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BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA Monday, September 16, 2019 |
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| BRETT AND TEARS |
| Two New York Times reporters have corroborated a damning allegation of sexual abuse againt Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and brought a new allegation to light. Several prominent Democrats have responded by calling on the House to impeach Kavanaugh for lying to Congress. Here’s what you need to know.
What happened? In their forthcoming book, which the Times excerpted this weekend, reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin detail new evidence that supports an allegation that a woman named Deborah Ramirez made to the New Yorker in 2018. During the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, Senate Republicans only allowed one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, to testify publicly. That effectively silenced Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face at a party when the two were undergraduates at Yale in the 1980s. Kavanaugh denied the allegation outright and insisted that if the allegation were true, it would have been the subject of gossip at the time. Kelly and Pogrebin have confirmed that the incident it was, in fact, the talk of the dorm.
What else happened? The reporters also reveal that the Senate and FBI ignored a different credible allegation from one of Kavanaugh’s classmates. Max Stier, who now runs a nonpartisan nonprofit that helps officials from both parties adhere to good government practices, told senators he’d witnessed Kavanugh force a different classmate to touch his penis at a party, though the reporters say the classmate in question has no recollection of the incident. Another witness recalled that the same alleged victim ultimately transferred out of her residential college at Yale because of Kavanaugh. The FBI never investigated this allegation.
How has the political establishment reacted? Somewhat depressingly!
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| House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff has subpoenaed President Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to turn over a whistleblower complaint that he has been illegally withholding from Congress, apparently on White House orders. Schiff says he only learned about the complaint because the intelligence community’s internal watchdog, who deemed the anonymous whistleblowers allegation an “urgent concern,” wrote a letter alerting key congressional leaders to the situation.
So what's the administration hiding? We don’t know, but it appears to pertain to an abuse of spying power undertaken by Trump or a senior White House official. And it’s incredibly disturbing, as Schiff’s extraordinary public comments suggest, that the DNI along with the Justice Department and possibly Trump’s White House are engaged in an illegal effort to protect the president and hide this “urgent” misconduct from Congress. This is a five-alarm scandal playing out in public, and deserves intense media scrutiny. |
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| Vote Save America is partnering with Stacey Abrams’s voting rights organization, Fair Fight, to help raise the funds we need for Fair Fight 2020. Fair Fight 2020 is an unprecedented effort to fund, staff, and train full-time voter protection teams in 20 battleground states at Democratic state parties—the entities that will be critical in the general election for our eventual presidential and U.S. Senate nominees. Voter protection is a missing piece of the Democratic Party’s strategy for an election that will be incredibly close. We will need every single vote to win. That's why we're joining Stacey in her fight. We're going to try to raise $1 million dollars by November 5th of this year. That way, these teams can hit the ground a full year ahead of Election Day 2020. This is one of the most important things you can do right now to help win in 2020, so please chip in what you can → votesaveamerica.com/fairfight |
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| Nearly 50,000 members of the United Automobile Workers union are on strike against General Motors, the country’s largest automaker, demanding higher wages and reopened plants.
OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday as the first step in its tentative agreement to settle over 2,600 lawsuits it faces for causing and perpetuating the opioid crisis. New York’s attorney general alleges that the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, made nearly $1 billion in wire transfers to offshore accounts to protect its wealth from the settlement.
The Women’s March has cut ties with three inaugural co-chairs—Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, and Linda Sarsou—who have been dogged by controversies, including accusations of antisemitism, infighting, and financial mismanagement. The organization has introduced 16 new board members as it gears up for the 2020 election. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has subpoenaed eight years of President Trump's tax returns from his accounting firm as part of its investigation into hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee has opened an investigation of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in response to reports that she has abused her office to help her father’s shipping group, from which she and her husband Moscow Mitch benefit financially.
The Working Families Party endorsed Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic presidential nomination ahead of a highly anticipated rally she will lead in New York Monday evening. The labor-aligned progressive group endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has announced an emergency ban on flavored e-cigarettes, which would make New York the second state after Michigan to enact this kind of regulation. The Trump administration has announced it will pursue a federal ban on all flavored vaping products.
Saturday Night Live reversed its decision to add comedian Shane Gillis to its cast after clips of him using racist language surfaced last week. SNL has apologized for the lapse in its vetting process.
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| In the past 48 hours, President Trump has blamed Iran for a weekend attack on a Saudi oil facility, threatened to go to war against Iran on Saudi Arabia’s orders (seriously), then reversed course to say he’d “like to avoid a military conflict.” Phew, what a wild and terrifying ride!!
After the attack rattled the global oil market, Trump said the U.S. was “locked and loaded” and “waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!” (We should note that Saudi royals have funneled millions of dollars to Trump through his properties since he became president.)
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| Jennifer Lopez’s performance in Hustlers provides reason for hope, even if movies about New York City strippers who drug and steal from their wealthy clients aren’t normally your jam. In the movie, we meet J.Lo’s character as she performs to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.” Well, back in July, Fiona Apple pledged to donate her 2019 and 2020 earnings from television and movie placements of that song to the “While They Wait” fund, which helps asylum seekers by providing them with basic necessities, immigration fees, and legal services. |
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