BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER,
& CROOKED MEDIA

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

—Stormy Daniels on her attorney, Michael Avenatti

TO KAVANAUGH OR KAVA-NOT?

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has a long track record as both a judge and a Republican operative. He had a heavy hand in writing The Starr Report about the sprawling Clinton investigation; he served as a top aide to President George W. Bush for years; he sat through a contentious confirmation hearing to become a federal judge; and he’s published countless judicial opinions and other legal writings. There is a wealth of information out there—some of it public, some of it private—that Democrats will be able to deploy in the hope that at least one Republican senator develops second thoughts.

From the public sphere:

• Kavanaugh is an extremely conservative judge who will be on board with the Roberts Court’s ongoing project of gutting labor law and voting rights, and will allow the Court to kick off its aspirational project of gutting reproductive rights, and possibly even protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Not good.
  
• During the Clinton presidency, Kavanaugh believed that presidents should have crippling exposure to criminal law and impeachment. After working for Bush, he decided that presidents should be immune from criminal investigations like the one Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting. That’s a crazy reversal and it demonstrates horrible judgment.
  
• Kavanaugh seemingly lied under oath to Senate Democrats, including to the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who referred him to the Justice Department and is still in office. Cool nominee. Should be a fun hearing.  

We also deserve to learn more about what isn’t public. For instance:

• As a heavily partisan operator, he privately called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” and reporters who covered the Starr investigation have suggested that he lawlessly leaked details to reporters (in contrast to Mueller’s leak-free investigation). Is there any other misconduct during that period that speaks to his partisan bias?
• As Bush’s White House staff secretary, he wrote thousands of emails that are public record, but haven’t been published. When President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Court from his administration, the White House published her emails. Kavanaugh must be held to the same standard, or must be assumed to be hiding something.
• Trump is famous for demanding loyalty and striking corrupt deals. His White House reportedly negotiated with Justice Anthony Kennedy over who would replace him, easing Kennedy into retirement while Kennedy was deciding cases on the administration’s behalf. Did Trump ask Kavanaugh for loyalty? Did Kavanaugh play a role in his own nomination?
• Also, why the fuck was Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s criminal lawyer, at Kavanaugh’s White House nomination ceremony? (Was it for the canapes?)

From Brian: Kavanaugh’s public record on presidents and the law seems less hypocritical than completely reactionary, bouncing from one indefensible position to another without applying any judgment whatsoever. Senate Democrats should take note of that, because explaining away hypocrisy is easy, but explaining away a fatal blindspot like this is not.

Read →

After 18 days trapped in a flooded cave, 12 boys on a Thai soccer team and their coach have been rescued safely and transported to a nearby hospital where they are recovering, officially bringing the rescue mission, which took the which took the life of a Thai Navy SEAL, to a close.

Yesterday, a judge rejected the Department of Justice’s request to modify the Flores agreement, which limits the detention of immigrant children to 20 days, by allowing children to be detained with their families indefinitely. Now, as the deadline for the administration to reunite children under five with their families has passed, the administration appears to have changed course, releasing migrant parents with children under five into an alternative program that allows them to exit into the community with ankle bracelet monitoring. A reminder that they brought this horrific crisis upon themselves, by choice.

After visiting Russia, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) doesn’t think Russian election meddling is as serious as we think it is. Remember how the Russians also hacked GOP emails, but didn’t release any of them? Weird.

Eight former college wrestlers are now accusing their then-assistant coach, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), of looking the other way as a team doctor molested them. Rep. Jordan’s top defenders are Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is paying forward the time GOP leaders went to bat for him after his ties to white supremacists became public, and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who says the molestation is NBD because the victims were adults.

Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports conveniently spare clothing, including his daughter Ivanka’s Chinese-made clothing line. News has yet to reach the overflowing bargain bins near second-tier department-store cash registers.

Michael Flynn's lawyers appear unhappy that their client's plan to rejoin the world of foreign lobbying leaked before his sentencing.

The NRCC had to cut ties with yet another white supremacist House candidate. Womp womp.

After the artist who originally created Pepe the Frog sued, the Neo-Nazi hub the Daily Stormer had to take down all of the Pepe the Frog memes on its site. Womp womp.

Sacha Baron Cohen has been undercover for a year filming his new Showtime show, Who Is America? featuring interviews with Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, and more.

On Pod Save the People: DeRay, Sam, Clint, and Brittany discuss a judge’s ruling in Detroit that access to literacy is not a constitutional right, and how police killings have harmed mental health in black communities. Then, Democrats for Education Reform president Shavar Jeffries joins DeRay to talk about DFER’s core work, what impact charter schools have on diversity, and why he thinks choice matters.

Listen →

Today’s a double header.

First, BuzzFeed reports on the harrowing conditions that pregnant migrant women face in detention facilities on the southern border, including mistreatment that causes them to experience miscarriages. In December, the Department of Homeland Security introduced a new policy that allows for the detention of pregnant women until their their third trimesters—a departure from previous directives under Obama to not detain pregnant women unless in extreme circumstances.

From Brian: The "pro-life" party is also the party that thinks "we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," and this is what that looks like in practice.

If that wasn’t upsetting enough, there’s also this story about a group of adults attacking a a 92-year-old man with a brick and telling him to “go back to to his country” on July 4th.

Trump issued pardons for the two insurrectionist Oregon ranchers who occupied federal property and were convicted of arson for starting multiple fires on public lands in 2012. The message to right-wing extremists is that they can commit federal crimes and endanger federal law-enforcement officials with impunity. Fantastic.

Being on-time to the carpool is the number one thing we look for in determining who gets to decide the future of constitutional rights in this country, how did you know WaPo?! Democracy dies in tardiness.

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