“Good and honorable man.”
“Strong character and tremendous integrity.”
“Is this judge a really good man? And he is. And by any measure he is.”
Saint Kavanaugh is a man with an “unblemished past,”—or so President Trump and the White House continue to insist, despite numerous credible allegations of sexual assault levied against him.
Judge Kavanaugh has made a career out of saying anything to advance his career, a fact illustrated by his apparent inability to appear before the Senate without perjuring himself. Yesterday, in a softball Fox News interview with his wife, Kavanaugh continued the trend.
Rather than admit to well-documented behaviors from his past, such as heavy drinking and partying, Kavanaugh painted himself as a saint, insisting his younger years were spent on “academics,” “service projects,” and “friendship.”
And so Kavanaugh sat down at a friendly partisan network—in an unprecedented public interview for a Supreme Court nominee—and told the American people to trust him instead of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, both of whom are facing attacks from Republican Senators and the president himself.
Kavanaugh, on Ms. Ramirez’s allegations, said: “If such a thing had happened, it would have been the talk of the campus. The women I knew in college and the men I knew in college said it’s inconceivable that I could have done such a thing.”
But as a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at the time told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, “he has thought of it every time he’s heard Kavanaugh’s name” over the last 35 years. And Kavanaugh’s own college dormmate at the time of the second incident said that he believes Ms. Ramirez.
Why should we believe Kavanaugh? He has a history of misleading the public.
Kavanaugh called for a “fair process” no less than 17 times during his Fox News interview yesterday.
If he wants a fair process, why not allow for an FBI investigation?
Why not ask for his entire record to be made public?
Why not call for his friend and eye witness Mark Judge to testify?
CORPORATE PACS & THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION
New ThinkProgress reporting reveals that vulnerable Republican incumbents are receiving far more corporate PAC money than their Democratic challengers.
69 vulnerable GOP incumbents up for reelection in November have received $21 million from corporate PACs, 350 times as much as their Democratic opponents who received less than $60 thousand from these PACs.
As ThinkProgress noted: “This Congress, the Trump tax cuts were the most significant legislative action taken in favor of corporate interests, so it’s no surprise that the bulk of corporate PAC money is now going to defend the GOP majority that enacted them.”
Of course that was the point, and in essence that has become the entire GOP business model—check out our site ProfilesInCorruption.org for a deep dive. But while Republicans have gone all in on corporate cash to keep them afloat, polls show their corruption having the opposite effect. Yesterday, FiveThirtyEight showed Democrats up by more than 8 points in the Congressional generic ballot.
There has also been a growing movement for Democratic candidates to reject corporate PAC money. As Navin Nayak, executive director of CAP Action, and End Citizens United executive director Tiffany Mueller explained:
“Change is never easy—in our personal lives, in business, and certainly in politics. But Democrats have a golden opportunity to be the party that breaks up the status quo. Democrats can change how they are perceived by the public in order to both win more elections and begin restoring trust in our government.”
THINKING CAP: THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN MORAL AUTHORITY
In a timely pod, Daniella and Ed sat down with Ambassador Wendy Sherman—the former undersecretary of state for political affairs and the first woman to hold that post—to reflect on the most recent diplomatic goings-on in North Korea and Iran and how this administration has hamstrung American leadership abroad. As the former lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Sherman discusses her new book and weighs in on how she learned to embrace power as a woman in Washington. Listen here.