September 27, 2018

“Is This Judicial Temperament?” Kavanaugh’s Fiery Opening Remarks Light Up the Internet

The Supreme Court nominee’s furious defiance drew a lot of criticism.

Saul Loeb/AP

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“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you will never get me to quit. Never.” 

His face red and voice rising to a shout, Judge Brett Kavanaugh delivered a blistering rebuttal to the accusations of sexual assault leveled against him by three women, including Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor who described the grim details of her alleged assault to the Senate Judiciary Committee over several hours Thursday morning.

On social media, political commentators reacted to Kavanaugh’s furious tone:

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/1045396142224224256

The fury of Kavanaugh’s opening remarks drew parallels to Justice Clarence Thomas, who famously compared sexual harassment allegations against him to a “high-tech lynching.” 

Kavanaugh went on to criticize Democratic senators like Cory Booker of New Jersey—whom he did not refer to by name—for calling his supporters complicit in “evil.” 

Kavanaugh attached a partisan motivation to the allegations, saying they were driven by animus against President Donald Trump and even constituted “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

Listen: Jamilah King hosts a special breaking news edition of the Mother Jones Podcast, with Supreme Court reporter Stephanie Mencimer and Washington DC Bureau Chief David Corn. Everything you need to know about the historic Kavanaugh hearings—and what comes next.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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