Why is President Trump able to spew dangerous lies at will?
Why is he—an unindicted co-conspirator in federal crimes—allowed to ram through a hand-picked SCOTUS nominee who will spend decades attacking our rights?
Why is Trump able to do so much damage at home and on the world stage? The answer is simple: Congressional Republicans.
The Congressional GOP enables each attack Trump launches at the fabric of our democracy, and now, with the rigged nomination process of Brett Kavanaugh, they’re laying the course to protect Trump from Mueller and the law.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t own up to their own cover-ups and corruption. They are hiding behind “committee confidentiality” as an excuse to keep 90% of Kavanaugh’s record hidden from the public.
Democrats on the committee aren’t standing for it.
This morning, Senator Cory Booker released documents that were unnecessarily labeled “committee confidential.” From the measly 10% of Kavanaugh’s records made public, the Booker documents, and documents leaked to the New York Times, we learned some disturbing things:
- Kavanaugh appears to have lied under oath in 2004 testimony, swearing he was “not involved in handling” the nomination of Judge Bill Pryor. Leaked emails from 2003 show Kavanaugh was invited to an “emergency umbrella meeting” to discuss Pryor’s nomination.
- In an email with the subject line “Spying,” Kavanaugh worked with a former Senate Republican staffer who was caught stealing over 4,500 files about Bush judicial nominees from six Democrats including Sen. Patrick Leahy. Leahy said “the scandal amounted to a digital Watergate…”
Our democracy is in danger. With the culture of corruption permeating each branch of government, it’s more important than ever that people who care about our democracy stand up and make their voices heard—right now, over Brett Kavanaugh’s sham nomination.
As former CIA director John Brennan said this morning, as more and more reports of chaos come out of the White House, “I have suspected that things were going to get worse before they get better and, indeed, we’re in the worsening point.”
We can’t let it get worse from here.
HEALTH CARE AND CORRUPTION CRUSHING GOP.
With 61 days until the midterm elections, two issues are taking shape as an albatross around the neck of the Republican party: corruption and health care.
According to a Kaiser Health tracking poll, corruption in Washington is emerging for the first time as the “most important” issue for 2018 voters, particularly in the wake of the Paul Manafort indictments and Michael Cohen guilty pleas.
Kaiser also notes that health care is not far behind, and 4 in 10 Americans are “very worried” that they or a family member will lose coverage if the Supreme Court overturns the ACA’s pre-existing conditions protections (which is likely to happen if Kavanaugh is confirmed).
Now, Republican Congressional candidates are racing to distance themselves from their “repeal and replace” trope. ThinkProgress reports that more than 30 vulnerable Republican candidates scrubbed their websites of mentions of repealing Obamacare, likely since “support for Obamacare now far outweighs support for the GOP-controlled Congress.”
No wonder they want the courts to do their dirty work for them. This week, Texas and 19 other states are in court suing to gut the ACA completely, despite legal experts on both sides of the aisle calling the suit ridiculous.
In a sign of just how rigged the game is, as the Trump-backed lawsuit to gut the ACA moved forward yesterday, Brett Kavanaugh refused to tell Senator Sheldon Whitehouse he will uphold protections for people with pre-existing conditions, should he be confirmed.
THINKING CAP: SEASON TWO.
Thinking CAP Podcast is back from our sister 501(c)(3), the Center for American Progress! Season 2 kicks off with three brand new episodes:
- Former FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert Clint Watts discusses the Russian disinformation campaign waged during the 2016 presidential election.
- Army veteran and former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander talks voting rights, his new book, and being a progressive in a red state.
- Vanita Gupta joins the pod to talk about what you can do to #StopKavanaugh.