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According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2018 is on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record. Only three other years have been hotter: 2015, 2016 and 2017.
“The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” Michael Mann, a climate scientist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, told CNN.
“We are seeing them play out in real time in the form of unprecedented heat waves, floods, droughts and wildfires. And we’ve seen them all this summer,” he said.
Even more than extreme weather, climate change is best exemplified by the consistent rise in temperatures year after year.
New NOAA data released Friday shows:
NOAA shows that the first half of 2018 was characterized by warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions across the Earth’s land and ocean surfaces. Record warmth was present across portions of the global oceans as well as parts of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. New Zealand and small areas across North America, Asia and Australia also had record warm year-to-date temperatures. Cooler-than-average conditions were limited to the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean, central tropical Indian Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, and parts of western Russia and eastern Canada. No land or ocean areas had record cold January–June temperatures.
Averaged as a whole, the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the globe during January–June 2018 was 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average and the fourth highest since global records began in 1880. The global land-only temperature was the fifth highest on record at +1.19°C (+2.14°F). The global ocean-only temperature of 0.60°C (1.08°F) above average was also the fifth highest on record.
Five of six continents had a January–June temperature that ranked among the ten warmest such period on record. Europe, Africa, and Oceania had a January–June temperature that ranked among the five highest since continental records began in 1910.
Climate scientists sounded alarms this week as reports circulated of extreme weather and record-breaking high temperatures all over the globe, with dozens of deaths and thousands of hospitalizations reported in some countries—while one journalist with a major platform on corporate cable news admitted the news media’s failure to give serious attention to the link between the climate crisis and such events.
“There is no doubt that the prolonged extreme temperatures and floods we are witnessing around the world right now are a result of climate change,” said Caroline Rance, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland. “Temperature records are being broken across the U.K. and globally, exactly as climate science has long warned, and with devastating consequences.”
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In a move human rights groups are warning could have grave implications for internet freedom across the globe, Google is reportedly preparing to launch a “censored version” of its search engine in China that will automatically blacklist terms and websites related to peaceful dissent, free expression, and democracy.
“I’m against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people, and feel like transparency around what’s being done is in the public interest.”
—Google whistleblower
According to The Intercept‘s Ryan Gallagher, who first reported on the tech giant’s plans on Wednesday, “The project—code-named Dragonfly—has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official.”
Citing anonymous sources familiar with the plan—including a Google whistleblower who has “moral and ethical concerns” about his company’s role in censorship—as well as confidential company documents, Gallagher reported that “programmers and engineers at Google have created a custom Android app” which “has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; the finalized version could be launched in the next six to nine months, pending approval from Chinese officials.”
“Don’t Be Evil, unless it’s worth untold new riches,” wrote Mother Jones national affairs editor Mark Follman in response to Gallagher’s reporting, referencing Google’s longstanding unofficial motto.
Speaking out due to fear that “what is done in China will become a template for many other nations,” a Google whistleblower told The Intercept, “I’m against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people, and feel like transparency around what’s being done is in the public interest.”
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Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Amnesty International, told The Intercept that Google’s apparent decision to go along with the Chinese government’s repressive demands in pursuit of profit is “a big disaster for the information age.”
“The biggest search engine in the world obeying the censorship in China is a victory for the Chinese government—it sends a signal that nobody will bother to challenge the censorship any more.”
—Patrick Poon, Amnesty International
“This has very serious implications not just for China, but for all of us, for freedom of information and internet freedom,” Poon said. “It will set a terrible precedent for many other companies who are still trying to do business in China while maintaining the principles of not succumbing to China’s censorship. The biggest search engine in the world obeying the censorship in China is a victory for the Chinese government—it sends a signal that nobody will bother to challenge the censorship any more.”
Google’s search engine hasn’t operated in China since 2010, when the tech behemoth decided to withdraw from the country due to the very censorship concerns the company now appears to be sweeping aside at Beijing’s behest.
“Google’s search service cannot currently be accessed by most internet users in China because it is blocked by the country’s so-called Great Firewall. The app Google is building for China will comply with the country’s strict censorship laws, restricting access to content that Xi Jinping’s Communist Party regime deems unfavorable,” Gallagher notes. “Documents seen by The Intercept, marked ‘Google confidential,’ say that Google’s Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall.”
While it is unclear how many sites will be filtered out by Google’s censored search engine, Wikipedia and the BBC were specifically mentioned in company documents as websites that would be blacklisted.
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After a massive Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip early Thursday morning killed a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter, Israel’s vicious assault on the occupied Palestinian territory continued throughout the day on Thursday as the nation’s air force leveled a major civilian cultural center in Gaza City and slammed more than a 150 other targets.
Israel’s latest attack on Gaza was characterized as the largest escalation since 2014, when Israel killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in a seven-week military operation. Videos and images of Thursday’s wave of bombings spread quickly across social media, revealing the intensity and scope of the airstrikes as they pounded buildings and densely populated areas.
According to Haaretz, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intentionally targeted civilians “with the goal of causing the residents to understand the price of escalation and placing Hamas in a problematic situation.”
While Israeli officials insisted that their large-scale attack on Gaza was in response to Hamas rocket fire, Haaretz reports that it was in fact the Israeli army that sparked the escalation by killing two Palestinians with tank fire, after they allegedly mistook a training exercise for an actual attack.
As Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, put it, the “current Israeli bombardment sequence in Gaza started when the Israeli military killed two Palestinians, lied about why, and later admitted to doing so just as a high level Palestinian delegation was on its way to Cairo to discuss longer term cease-fire.”
Angry that major media outlets are highlighting the fact that its latest wave of bombings killed a pregnant woman and her young child, the Israeli government has begun openly pressuring news outlets that dare to report its war crimes accurately.
After the BBC published a headline that read, “Israeli air strikes ‘kill woman and a toddler,'” the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a formal complaint to the British outlet, and it ultimately changed the headline to, “Gaza air strikes ‘kill woman and child’ after rockets hit Israel.”
“This is a disgrace,” the anti-occupation Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow tweeted in response to the BBC‘s decision to cave to the demands of the Israeli government. “Even the most respected news sources bow Israeli pressure to present Israel’s war crimes as passively as possible.”
Israel’s latest bombing campaign in Gaza comes just weeks after Israeli F-16s carried out “wide-scale” airstrikes throughout the occupied territory. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned last month that Israel is preparing to launch a “large and painful military operation,” and Thursday’s bombardment appeared to be a step in that direction.
“We don’t see the end of the escalation. We are closing in on operation in Gaza,” a senior IDF official told Haaretz on Thursday.
As Israel continues to attack Gaza and strangle its economy with measures that have been denounced as “genocidal policies of collective punishment,” the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) noted that “Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of a full-blown humanitarian crisis due to Israel’s 10-year siege.”
“Everyday life in besieged Gaza is shaped by Israeli policy,” IMEU added, posting a video compilation that captures the living conditions of millions of the nearly two million people living in the occupied Gaza Strip.
“The U.N. says Gaza will be unlivable by 2020,” IMEU observes. “But can you imagine living like this today?”
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may believe that the Democratic Party is “capitalist, and that’s just the way it is,” but a new Gallup poll out Monday shows that support for capitalism among Democratic voters has hit a record low while a steady majority of the Democratic base has a favorable view of socialism.
“For the first time in Gallup’s measurement over the past decade, Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism,” Gallup noted in a summary of its findings, which come as socialist candidates continue to surpass expectations, garner widespread enthusiasm, and win elections across the nation.
“Attitudes toward socialism among Democrats have not changed materially since 2010, with 57 percent today having a positive view. The major change among Democrats has been a less upbeat attitude toward capitalism, dropping to 47 percent positive this year—lower than in any of the three previous measures.”
Unsurprisingly, millennials—many of whom came of age in the midst of the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression—have a particularly unfavorable view of capitalism, regardless of party affiliation.
According to Gallup, just 45 percent of millennials view capitalism favorably, down from 68 percent in 2010. By contrast, 51 percent of millennials view socialism favorably.
“The system has failed tens of millions of people who want and deserve something better,” Kenneth Zinn, political director of National Nurses United, wrote in response to the new data. “A change is gonna come.”
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While Gallup’s latest survey was met with the typical and expected fear-mongering from right-wing defenders of capitalism—a system that has delivered immense wealth to the very top in the U.S. while leaving tens of millions of Americans impoverished and unable to afford basic necessities—progressives viewed the new numbers as a good sign but noted that they also show there is still tremendous work ahead.
“People seem excited about this poll,” noted The New Republic‘s Sarah Jones in a tweet on Monday. “I’d just add that it also reveals a need for democratic socialists to educate voters. The decline in support for capitalism didn’t correlate to increased support for socialism overall.”
As Common Dreams reported, a survey conducted by the progressive policy shop Data for Progress (DFP) last month showed that American voters are overwhelmingly supportive of “unabashedly left” policies like a federal jobs guarantee and ending cash bail.
Echoing Jones, DFP concluded that converting “favorable impressions into durable support will require activists and politicians to put these issues on the national agenda and make a forceful case for them over time.”
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President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen on Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts on Tuesday and admitted to a federal court that he violated campaign finance law “at the direction” of then-candidate Trump “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.”
“Cohen’s guilty plea directly implicates President Trump,” Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement. “Michael Cohen has learned that no American is above the law, even when his client is the President of the United States. Cohen’s actions on behalf of Donald Trump are reflective of a presidential administration, and campaign that preceded it, that has repeatedly conducted itself as if it is somehow about the law and ethical responsibilities.”
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) indicated the development should prompt the FBI to investigate the matter further:
Cohen’s two campaign finance violations relate to the hush-payments he made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to prevent them from going public with their claims that they had affairs with Trump.
As the New York Times reports, the plea deal “does not call for Mr. Cohen to cooperate with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, but it does not preclude him from providing information to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining the Trump campaign’s possible involvement in Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign.”
Responding to the Cohen guilty plea as well as the eight guilty verdicts for Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote, “Paul Manafort—found guilty. Michael Cohen—pleads guilty, implicates Donald Trump. Donald Trump has nominated a Supreme Court justice who believes he can’t be indicted. Not a coincidence. Not a witch hunt.”
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Pakistan is challenging the U.S. State Department’s official account of a call that happened on Thursday between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the nation’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, with Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding that the United States “immediately” amend its “factually incorrect statement.”
A statement released after the call by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in part, “Pompeo raised the importance of Pakistan taking decisive action against all terrorists operating in Pakistan and its vital role in promoting the Afghan peace process.”
Dr. Mohammad Faisal, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded on Twitter, asserting that “there was no mention at all in the conversation about terrorists operating in Pakistan.”
At a press conference following that exchange, Nauert said, “I can only say we stand by our readout.”
Throughout his political career, Khan has been an aggressive and outspoken critics of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas that run along the border with neighboring Afghanistan.
During the press conference, Nauert called Pakistan “an important partner” in the region, and added that “the secretary had a good call with the new prime minister and we look forward to having a good relationship with them in the future.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday confirmed that Pompeo is scheduled to visit Pakistan on Sept. 5. While Qureshi said the conversation between Khan and Pompeo was “very good,” telling reporters, “You will be surprised to know that the Pompeo urged a productive bilateral relationship with Pakistan,” he reiterated his nation’s call for a correction.
Khan, a former cricket star, was sworn in as prime minister last week following the electoral victory of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in July. As Common Dreams has reported, Khan ran on “vows to address Pakistan’s widespread poverty, confront rampant corruption, and pursue a more ‘balanced’ foreign policy with the nation’s neighbors and the United States.”
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In a major victory for the open internet that could have ripple effects throughout the United States, the California Senate on Friday thwarted aggressive lobbying by the telecom industry and passed the strongest, most comprehensive net neutrality bill in the nation.
“Internet users are still royally pissed off about the FCC’s repeal. And they’re not going to let their elected officials get away with it if they sell out their constituents by siding with big telecom companies.”
—Evan Greer, Fight for the Future
“The passage of SB 822 in California has huge implications for our fight to restore neutrality nationwide,” declared the advocacy group Fight for the Future (FFTF) following Friday’s vote. “We also need to harness the momentum from this huge victory to put pressure on our elected officials in Congress.”
“Finally,” FFTF added, “y’all should be really proud of yourselves. Giant telcos like AT&T and Comcast spent enormous amounts of money lobbying to kill SB 822. They almost succeeded more than once, but we fought back. We drove phone calls, tweets, crowdfunded billboards, attended meetings.”
Having cleared both houses of California’s legislature, SB 822 will now head to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for a signature.
Brown, who has 30 days to sign the measure, is already facing pressure from the telecom industry to veto the bill, so open internet advocates are warning Californians to remain vigilant and keep up the pressure.
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If SB 822 is ultimately signed into law, it would restore the net neutrality protections repealed by the Republican-controlled FCC last December and implement even stronger rules by establishing “an outright ban on zero-rating—the practice of offering free data, potentially to the advantage of some companies over others—of specific apps.”
“We did it,” Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, the primary author of SB 822, said in a statement. “We passed the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation. The internet is at the heart of 21st century life—our economy, our public safety and health systems, and our democracy. So when Donald Trump’s FCC decided to take a wrecking ball to net neutrality protections, we knew that California had to step in to ensure our residents have access to a free and open internet.”
As the fight for strong net neutrality protections gains steam at the state level, open internet advocates are hoping the resulting energy and momentum will translate into action in Congress, where the House is working to assemble enough votes to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC’s deeply unpopular repeal.
Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, argued that lawmakers who don’t support net neutrality will feel the wrath of voters in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond.
“Internet users are still royally pissed off about the FCC’s repeal,” Greer said in a statement following Friday’s vote. “They’re still paying attention. And they’re not going to let their elected officials get away with it if they sell out their constituents by siding with big telecom companies.”
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Launching yet another bigotry-driven attack on those fleeing wars and humanitarian crises in which the U.S. is playing an active and deadly role, the Trump administration announced late Monday that it is reducing America’s refugee admission limit for 2019 to a record-low 30,000.
Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, called it an “appalling” announcement.
“This must be perceived as an all-out attack against our country’s ability to resettle refugees both now and in the future.”
—Ryan Mace, Amnesty International USA
“At a time when the world is facing the largest displacement crisis in recorded history, it is unconscionable that the Trump administration would further dismantle the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program by setting a cap of 30,000 refugee admissions for fiscal year 2019—the lowest resettlement cap in the program’s history,” Win Without War director Stephen Miles said in a statement slamming the White House’s decision.
“What’s more,” Miles continued, “the U.S. has a direct moral responsibility to open its doors, not slam them shut, given that our own nation is an active combatant in many of the very conflicts and humanitarian crises driving the global refugee crisis.”
Unveiled by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday, the new “cap” of 30,000 refugees is 15,000 lower than the 2018 mark, making the new policy a major victory for top White House adviser and virulent racist Stephen Miller.
“The Trump administration already accepted a historically low amount of refugees. These new restrictions are outrageous.”
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal
According to the New York Times, Miller joined forces with President Donald Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly to push for an even lower cap of 25,000 refugees, and Pompeo ultimately accepted Miller’s xenophobic push for a “deep cut.”
“This is the lowest goal in the history of the program, and compounded by this administration’s history of creating road block after road block for refugees to arrive, this must be perceived as an all-out attack against our country’s ability to resettle refugees both now and in the future,” Ryan Mace, grassroots advocacy and refugee specialist at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.
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“Today’s announcement demonstrates another undeniable political attack against people who have been forced to flee their homes,” Mace concluded. “There is absolutely no excuse for not accepting more refugees in the coming year.”
While the administration’s official cap represents the highest number of refugees the White House is willing to provide a safe haven from violence and persecution, it is far from a requirement.
Thanks in large part to its inhumanely restrictive border and asylum policies, the Trump administration admitted just 20,918 refugees in 2018, less than half of the White House’s 45,000-person cap.
But as the Trump administration has drastically restricted the number of refugees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Vox‘s Dara Lind noted on Monday that the White House has not significantly curtailed European refugee admissions.
“While refugee arrivals from other parts of the world are down as much as 90 percent from Obama-era levels, resettlements from Europe—specifically, the former Soviet Union—have taken only a modest hit,” Lind observes, citing new government data. “In the rest of the world, the Trump administration isn’t going to come anywhere close to the ‘ceilings’ it set for the fiscal year ending September 30.”
“The Trump administration already accepted a historically low amount of refugees,” noted Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Monday in response to Pompeo’s announcement. “These new restrictions are outrageous. I came here at age 16 as an immigrant and today I am a congresswoman. Who could these refugees fleeing violence be if we gave them the chance?”
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As the Senate Judiciary Committee reviewed on Wednesday a sworn statement given by Julie Swetnick, who alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh took part in gang-raping girls as a high school student and was “present” when she herself was gang-raped at a party when in high school,Democratic lawmakers and political observers demanded that Kavanaugh’s nomination be immediately withdrawn.
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“Given the mounting allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh, the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings should be canceled, and Kavanaugh’s nomination must be withdrawn,” Shaunna Thomas, executive director of UltraViolet, said in a statement. “It is a travesty to force Dr. Christine Blasey Ford to testify alone, when there are numerous other accusers and witnesses who have valuable testimony to provide to the Senate. Violence against women should have no place in our society and it certainly should have no place on the highest court in the nation. This charade has gone on long enough: Kavanaugh must withdraw immediately.”
Planned Parenthood also called for an FBI investigation into Swetnick’s claims, as well as those of Deborah Ramirez and Ford, the first woman to accuse Kavanaugh of assault. Ford is scheduled to testify before the committee on Thursday and agreed to do so despite the White House’s refusal to order the Justice Department to investigate her allegations.
“What we do as a Senate today, how we react to these allegations and what message we send by how we deal with them, is critically important,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC on Wednesday after Swetnick went public.
Swetnick’s sworn statement was released about 24 hours before Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was scheduled to testify before the Judiciary Committee, and hours after Ford’s lawyers released four sworn statements from supporting witnesses corroborating her claim of sexual assault—statements that the Republican-led committee has shown no interest in examining.
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The calls for withdrawal echoed that of Michael Avenatti, who is representing Swetnick and who also publicized numerous emails he had sent to the Judiciary Committee regarding the allegations, before releasing Swetnick’s affidavit Wednesday morning.
Bolstered by a career in public service, including numerous government security clearances, the fact that Swetnick signed her declaration “under penalty of perjury” and said she “fully understands the seriousness” of her charges did not keep Trump from calling her claims into question.
Some also pointed out that Swetnick’s claims matched those of an ex-girlfriend of Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s high school classmate who Swetnick named as allegedly joining Kavanaugh in gang-raping girls at house parties in the 1980s.
In Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker article detailing the allegations of Ramirez on Sunday, the journalists reported that the ex-girlfriend had “recalled that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman.”
Meanwhile, the White House released a brief statement from Kavanaugh denying the accusations made by Swetnick.
“This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened,” read the statement.
The social change network CREDO Action went further than calling for the withdrawal of Kavanaugh’s nomination, demanding that he be removed from the seat he already holds as a federal judge in the D.C. Circuit Court.
“We believe Julie Swetnick, Deborah Ramirez and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford,” said CREDO Action Co-Director Heidi Hess. “How many women need to come forward with credible allegations before Senate Republicans and Donald Trump will acknowledge that Brett Kavanaugh is a sexual predator and a liar? …This entire confirmation process has been a case study in Republicans’ misogyny and disregard for the truth. Once Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination has finally been withdrawn or defeated, he should be impeached from the D.C. Circuit.”
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Punctuated by several protests from Americans expressing deep concerns with Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s anti-choice record and other views, the U.S. Supreme Court nominee’s first day of questioning in his confirmation hearing provoked anger among critics over his statements—and non-answers—on abortion rights.
Early in the proceedings, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked President Donald Trump’s nominee whether he would uphold Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision which enshrined American women’s right to abortion care under the U.S. Constitution.
“I don’t want to go back to those death tolls,” Feinstein said, referring to records showing that before Roe, hundreds and sometimes thousands of women died each year from unsafe, illegal abortions and attempts to perform the procedure themselves using knitting needles, coat hangers, and other methods.
“The last two days have underscored, yet again, that if women aren’t at the table, we’re on the menu.” —Cecile Richards, former Planned Parenthood president
Kavanaugh’s response betrayed no understanding of the fact that the more than 140 people who have been arrested so far for protesting at his confirmation hearing have been there to express not their “feelings” about abortion access—but the fear of the tangible impact a major reproductive rights rollback would have on women’s lives and safety.
“I understand your point of view on that, Senator, and I understand how passionate and how deeply people feel about this issue,” Kavanaugh said. “I understand the importance of the issue, and I understand the importance that people attach to the Roe v. Wade decision.”
Author Jill Filipovic slammed Kavanaugh’s dismissive attempt to dodge the clear issue of whether he would, if confirmed for a lifetime appointment on the high court, protect American women’s right to a legal medical procedure.
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Later in the hearing, Kavanaugh refused to say whether he agreed with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s straightforward statement, made at her 1993 confirmation hearing, that a woman should be treated as “a fully adult human responsible for her own choices,” citing the need to observe “judicial independence” numerous times when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) attempted to extract an answer. Seeing that the line of questioning was leading nowhere, Harris moved on to a simpler inquiry.
“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked.
Kavanaugh appeared stumped, eventually conceding, “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator.”
Both exchanges left women’s rights advocates more intent than ever to keep the deeply unpopular nominee from being elevated to a position on the Supreme Court.
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