WOMEN EVERYWHERE ARE WATCHING | Eleven Angry Men | A Federal Investigation, What Like It’s Hard?
September 19, 2018
SUPREME LEVERAGE
|Yesterday, DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD said she doesn’t want to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee until the FBI has conducted an investigation into the allegations she has made against SCOTUS nominee JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH. Her lawyer said Tuesday, “Asking her to come forward in four or five days and sit before the Judiciary Committee on national TV is not a fair process. If they care about doing the right thing here and treating this seriously as they have said, then they will do the right thing and they will properly investigate this, and she will work with them in that investigation and also to share her story with the committee.”
DIDN'T LAST LONG
|After less than 24 hours of the press reporting PRESIDENT TRUMP was taking a more tempered approach to the current Kavanaugh situation, the president seems to have amped up his rhetoric. Today Trump said it’s hard to imagine the nominee committed sexual assault and that it would be unfortunate if the nominee’s accuser does not testify before the Senate. Lawrence Hurley and Roberta Rampton with Reuters reports.
WOMEN EVERYWHERE ARE WATCHING
|In The Atlantic, Dick Polman notes that the Grand Old Party’s response to the Kavanaugh allegations sends “an unmistakable message to women”: the GOP is not a party for you. Polman explains why the gender gap in politics continues to widen as a mass exodus occurs. Women are fleeing the Republican Party in droves, and Polman argues one would think that should spur Republicans to let CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD have her day in court.
IN NON-KAVANAUGH NEWS
|The Supreme Court yesterday insisted that “dark money” donations to predominantly conservative political groups be disclosed ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. The justices let stand a lower court ruling that forces these nonprofit groups to discuss the identities of any donor giving more than $200 when to nonprofits advertising for or against political candidates. The decision was unexpected and left many in Washington scrambling.
BACK TO THE MADNESS
|CNN’s Z. Byron Wolf lays out six possible scenarios for Kavanaugh’s confirmation now that there are allegations of sexual assault being waged against him. He notes, “An allegation of a sexual assault and a take-it-or-leave it offer to the accuser to testify ASAP have opened a new partisan divide and thrown the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, which had seemed to be on a glide path, into chaos.” See what that chaos could turn into as this process plays out.
A MESSAGE FOR MEN
|“Shut up and step up” — that’s SENATOR MAZIE HIRONO’S message for the Republican men trying to “handle” DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD and her very serious, very sensitive allegations. In a news conference yesterday the senator said, “I expect all of the enlightened men in our country, ’cause there must be millions of men out there who are enlightened, who also will rise up to say we cannot continue the victimization and the smearing of someone like Dr. Ford.”
ELEVEN ANGRY MEN
|POLITICO’s Burgess Everett and Elana Schor explain that Senate Republicans are “off to a shaky start” with how they’ve responded to Ford’s accusations. And it might get worse because every Republican on the panel is male. They note, it’s “an echo of the all-male dais that questioned Hill in 1991.”
WHAT, LIKE IT'S HARD
|In The Washington Post, Philip Bump explains why a federal investigation into the Kavanaugh allegations is far from impossible, and how quickly one could commence if there was any interest from Senate leadership to do so.