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McConnell Vows GOP ‘Will Not Be Intimidated By Kavanough Protesters

Above Photo: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaking from the Senate floor on Wednesday where he said Republicans “will not be intimidated by these people,” by whom he meant… constituents voicing their dissent. (Photo: Screenshot/Fox News)

Update: While they have not announced a decision yet both Senators Flake and Collins seem to be moving toward supporting the nomination. Sen. Heitkamp, an undecided Democrat has announced she will vote against confirmation. 

Note: As the completion of the very limited FBI report comes and Senator Mitch McConnell pledges a rush to a vote to confirm Brett Kavanough, protests are increasing. He says Republicans will not be “intimidated” by protesters, which indicates he is aware of the protests and feeling the pressure. The response should to escalate to stop Kavanaugh who will be a drag on progress for the next 30 years. McConnell has set a vote to cut off debate for Friday with a vote on confirmation this weekend.

The White House sent the FBI report to the Senate  in the dead of the night it will be available to senators to review in a very restricted may, with only one copy available to the two parties to share. Each party will get to view it for one hour, then the other party views it for an hour, then back to the other party. This is a highly restrictive approach that shows how insecure the Republicans are about the truth getting out about Brett Kavanough. They report “If all 100 senators decide to review the document and it takes each senator 30 minutes to peruse the document, it could take 50 hours for the entire chamber to examine it.” Photocopying or other reproduction of the FBI background reports is prohibited. Further “notes and memoranda derived from the contents of the FBI background investigation reports may be made and shall be destroyed or secured in the same manner as the reports themselves.” As each Republican senator exits, they will be asked about the contents of the FBI memo and whether it’s going to affect their vote. This will likely go on all day.

The FBI did not interview either Dr. Ford of Kavanaugh. Reportedly, they did not have permission from the White House and Republican leadership to do so. Ford offered to provide her therapists notes which Grassley had requested if she was interviewed. This leads many to view the report as a sham. Fellow Yale classmates who sought to be witnesses who sought to provide information to the FBI were ignored.

Hundreds of Stop Kavanough vigils are being held across the country with 300 candlelit vigils that took place across the U.S. on Wednesday night attended by thousands nationwide.

Common Dreams reports that dozens of protest vigils are planned in cities across the country for Wednesday afternoon and evening, with organizers in some key states planning to drop off letters to senators urging them to vote “no” on Kavanaugh. The Women’s March, Planned Parenthood, and others are organizing a major march set to begin at 12:30 pm on Thursday in Washington, D.C., starting at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals where Kavanaugh is currently a judge and ending at the Supreme Court, where a large rally will take place. More here.

Opposition has grown against the nomination. The National Council of Churches, the largest coalition of Christian churches, has called for the nomination to be withdrawn. They said in a statement on their website that they believe Kavanaugh has “disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately.” They wrote “Judge Kavanaugh exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation.” They also cited his “extensive judicial and political record is troubling with regard to issues of voting rights, racial and gender justice, health care, the rights of people with disabilities, and environmental protections,” they wrote. “This leads us to believe that he cannot be an impartial justice.

More than 650 law professors [now over 1,700] nationwide signed a letter urging the Senate to reject Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, citing concerns about his temperament during a Senate Judiciary Hearing last week.The letter was  published in The New York Times and cited Kavanaugh’s performance during the hearing as disqualifying for service on any court.

The Kavanaugh nomination is unraveling and a rush to a vote is the only way to save it, but opposition is growing rapidly and people are insisting their opposition be heard and not ignored. KZ

Senate Majority Leader is simply sick of being confronted by people who believe Brett Kavanaugh is a horrible choice

An apparently perturbed Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that the loud, outraged, and determined constituents who have been letting Republican lawmakers know just how much they do not want Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court will not be listened to or have an impact on his effort to ram the nominee through in the coming days.

“There is no chance in the world they’re going to scare us out of doing our duty,” McConnell declared on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, after referencing lawmakers who have been confronted at airports, in their offices, or in Senate offices on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t care how many members they chase, how many people they harass here in the halls,” McConnell continued, “I wanna make one thing perfectly clear: we will not be intimated by these people.”

By “these people,” of course, McConnell really means constituents—members of the American voting public, many of them women—who are beyond incredulous that after the credible accusations levied against Kavanaugh and his response to them is still the preferred choice of the GOP to be the next person given a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court.

Even leaving aside his overall antogonistic judicial record when it comes to women’s choice and reproductive rights as well as his history as a partisan hack and right-wing jurist, over 650 law professors in an open letter on Wednesday [by mid-day Thursday this had grown to over 1,700] said that Kavanaugh is not qualified to be a federal judge.

But McConnell’s dismissal of those passionately and forcefully voicing their opinions was telling. As Rafi Schwartz wrote for Splinter News after McConnell’s latest remarks:

Nothing conveys a sense of sympathy, understanding, and the “civility” Republicans can’t stop paying lip service to than dismissively referring to activists horrified at the prospect of a(nother) alleged sexual predator on the Supreme Court simply as “these people.”

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