s narcotics problem, prior to his appointment and confirmation?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010500521.html?noredirect=on
WASHINGTON — A physician at the U.S. Capitol prescribed a powerful sleep aid for William Rehnquist for nearly a decade while he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court, according to newly released FBI records.
The records present a picture of a justice with chronic back pain who for many months took three times the recommended dosage of the drug Placidyl and then went into withdrawal in 1981 when he abruptly stopped taking it.
Rehnquist checked himself into George Washington University Hospital, where he tried to escape in his pajamas and imagined that the CIA was plotting against him, the records indicate.
Although Rehnquist’s drug dependency was publicly known around the time he was hospitalized in 1981, the release of the FBI records provides new details.
The justice was weaned off Placidyl in early 1982 in a detoxification process that took a month, according to the records. The hospital doctor who treated Rehnquist said the Capitol Hill physician who prescribed Placidyl for Rehnquist was practicing bad medicine, bordering on malpractice. Both doctors’ names were deleted from the documents before they were released.
The FBI documents were prepared in 1986 when Rehnquist _ who began serving on the court on Jan. 7, 1972 _ was nominated for chief justice, years after his problems with the drug had ended. They were released by the agency in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The agency said one of the seven folders of Rehnquist documents could not be found.
A psychiatrist told the FBI that Rehnquist’s family in 1981 noted “long-standing slurred speech which seems to coincide with administration of Placidyl,” one FBI interview report stated. The psychiatrist also indicated that Rehnquist’s chronic back pain led to his heavy use of such substances as Darvon and Tylenol 3, which the psychiatrist said also played a part in Rehnquist’s condition.
An attending physician at the U.S. Capitol detailed Rehnquist’s problems with Placidyl for the FBI, saying that prior to his seeing the justice in 1972, Rehnquist was prescribed the drug by another doctor for relief from insomnia. The attending physician told the FBI he continued to prescribe Placidyl for the entire 10-year period that he treated Rehnquist.
The physician said that Rehnquist had been prescribed 500 milligrams of Placidyl per evening, but that Rehnquist was actually taking 1,500 milligrams each night. The doctor said this increased consumption may have coincided with Mrs. Rehnquist’s illness and treatment for cancer.
Rehnquist had told the physician that he was taking one pill before going to bed and he would take other pills if he awakened during the night.
The physician indicated that he decided to discontinue the drug’s use and to try another medication. Rehnquist said the new medication was not strong enough, an FBI interview report stated. The physician said he then prescribed a substitute and then another, at which point Rehnquist went into the hospital.
The hospital doctor who successfully weaned Rehnquist from the drug told the FBI that the toxicity of Placidyl causes blurred vision, slurred speech and difficulty in making physical movements. Once a patient stops taking the drug, the withdrawal symptoms of delirium begin, which is what happened to Rehnquist at the hospital.
The doctor who helped Rehnquist get off the drug said the justice’s wife was highly upset and felt that the prescribing physician and the pharmacist who filled the prescription were probably intimidated by such high-ranking officials as Supreme Court justices and senators and probably would have agreed to almost any request.
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FLERP,
That explains a lot.
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Very interesting read.
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