On Friday Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she would cast a decisive vote for Brett Kavanaugh, paving his way to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.
As Collins read a lengthy statement justifying her decision, Twitter reacted with horror.
A Texas woman is under fire for posting a sign in her yard depicting a GOP symbol sexually assaulting a girl.
As Dallas News reports, Marion Stanford put up a sign in her yard that shows a GOP elephant symbol shoving its trunk under the skirt of a girl who says "help."
"Your vote matters," the sign asserts.
The poster is a reference to the allegations of sexual assault brought against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as the Senate moves to confirm his nomination to the Supreme Court.
As Dallas News reports, Stanford expected the sign to stir up controversy. She did not expect to be attacked by lawmakers and have her sign taken by police
"Here we have a political party that is using women," Stanford told Dallas News. "I thought the sign represented what is going on now, and we can't just stand quiet. I wanted to tell people we could stop it with voting."
On Facebook, Sid Miller, a Republican agriculture commissioner, called her out and suggested that the sign pictured Kavanaugh's daughter.
'This is in Hamilton, Texas and is supposed to be Judge Kavanaugh's young daughter," he wrote. "Notice my opponent's sign in the background. The Democrat sleaze knows NO bounds!"
But Stanford contends that the poster does not depict Kavanaugh's daughter. There is no indication that the picture shows anything but a girl in pigtails.
Yet, following complaints police confiscated the sign.
“Police told me to remove the sign or they would take it and would arrest me,” Stanford said. “So I let them take the sign.”
She's also gotten threatening phone calls and messages.
According to legal experts, law enforcement's confiscation of the sign violates Stanford's first amendment rights.
"There is no basis I can see for removing the sign,” said Southern Methodist University law professor and First Amendment expert Dale Carpenter. “It’s not obscene, and no court would find it to be. You can say it’s offensive or distasteful, but that’s protected under the Constitution.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke before the Senate floor Friday in a final push for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Four Senators, three Republicans and one Democrat, remain undecided about Kavanaugh's nomination.
In his address, Grassley railed against Democrats and the media and undermined the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.
"These uncorroborated accusations have been repeatedly and unequivocally rejected by Judge Kavanaugh,' Grassley said. He added that an FBI investigation had not yielded corroboration of the claims against him.
"There is simply no reason to deny Judge Kavanaugh a seat on the Supreme Court," he concluded.
He claimed that Democrats are playing political games and asserted that "they will never be satisfied no matter how thorough the process is."
He called Kavanaugh qualified and said that voting against his nomination would be a "travesty."
"We had a campaign of distraction. A campaign of destruction," Grassley said. He accused Democrats of promoting "mob rule."
"I hope we can say no to mob rule by voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh," Grassley said, before ceding the floor to Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Watch:
Part 1
Part 2
Washington Post conservative commentator Max Boot does not like the direction the Brett Kavanaugh hearings have gone. He said so on CNN Thursday night, during an interview with Don Lemon in which he criticized the partisanship of the process and said the FBI should have done a more thorough investigation into rape allegations brought forward against Kavanaugh.
"There is a sense that this process was rigged," Boot said. "And that just feeds into that partisan anger which I think is very debilitating for our country."
As Lemon then attempted to ask Boot a follow-up question, he was interrupted by Trump-lover Steve Cortes, who wanted to turn the debate to race.
"Steve, hold on," Lemon said.
Cortes then got a chance to talk and derailed the conversation by suggesting that Democrats are making it about race.
"I wanted to ask Max, because I've heard this point endlessly when they're criticizing people like Senator [Orrin] Hatch [who yelled at protestors Thursday)," he said. "They keep mentioning that the senators on the committee are white. What does the racial component have to do with this? ...There's not a race component and yet liberals constantly keep bringing race into this."
"I'm not a liberal. I'm a conservative. I've been a conservative my whole life," Boot said.
"Well, you sure sound like it," Cortes said. "Everyone involved in the case is white. There's not a racial component to the Kavanaugh hearings... there's a grievance overlay, effectively, where they want to inject race, even into issues where race doesn't have relevance."
Cortes then tried to turn the topic to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) being Latino while his Democratic challenger, Beto O'Rourke, is not.
Watch below.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's surprise move to plead his case on the Wall Street Journal's opinion pages, in an essay called "I am an independent, impartial judge" Thursday night came as a surprise to many.
Never before has a nominee to the highest court in the land had to offer excuses for throwing an angry fit before the Senate Judicial Committee, nor come close to apologizing for going too far during combative questioning in which he spun questions around on the senators asking him about his history of drinking to the point of blacking out.
On MSNBC, The Washington Post's Robert Costa was asked what the move meant by Brian Williams.
"It's a strategic move by the White House," said Costa. "They know this nomination is on the brink of maybe falling apart as all these moderate Republican senators, even conservative senators, privately voice concerns to [White House counsel] Don McGahn and others."
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page was one of the few places Kavanaugh could effectively plead his case to the GOP's kingmakers.
"It's the high church, really, for a lot of these elite conservative lawyers and Republican lawmakers and officials," he said. "They look to it. If you're going there it means you have a direct message for that block of the Republican party."
Watch below.
Retired Republican Judge Robert S. Smith explained Thursday night that despite his admiration for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, he opposes the nominee's appointment to the Supreme Court after seeing his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony last week.
In the hearing addressing an allegation of sexual assault made by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh launched into a fiery partisan screed, denouncing the Democratic Party and "the left." He also engaged aggressively with the Democratic senators, interrupting them, shouting, and rudely questioning them in response to uncomfortable inquiries. He also on multiple occasions told falsehoods or outright lies.
"I was unhappy with his testimony," said Smith on "The Beat w/ Ari Melber." "I was particularly upset with the one that someone referred to earlier: The idea that you use a girl's name with the word 'alumnus' as a caption to a group of football players, and he tried to sell the idea that this was a respectful display of platonic friendship. I just don't buy it."
He continued."It's upsetting because, it suggests that if he'll deny that, what won't he deny?"
Smith was referring to a phrase Kavanaugh used in his high school yearbook, "Renate Alumnus." It refers to a girl at a nearby school, and reports suggest that the phrase meant to signify that the boys at Georgetown Prep had slept with her. Kavanaugh denied in his testimony that the phrase referred to sex, but many found this unconvincing.
"I don't know how badly he behaved, and it's probably not disqualifying if we knew all the facts, but he really ought to recognize that," Smith said.
He also noted specifically on Ford's allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh: "It's a credible allegation, it's not credibly denied."
Watch the clip below:
Judge Brett Kavanaugh's testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an unmitigated trainwreck that saw him devolve into rank partisanship, bitter sniping, and aggressive attacks on the Democratic lawmakers in attendance — none of which befits a Supreme Court justice.
The nominee appears to have realized that he completely disgraced himself before the country while trying to defend against allegations of sexual assault because on Thursday, he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that was apparently supposed to serve as some sort of walk back or apology.
If it's supposed to be an apology, however, it's a pretty pitiful attempt.
He begins the op-ed with a headline that is just another clear lie and something he obviously wouldn't have to say if it were true: "I Am an Independent, Impartial Judge."
He acknowledges that he was "emotional" at the hearings, saying: "I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband and dad. I testified with five people foremost in my mind: my mom, my dad, my wife, and most of all my daughters."
But, of course, he wasn't there for them. He was there as a part of the proceedings to see if he should be a Supreme Court justice, one of the most powerful positions in the country. A few nights before, he had appeared on Fox News, and if he wants, he can say he was a "son, husband and dad" on that network. But it's complete nonsense to say he wasn't first and foremost a judge and Supreme Court nominee when he testified under oath before the Senate.
The closest he comes to an apology is this: "I was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been. I might have been too emotional at times. I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said."
However, this is far from sufficient — and isn't even an apology at all.
He doesn't acknowledge anywhere in the op-ed that among the things he should not have said was his demanding to know whether a Democratic senator who admitted to having an alcoholic father drinks to excess herself. He doesn't admit that he yelled at and interrupted senators repeatedly, especially Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in an apparent show of misogynistic rage. He doesn't admit that he blamed the accusations against him on "Democrats," the "left," "revenge for the Clintons," and "pent-up anger about President Trump."
This conspiratorial theorizing not only insulted and condemned the portion of the country that identifies with the Democratic Party, but it disparages the women who brought the allegations against him by implicating them in some untoward plot.
Kavanaugh also doesn't address the fact that he outright threatened Democrats for opposing him, saying, "What goes around, comes around."
And he doesn't apologize for the voluminous lies and misleading claims he told the Senate, damaging his own reputation and — if he gets there — that of the Supreme Court.
In this hateful diatribe before the Senate, he dropped the veil of being an impartial judge and revealed himself to be an unabashed partisan Republican.
His attempt to now paper over his outrageous display and act like he can play the part of the independent adjudicator is laughable. It's also a transparent play for the support of the wavering lawmakers, Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Susan Collins (R-ME) who still hold his fate in their hands.
Whether the gambit will work or not is unclear. But regardless of his success, there's no turning back from what Kavanaugh has shown himself to be: Someone who should be more comfortable wearing a MAGA hat than a black robe.
President Donald Trump told the crowd at his rally in Minnesota that he would do "very well" in a boxing match with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Trump had ben ranting about how he quashed the increasingly intense rhetoric with North Korea after ratcheting things up to the brink of a nuclear war.
He then complimented his performance in a summit with Putin, where he sided with the Russian dictator over American intelligence.
"So they want me to get into a boxing match with [Putin]," Trump said. "I think I’d do very well."
While Trump has experience as a fake wrestler working for World Wrestling Entertainment, Vladimir Putin is a former intelligence officer with extensive combat training and an eighth-degree black belt in judo.
Trump does have a substantial size advantage, standing nearly a foot taller than the 5-foot six-inch Putin.
Trump's White House doctor, the disgraced Ronnie "Candy Man" Jackson" said Trump weighed in at 236 pounds though that finding has been widely questioned.
The possible vote by the U.S. Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court could be delayed by Montana's Republican Senator.
Maritsa Georgiou, an NBC journalist based in Montana, has reported that Steve Daines will not be available to vote for Kavanaugh this weekend because he is attending his daughter's wedding.
The wedding is in Montana, and Daines will be there to walk his daughter down the aisle.
That means that any delay on Friday could push the vote past the weekend and into the following week.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld is not a religious man. The atheist libertarian did go to Catholic school, though, and decided to use his training to provide a tortured metaphor in which he defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
On The Five, Gutfeld said that he knew one thing based on 12 years of Catholic church.
"Crucifixion was an important event because it was designed to establish a wall between justice and mob rule," he said. "Christ died so that the mob wouldn't survive. Right? He got there, he took, he died for everybody's sins."
A Fox News cameraman panned over to co-host Juan Williams, who had a look of confused exasperation on his face.
"This is what the Democrats—what the Democrats have tried to do is tear down the wall between justice and mob rule," Gutfeld said. "They decided to crucify someone once again."
Watch the segment below.
President Donald Trump faces a new round of possible tax trouble after the New York Times bombshell report that documented decades worth of shady dealings and fraud by the Trump family, including the president.
But Trump and his children, including Donald Jr. and Ivanka, are also facing a lawsuit over their family foundation. And, on Thursday, the New York Attorney General's office filed new documents that allege "willful and intentional conduct" that violated the law, including by using the Foundation for his political campaign.
"For more than a decade, the Foundation operated in persistent violation of state and federal law governing charities," the filings say. "The Board abdicated its fiduciary duties entirely, leaving the Foundation to operate without any oversight, and permitted Mr. Trump to use the Foundation's assets to satisfy his and his for-profit companies' legal obligations, to promote Trump hotels, to purchase personal items, and, in 2016 - at the direction of Mr. Trump and his presidential campaign- to promote Mr. Trump's candidacy for political office."
The New York attorney general says that the Trumps knew what they were doing was illegal, and did it anyway.
"Mr. Trump was aware of the limitations on political activity by not-for-profits: he signed documents under the penalty of perjury attesting that Foundation assets would not be used for the benefit of any Foundation officer or director or for political purposes, and he even campaigned for the repeal of one prohibition on using charitable assets to intervene in a political campaign," the document says.
The state of New York is seeking to dissolve the foundation because it "carried on, conducted or transacted its business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner, or by the abuse of its powers contrary to public policy of the state has become liable to be dissolved."
Another interesting aspect is the fact that Trump and his lawyers have sought to claim that he can't be pursued by a state attorney general because of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The New York AG is pushing back hard against that, pointing out that there is no precedent for such a claim.
Trump was "unable to cite a single case in which a court has dismissed a civil suit against a sitting U.S. president for unofficial acts on the ground that the court's jurisdiction would be unconstitutional."
If the Trump team ends up losing that claim and appealing it, the the subject of whether Trump can be brought into a trial while in office will be settled sooner rather than later.
Read the complete filing here.
As Republicans tried to push a vote confirming Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, supporters and detractors battled to control the narrative on social media and cable.
As the blog Get Religion reports, the fight over Kavanaugh even shook up an Oklahoma religious congregation.
Oklahoma pastor Rev. Bob Long of St. Luke's United Methodist Church found himself the subject of an unlikely social media controversy after a sermon in which he broadcast a picture of Kavanaugh's face and talked about false accusations.
According to social media reports, parishioners were offended and even walked out.
Rev. Long apologized for hurting parishioners' feelings.
"I'm sorry that, for some, the words I used with the intention of encouraging peace have caused such pain," he wrote. "It has always been and always will be my intent to encourage us to treat others with kindness and respect."
In a video message, Long also claimed that his sermon had been mischaracterized.
"It wasn't a sermon that was supposed to be dealing with (Kavanaugh) or about the issues of sexual abuse,” he claimed. “It was a sermon to deal with the incivility in society at this time."
Watch:
On Thursday Senators reviewed an FBI report on the allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
As Senate Judiciary committee head Chuck Grassley urged a prompt vote Thursday morning, Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared on Fox News and tried to explain why President Donald Trump mocked Kavanaugh's accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, at a rally in Mississippi Tuesday.
"We stand 100 percent behind Brett Kavanuagh," Sanders said. After reiterating the White House's support of Kavanaugh and claiming that Republicans were lining up behind his nomination, Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked if the president had purposefully attacked Ford.
"Was it a strategy to characterize Dr. Ford's testimony the way the president did the other night in Mississippi?" Hemmer asked.
Sanders equivocated.
"Bill, our strategy has been really simple since day one," she said. "That's been to pick a nominee that is of the highest intellect, that has great judicial temperament, and get them confirmed to the Supreme Court. That's been our strategy. It's been real simple and we look forward to seeing that happen."
Hemmer pressed Sanders on why Trump had pivoted from being relatively respectful towards Ford to lashing out at her at the rally.
"But he appeared to be restrained up to that moment," Hemmer observed. "Was there a conscious decision made that you're going to characterize Dr. Ford's testimony the way he did the other night ... based on the numbers you're seeing and the support across the country?"
Sanders, once again, evaded the question.
"It has nothing to do with the numbers. It has to do simply with the president being the leader and certainly wanting to see his nominee be treated fairly," she said.
"He wants this process to be run the right way," she continued. "Every single word that Brett Kavanaugh has said during his testimony was picked apart relentlessly. He was badgered, as Lindsay Graham said, he was not necessarily treated fairly," Sanders claimed. "The president wanted to point out the hypocrisy of that."
Watch:
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