Tag: Christine Blasey

But other things happened this week, too: Here are some of the other big politics stories -- almost any of which would have been the big story in any other week -- in case you missed them: President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. But the thing that always distracts me is that armchair that speakers at the UN have to sit in for what seems like all of three seconds while they're being introduced. Now, don't get me wrong, I am the most vocal sitting desk supporter you are likely to find. But still, that chair doesn't even look that comfy. Apparently Trump "went off" on Macron. I analyze every handshake between these two as if they're diplomatic Punxsutawney Phils, indicating the state of the relationship between two major world democracies. Eagerly awaiting the remix of Cardi B's "I Like It" featuring Joe Biden where they change the line "I like those Balenciagas/the ones that look like socks" to "I like those Balenciagas/I like pulling up my socks." The other big Trump news was his first solo news conference in quite a while. This week had enough going on. I used this as the GIF of the day in Wednesday's edition of The Point newsletter, and no word yet on whether Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke won the game of Nose Goes that (I think) he was playing.

Written by Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal), Madeleine Carlisle (@maddiecarlisle2), and Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) Today in 5 Lines During a tense hearing on sexual-misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor, delivered an emotional testimony detailing the night she says she was sexually assaulted by the Supreme Court nominee. Senator Lindsey Graham also lashed out at Democrats, calling the proceedings an “unethical sham.” President Trump postponed his meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein until next week to avoid interfering with the Kavanaugh hearing, said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Tesla CEO Elon Musk with fraud, alleging that he misled investors. The flu killed about 80,000 people last winter, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. : Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony had the feeling of history in the making, writes Elaina Plott. Christine Blasey Ford identified Judge as the other person in the room when she was sexually assaulted. His absence on Thursday reveals a Senate hearing held in bad faith, argues Adam Serwer. ‘Pretty Likable, Pretty Believable’: When American women testify, they carry an extra burden of proof. In order for Christine Blasey Ford to be reliable, she also had to be likable, writes Megan Garber. (The Washington Post) How They Reacted: See the expressions of lawmakers as Christine Blasey Ford delivered her opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Thursday’s Senate hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was an embarrassment that should have never happened. Judge Kavanaugh was right to call the confirmation process a “disgrace” in his passionate self-defense, and whatever one thinks of Christine Blasey Ford’s assault accusation, she offered no corroboration or new supporting evidence. Her description of the assault and its impact on her was wrenching. She clearly believes what she says happened to her. Her allegation should have been vetted privately, in confidence, as she said she would have preferred. Instead ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein held it for six weeks and it was leaked—perhaps to cause precisely such a hearing circus. As for Judge Kavanaugh, his self-defense was as powerful and emotional as the moment demanded. If he was angry at times, imagine how you would feel if you were so accused and were innocent as he says he is. The female friend Ms. Ford says was at the home the night of the assault says she wasn’t there. The number of people she says were there has varied from four to five and perhaps more, but every potential witness she has cited by name says he or she doesn’t recall the party.

It was evident long before Thursday’s senate judiciary committee hearings addressing Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of sexual assault – which he denies – and indeed before Dr Ford first accused him. Donald Trump put him forward having promised to appoint judges who would reverse the Roe v Wade abortion ruling, pleasing those who do not believe that women can be trusted to control their own bodies. Before the testimony, more voters – especially female voters – believed Dr Ford than Mr Kavanaugh. But it is evident that they still regard this as a matter of optics. Despite these circumstances, no prosecutor could have hoped for a more credible, compelling or sympathetic witness than Dr Ford. Mr Kavanaugh faces no charges, let alone a risk of conviction. The question is whether he has earned the privilege of a lifetime seat on the highest court, ruling on voting rights, presidential power – and the rights of women to control their own bodies. Women who speak out and are smeared and attacked – as Dr Ford has been. Thursday’s hearings failed to treat the allegations adequately. But in these elections, and the years to come, they should know that women, and the men who respect them, will certainly remember.

I was underneath one of them while the two laughed, two friends having a really good time with one another.”) Conversely, Brett Kavanaugh and his defenders, most prominently Senator Lindsey Graham, cast Ford’s accusation and the hearing itself as an attack on Kavanaugh’s dignity: the shouting, hectoring, crying, and Graham’s explicit refusal even to consider the subject of the hearing communicated that they saw any challenge as an offense. For the rest of us, the spectacle of the hearing, and the vote that followed, became a death watch for dignity in politics. I have written about the concept of the “feminization of politics,” which foregrounds restoring dignity to those who are not often heard: women, poor people, black and brown people, disabled people, and many others. Seemingly out of nowhere, there appeared the performance of respect for the law, for the intellectual rigor of interpreting the law, and for procedure. But as Russia deteriorated, so did the public performance of politics, including in the courts. That underscores the interplay of the two kinds of political dignity: the dignity of participation and the dignity of performance. What we witnessed yesterday was the deliberate refusal to perform dignity. Every single one of them demonstrated, through their sympathetic questioning of Kavanaugh, that they were not in the least swayed by Ford’s credible and moving testimony. However, if the rest of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee had had their druthers, Ford’s story would be told, but it would not be heard—at least not in the United States Senate. They would deny her, and the millions of women and men outside the Senate who did hear her, the dignity of participation.

In the battle over the confirmation of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the outcome each party respectively wants may hurt them in November’s elections. They got higher still on Wednesday when a new accuser, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh was abusive to girls in high school and alleged he was present at a party where she was gang-raped. Kavanaugh vigorously denied the new charges, calling them “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.” But all 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said President Trump should either withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination or reopen his FBI background investigation. They’ve resisted any new investigations before Thursday’s scheduled public hearing where both he and Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, will testify. Yet the defeat of Kavanaugh might be the best electoral outcome for Republicans, especially in pro-Trump states where Democratic incumbents are defending Senate seats. The religious right is trying to keep Republican senators in line by arguing that failing to get Kavanaugh on the court would dispirit the GOP base. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released Wednesday found that, even among Republican women, support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation had dropped by 18 points. Battling to hold a seat in North Dakota, a state Trump carried by nearly 36 percentage points, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp condemned her opponent, Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, for belittling Ford’s claims as “absurd.” “These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement,” Cramer said. Both parties have made electoral politics secondary because they know that history will weigh heavily in the coming days. He named conservative former president William Howard Taft as chief justice, while Harding’s other three appointments “fell also to men of ability, albeit in each case to an extreme conservative.” Two of the four were still on the court when conservative justices created a judicial crisis in the 1930s by rejecting one New Deal program after another; the other two were replaced by conservatives named by President Herbert Hoover and were also broadly part of the anti-New Deal block.

Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. SJC member, Sen. John Kennedy, joins Morning Joe to discuss why he believes Kavanaugh's account but is ready to hear Ford's testimony. » Subscribe to…

The audience laughed during Trump's speech. Trump dismissed Deborah Ramirez’s sexual-misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying she “has nothing” because she was “drunk.” The Senate Judiciary Committee hired a female attorney to question Christine Blasey Ford at Thursday’s hearing on a sexual-assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled a major housing bill that takes aim at segregation, redlining, restrictive zoning, and the loss of equity by low-income homeowners. (Natasha Bertrand) Snapshot What We’re Reading Separate and Unequal: Georgia is “unnecessarily segregating” some black children with emotional and mental disabilities into a separate school system where the graduation rate is nearly 70 percent lower. “The kids aren’t being educated,” said one former teacher. (Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker) Who Is Rod Rosenstein? : A years-old Baltimore criminal case can help shed light on who exactly the deputy attorney general is, and if he’ll stay in his job. (Dara Lind, Vox) The Ones Who Never Came Home: In the late 19th and early 20th century, thousands of indigenous children were forcibly sent to government boarding schools. Now, the United Nations wants to know what happened to them.

Donald Trump has received an enormous amount of criticism for the damage he’s done to constitutional and democratic norms. It’s the men in this country. When America was founded, whites had more rights than blacks, men had more rights than women, and rich white men had more rights than everybody else. America has worked -- as a matter of law, politics and moral education -- to live up to our ideals of individual rights, and we’ve made enormous progress. It is of course true that most rapes are committed by men, but that doesn’t mean most men are rapists. Nor does it mean that because some other men committed rape, a man who didn’t is guilty or loses the presumption of innocence. Over and over, opponents of Kavanaugh are arguing that Ford is credible because of the actions of other men. Credible means “believable.” It does not mean “true.” And yet the argument made a thousand times a day on cable news and social media is that because the charge is (allegedly) believable, it must also be believed. Individuals have a right to confront their accuser. Partisans cannot prove an individual’s guilt by invoking the real or alleged crimes of others.

There are very few things I'm sure of in the latest, and worst, chapter in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation saga. It's like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book in which every chapter ends with a thud at the bottom of an old well or the clanking shut of a dungeon door. What if Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth that, 36 years ago, a drunken 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh pushed her down on a bed and covered her mouth in an attempt to sexually assault her? For starters, she'll never get justice. This will never see a court of law. The most Ford might get is vengeance by thwarting Kavanaugh's dream of getting on the Supreme Court and destroying his reputation. What if she believed Kavanaugh intended her terrible harm, but he had no such intent, simply thinking he was being funny, flirtatious, manly or some other dumb idea drunk 17-year-old jocks sometimes have? And what if the truth is somewhere in the middle? If anything, the well-documented patterns of his life and career suggest that the Kavanaugh of Ford's memory is not the Kavanaugh he became — or perhaps ever was. Would it be fair to let this one event, if remotely true, eclipse everything else?