As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prepares to be confirmed to the nation’s highest court in a final Senate vote on Saturday, Democrats have already begun considering the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct.

If Democrats flip the House in November, which, according to polling, looks quite likely, some have indicated they will support an investigation into Kavanaugh and could draft articles of impeachment.

Democrats have maintained that the FBI’s investigation into Kavanaugh was overly limited in scope by the White House and not sufficiently thorough in its exploration of the allegations against the judge, including those made by Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when the two were teenagers.

And Democrats — and other critics of Kavanaugh’s — believe misleading statements he made under oath should disqualify him from the bench.

Indeed, Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, indicated he would be open to investigating Kavanaugh after he’s confirmed.

“We would have to investigate any credible allegations of perjury and other things that haven’t been properly looked into before,” he said.

But even if the House impeaches Kavanaugh, two-thirds of the Senate — a supermajority — would need to vote to remove him following a trial, making the likelihood of his ousting very small. (Republicans currently have a 51 to 49 seat majority in the Senate, and they will likely keep control of the chamber in November).

Throughout American history, just 19 federal officials— one senator, one cabinet secretary, two presidents, and 15 judges— have been impeached, but only eight were convicted and removed by the Senate. (And just six of the impeachments occurred in the last 80 years.)

No president has ever been both impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.

President Richard Nixon, the only president to resign from office, stepped down before impeachment proceedings could begin. And the two presidents who were impeached by the House, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, were both acquitted by the Senate.

Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images

Lying under oath

Under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

While it is unclear what behavior can technically be considered an “impeachable offense,” perjury — or lying under oath — has always been considered a significant violation. (Clinton was impeached for allegedly lying under oath concerning his affair with Monica Lewinsky.)

Perjury is seen as a particularly grievous offense for a judge, whose authority — and that of the judiciary more broadly — rests on her integrity. And there are real questions about whether Kavanaugh misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation testimony this year and in 2006, during the confirmation process for his seat on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kavanaugh has appeared to either mislead or make false statements to the Judiciary Committee about a range of issues, including his drinking habits and social life in high school and college, and his work in President George W. Bush’s White House.

There was already a lot of information on American Gods out in the ether before Starz brought Neil Gaiman and the cast to New York Comic Con on Friday. Bryan Fuller and Michael Green departed as showrunners after season 1, apparently over creative differences. That already delayed the production, but a new report published in September cited additional hiccups involving shafted scripts, on-set tension, and the departure of the next showrunner, Jesse Alexander.

Sitting backstage before the show’s big Comic Con panel, meant as a first look for fans at what they’ve been working on, the cast addressed some of these issues.

“It was bullsh—,” Gaiman told EW of the reports. The author of the American Gods book and executive producer on the show wanted to make clear he wasn’t a “Machiavellian figure taking out showrunners.” He continued, “I was offered the showrunner job several times, and I can’t. It doesn’t work that way. I’m doing Good Omens. It’s a full-time thing. So for me, I wanted Bryan and Michael to succeed. I wanted Jesse to succeed and I think Jesse did an amazing job of taking a show that didn’t have a showrunner, suddenly and surprisingly, and didn’t have scripts and putting together a writers’ room, putting together a show. It was amazing.”

Gaiman did acknowledge problems with season 2’s development, but nothing too out of the ordinary. “Sometimes people write scripts and the scripts don’t always work,” he said. “And at that point, somebody else in the writers’ room takes a crack at it.”

RELATED: American Gods cast says ‘things get worse for everybody’ in season 2

Omid Abtahi said the reports weren’t “entirely inaccurate.” For Emily Browning, it was more like, “We hit a giant road bump and I think we’ve managed to correct course.” A few names come up in that regard: Orlando Jones and Chris Byrne.

Jones, playing Mr. Nancy, is more prominently involved with writing and producing American Gods in season 2. “He amazingly knows Laura really well,” Browning said of developing her character. “He’s the person I go to when I need help with where Laura’s going.”

Jones “never heard of a show that didn’t have something going on with it.” He didn’t seem concerned. What’s more important to him are the conversations American Gods is starting in terms of cultural and political topics, topics like “mass incarceration” and “human trafficking” that “no one [in dramatic television] is talking about, that it’s not on anyone’s radar.”

He adds, “So the fact we’re tackling all of those issues makes me feel like for all of the hoopla… [he physically shrugs].”

Byrne, meanwhile, worked with Fuller and Green for many years on Hannibal and he served as a 2nd unit director on American Gods season 1. With season 2, he moved to 1st unit, directing the first and eighth episodes. Abtahi, Browning, Jones, and Ricky Whittle all note how critical Byrne was in maintaining the look and atmosphere of the show going into these new episodes.

“If you had spoken to me a few months ago, I was feeling not very confident at all,” Brown said. “Always confident in the cast and in Chris Bryne, who didn’t come here [to NYCC] because, a) he’s working on the show as we speak, and, b) he just doesn’t want his face to be all over everything. He just wants to remain in the background. It needs to be in print that he’s the f—ing hero of this show. … He is American Gods to me. He doesn’t get enough praise and I want to shout his name from the rooftops because saved us and he’s incredible.”

“The look of the show is exactly 100 percent the same, if not cooler,” Whittle added of Byrne’s work. “Some of the sh— they’re doing this season is amazing, unbelievable. That was never the issue.”

The cast also didn’t ignore Alexander’s work on the show. After Fuller and Green’s departure, he was “getting the show back on the road,” Gaiman said.

“Brian and Michael have set down an incredible foundation, I hope to work with them again in the future, I love those guys,” Whittle said. But, “if it wasn’t for Jesse,” he added, “we literally would not be on screen. He got it together when we were running out of time. He knocked out all the episodes and the story, and we’ve been blessed with another great season.”

In its report on the season 2 production, The Hollywood Reporter published details about apparent tension on set, notably a “shouting match” involving Ian McShane (now an actor and executive producer on American Gods) and Alexander. Whittle said there wasn’t any kind of uncomfortable behavior he noticed that hasn’t been in other productions. “Coming from a toxic environment [a reference to his time on The 100], I can say that American Gods is the happiest place I’ve been,” Whittle stressed.

To Gaiman, Alexander’s main contributions were keeping the characters of Shadow and Mr. Wednesday as the main focus of the story. “We have a huge show. It’s a huge budget, it’s an enormous cast, and you need scripts that service all of the cast,” he explained. “You need a vision of a certain amount of madness, you need to keep the plot going. It would be very easy with a cast of outstanding actors like this to lose Shadow, possibly to lose Wednesday, and we need to make them front and center. I think one of the things that Jesse did that I really liked so much was to get them front and center.”

There’s still a lot of love for Fuller and Green. Abtahi pointed to his time working with the pair on Heroes. “Personally, professionally, I get along with them really, really well,” he said. “It’s not always great to hear that kind of stuff, but they were very encouraging to us. They said, ‘You guys, the cast is the most important part of the show. You guys will be fine.’”

“Only speaking for myself,” Browning said. “I love Michael and Bryan with all of my heart and soul and them leaving was truly heartbreaking for me, but I’m hoping we can do them proud to some degree because I know they still love us.”

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Sitting in a small and airless living room on the edge of northern Rio de Janeiro’s winding Acari favela, Christian Lucas Fonseca’s mother says she is worried.

“There’s no opportunity for young people,” Paula Lucas Fonseca, 45, says.

“It’s very difficult … and a lot of mothers have lost hope because they can’t control it [their children’s future].”

Christian left school prematurely nearly a year ago after missing too many classes. He has since faced the daunting prospect of trying to find work amid the sparse opportunities in Brazil’s stuttering economy.

For now, like millions of other young Brazilians, 18-year-old Christian is unemployed in a country suffering from an economic hangover that followed its worst recession in recorded history.

Unemployment within the general population stands at above 12 percent, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), but among those aged 18-24 the jobless rate leaps to 26.6 percent.

“I’m trying to find work but I’m feeling very unmotivated. I keep going after it but it doesn’t work out,” Christian says, adding that he aspires to go into the army and “move up through the ranks”.

And with elections looming, one of the pressing issues concerning young voters regardless of who wins is ensuring there are more jobs and other opportunities.

‘Youth lost the most’

Brazil’s recession, which began in mid-2014, saw the economy contract sharply from 2015-2016, shrinking by nearly eight percent.

Economists speculate the downturn was linked to a variety of factors, including a fall in the global commodity prices, which had previously fuelled an economic boom in Brazil from 2000-2012, domestic fiscal decision-making and several high-level corruption scandals that prompted market uncertainty.

What is clear, however, is that the biggest losers during the slump were young people, according to Macelo Cortes Neri, head of the Center for Social Research at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) higher education institute.

“The youth lost the most right from the beginning of the crisis,” Neri says, pointing to significant falls in income rates among people aged 15-24 in the four years after 2014 compared to the overall population.

“[And] this crisis is deep and long and has a very long and shy recovery process.”

 

Despite growing modestly again last year, the Brazilian economy remains in fragile health and weak growth is prompting little optimism from young Brazilians about theire future prospects.

According to the National Confederation of Brazilian Industry, fear of unemployment peaks at 68.6 percent among those aged 16-24 and falls through every older age group until 55 and above.

Since September 2017, around the time Brazil officially exited recession, the number has risen by three percent.

Educational divides

Inextricable from prospects for employment is education.

More than 21 percent of Brazilians who fail to finish high school are jobless, according to IBGE.

Unemployment among those who complete university studies, by comparison, is 6.3 percent 

Wellington Costa, 19, from underprivileged northern Rio’s Iraja neighbourhood is hoping to transition from the former group into the latter.

He’s trying to finish high school and plans to go proceed on to university to study engineering.

But he’s currently having to balance his schooling with odd jobs, commonly known in Brazil as “be cools”, in order to make money to support his family.

“I feel unsatisfied, it sucks, but I need to keep doing what I must to survive,” Wellington, who’s dreamed of making submarines since the age of five, says.

“My financial situation has always been like this, independent of whatever the government is or whether there’s a recession or not,” he adds.

“The people writing about unemployment and putting together the data are all in good financial condition and don’t really think about how things are affecting the poorer, working classes.”

According to Neri, Brazilian officials could do more to support young people like Wellington through school and in finding jobs. 

“In terms of education policy, everything after high school is about going to unviersity, but only a few go to university,” Neri says.

“We don’t have an agenda for the young in terms of professional education … [and] youth becomes a problem when it should be the solution [for the economy].”

Squeezed middle class

Even those who have undertaken higher education, however, have not been immune from Brazil’s economic crisis.

About 30km south of Acari, in the tree-lined avenues of the largely middle class Botafogo neighbourhood, sisters Aline and Leticia Domingues da Rosa, both graduates of the Rio-based prestigious, private Pontifical Catholic University, are also feeling the effects of the downturn and a subsequent slow and stuttering recovery.

Leticia, 27, was laid-off from her job at a radio station last year as part of severe cutbacks.

Along with Aline, 28, she now runs a home-made baking business producing cookies, cakes and other confectionary.

The enterprise has leaned on financial support from the wider family and the sisters’ own savings.

Neither express any confidence they will be able to find work if the business fails to get off the ground.

“The end of the recession won’t be felt yet, in the long run things might get better but at the moment I don’t see anything getting better,” Leticia says.

“If I had the money I would leave Brazil in a heartbeat.”

Half of all Brazilians aged between 25-34 would like to change countries if they could, according to a survey published by polling institute Datafolha in June.

Among those 16 to 24 years old, the number rises 62 percent.

Election approaching

The disenchantment that has seemingly gripped many young Brazilians comes as the country is set to vote on Sunday as part of national and state-level elections.

At stake are more than 1,650 positions, including the presidency.

Presidential frontrunner candidates far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Workers’ Party contender Fernando Haddad, who replaced former widely popular former president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva last month after he was barred from running in the vote, have presented widely different proposals for kick-starting Brazil’s economy. 

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has pledged to cut red tape and minimise the size of the state via privatisation.

Haddad, a former mayor of metropolis Sao Paulo and minister of education under Lula, has vowed to cut taxes for Brazil’s lowest earners and boost employment.

Despite leading opinion polls in the run-up to Sunday’s vote, both also have high rejection rates among the electorate.

Costa is one of a number of Brazilians not convinced by either candidate.

“The election doesn’t have much of an impact on me, things are bad and difficult regardless of who wins, so I’m going to vote null,” he says.

For Leticia, meanwhile, “none of the candidates present a solution” for the economy.

But in Acari, where a light flickers momentarily and then sparks into life following a power cut, Christian speaks with aspiration about the future.

“I don’t know much about politics, and I don’t know who would be the best politician … [But] I hope things will get better after the election,” Christian, who didn’t register to vote, says.

“I want a permanent, fixed job. That’s how I will be able to go up in life.”

Cristy Caserta, who competed in Season 15 of ABC reality show “The Bachelor” in 2011, died suddenly in South Florida on Thursday, according to police in the Broward County city of Sunrise. She was 38.

Officer Luis Fernandez confirmed to USA TODAY that Caserta was in a training class of some sort early Thursday when her classmates noticed her head hit her desk and her coffee cup went flying. 

They rushed to offer aid but she was unresponsive. An emergency team arrived to perform CPR. She was taken a hospital, Westside Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead just before 9 a.m. EDT, Fernandez said.

The cause of death has not been established; the county medical examiner is conducting an autopsy Friday, Fernandez said. It could be weeks before a cause is established. The medical examiner’s office did not return a message from USA TODAY.  

“The (young) age and the circumstances of how this occurred catch attention; we made sure we were on the thorough side (of investigating the death),” Fernandez said.

Fernandez said Caserta, an attorney, had an address in South Florida but not in Sunrise.

Caserta appeared on Season 15 of “The Bachelor,” when Brad Womack was the bachelor having a second go at finding a mate. She was one of 10 contestants sent home the first week. 

In her Twitter profile, she described herself as an “attorney…FSU Alum…Just an easy going South Florida girl” who lasted a “hot minute on ABC’s The Bachelor 15.”

Her last Instagram picture, on Sept. 15, showed her standing in a vineyard in Napa Valley, smiling wide and holding up a glass of red wine. “When in Napa… SeeSwirlSniff Sip Savor,” the caption read.

Emily Maynard, 32, the woman who won Womack’s heart during the 2011 season before splitting months later, paid tribute in a statement to Us Weekly.

“Being on a show like ‘The Bachelor,’ you truly form relationships that are so special because it’s an experience no one else can relate to. I’m grateful for my memories with Cristy and will be praying for her family and friends.”

ABC declined to comment. USA TODAY has also reached out to Warner Bros. Television, which produces “The Bachelor,” for comment.

Make it stop:   In this #MeToo era, it’s time to retire dating shows for good

 

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The iconic singing group known since 1929 as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir announced Friday that its name has changed to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

Little else will change about the choir, according to a release. The name change comes as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is distancing itself from shorthand labels such as “Mormon” and “LDS.”

In August, Church President Russell M. Nelson announced the “Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name he has revealed for his church.” He issued guidelines saying that “Latter-day Saints” was acceptable shorthand.

The choir said its new name pays tribute to the Tabernacle, which has been home to the choir since since 1867.

The Tabernacle is “known for its one-of-a-kind signature sound shaped, in part, by the superior acoustics of the building where a pin drop can be heard 250 feet away,” the release says. 

The Tabernacle is located on church grounds known as Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. It is considered “a place of reverence and worship for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” the release says.

Latter-day Saints believe the church’s full name was given by revelation from God to founder Joseph Smith in 1838.

“Mormon” refers to the Book of Mormon, the faith’s signature scripture. Believers say it is the word of an ancient prophet named Mormon.

More: Church leader wants people to stop using ‘Mormon’ and ‘LDS’ as substitutes for full name

Contributing: The Associated Press

 

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The LG V40 ThinQ is the latest flagship smartphone from LG. In order to compete with Samsung, Apple, and Google LG has packed a ton of features into this device. The V40 ThinQ has 5 cameras — two front-facing cameras and a triple camera system on the back. There’s also a 6.4-inch screen, headphone jack, and Hi-Fi amp. Following is a transcript of the video.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I’ve been using LG’s brand new V40 ThinQ smartphone for the last few days and I’ve come away so far pretty impressed. It has a really sort of very premium-looking glass back and it looks great but it is, as with all phones with glass backs, a total fingerprint magnet.

One thing in particular about this phone that is actually really, really impressive is how light it is. It’s absolutely lighter than the Galaxy Note9 which is a pretty hefty, heavy phone. The LG V40 is just a really nice light phone to hold and use. And just because it’s light, again, it doesn’t mean that it’s not premium. The phone feels solid. One of the reasons I think the phone is so light is because the phone actually has a very small battery. The V40 has a 3,300 mAh battery. It’s a little on the low side for a phone this big and this powerful. Battery life isn’t superb, it’s fine. It’s not as good as the Note9. It has quick charge which obviously is very useful. It has wireless charging which is very useful.

In true LG fashion, this is LG’s signature thing, they have a sort of high-end, Hi-Fi amp inside the phone which makes audio sound a lot better through wired headphones. Now again, the key here is wired headphones. Yup, the LG V40 has a headphone jack.

But, the real reason this phone stands out, the biggest unique feature here is the cameras. All five of them, to be exact. So, that’s three on the back and two on the front. One of the cameras is just a regular wide-angle normal lens that almost every smartphone comes with. The other lens or one of the other lenses is LG’s sort of signature ultra-wide angle lens so that means it captures a really wide version of what you’re seeing. It’s really good. It has less of that fisheye effect that we saw in previous LG phones so it’s actually a pretty great thing to have. And now, the third lens is ta-da, it’s a 2X zoom lens. Now, LG is incorporating all those lenses into one phone and you don’t have to choose anymore. So, now for the front, we have two cameras like I mentioned earlier. One of them is, again, a normal wide-angle lens that all selfie cameras are. And the other camera is also an ultra-wide angle lens so that means bigger, broader selfies with more people inside. This is a great move by LG, for sure, and just including so many options and so much versatility in this phone and with the cameras, there’s just something for everyone there.

I’ve taken some test shots. This is nothing like definitive or anything but it looks good to me. It looks really good to me. LG’s cameras on their smartphones have kinda always disappointed me in the past. One thing that the triple-lens system does which is pretty cool is you can take a photo with all three lenses at the same time. The photo quality on that sort of triple shot feature isn’t great yet. I’m wondering if maybe it has to get a couple of updates from LG to get it improved but for now it’s kinda just blowing out lights. It’s not setting the aperture correctly enough and the photos don’t look very good. Perhaps it’s something LG can fix with a software update.

Now, here’s another thing that’s pretty impressive. Three cameras, no bump. Pretty amazing there when you consider other phones like I don’t know, iPhone, and its massive camera bump on the back.

I’ve been saying this word, ThinQ, along with the LG V40’s name. So, the ThinQ part is the sort of smart part of the LG V40 and LG put the smarts into the camera. So, it’s what they call AI cam. So artificial intelligence cam. What it does is you point the camera at something and the camera sort of recognizes what you’re pointing at. So, you’re pointing at flowers, for example, it’ll say a little flowers icon on the bottom right of the screen and it’ll adjust the settings automatically for flowers. Does it work? Uhhh, I don’t know. I took a photo of flowers yesterday and it said flowers on the little, on the bottom right there of the screen, and the flowers looked terrible. They look absolutely awful compared to the regular flower shot I took with the sort of auto mode of the phone. I think it’s – sure, fine, but the auto mode on smartphones and the LG V40 is fine too. It takes great photos. Actually, I probably prefer just using the auto mode to be honest.

So, let’s talk about software a little bit. LG, like a lot of other smartphone makers, they put their own skins or layers of software like kind of a user interface on top of Android. And this one’s pretty good. Usually I’m not a fan of LG’s sort of extra layer on top of Android but this is pretty nice, pretty minimal. You do get a bunch of LG apps on there but it’s not too offensive, really. Turning the wheels inside the LG V40 ThinQ is a Snapdragon 845 and that means great performance. The phone just glides through my day, has no problem switching through apps, and just multitasking is not a problem either. Great performing phone.

The V40 has an OLED display and that means really, really nice colors, deep, deep blacks. It’s just a really nice screen, it’s sharp too at 1440p and it’s also one of those taller displays with an aspect ratio around 19:9, I believe. It’s also a large screen at 6.4 inches. Now, that’s exactly the same size as the Galaxy Note9. It’s actually a smaller phone than the Galaxy Note9 despite having the same screen size. Inescapable these days is the notch. I’m sorry notch haters, the notch is here to stay, and it’s fine to be honest. Actually, it works quite well on Android phones. It means you can get the notification bar up there around the notch and it’s out of the way of your apps. The great thing about Android is you can kind of hide the notch, right? You can turn it off or turn the colors black so it looks like just a notification bar up there.

LG made a great phone with the V40 ThinQ. If you’re getting tired of those really heavy phones, the LG V40 will totally cater to you. It’s a really nice light phone to hold and use. It’s especially appealing to audiophiles out there or if you just like music, or if you use wired headphones. But, the real reason this phone stands out, the biggest unique feature here is the cameras. If you like having a lot of options for the cameras, LG V40 is definitely for you. After moving from the Note9 to the V40, is Google home. I have Google Home again when I swipe left, not Bixby Home.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Susan Collins’ announcement Friday that she would vote “yes” on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh likely ended the uncertainty over his confirmation. 

But while Collins spoke on the Senate floor and explained why she would be voting for Kavanaugh, people angry over her decision were donating cash to defeat her in her next election. 

More than $50,000 was given over the course of her nearly 45-minute speech, bringing the total raised on an online crowdfunding campaign to defeat Collins in her 2020 election to more than $3 million as of 7 p.m.

The campaign by three activists groups, Be A Hero Team, Maine People’s Alliance and Mainers for Accountable Leadership, had been criticized by Collins and others over several weeks as a possible attempt to bribe Collins into voting against Kavanaugh. 

The groups started raising money in August, asking people across the nation to donate to Collins’ opponent in an attempt to show her the stark opposition to Kavanaugh. No one has yet filed to run against Collins in 2020. Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser and United Nations Ambassador, suggested on Twitter Friday that she could challenge Collins. 

The donation page, titled “Either Sen. Collins VOTES NO on Kavanaugh OR we fund her future opponent” went down briefly on crowdfunding website crowdpac.com Friday afternoon because of “overwhelming” traffic to the page, Be a Hero said in a statement. 

More: Sen. Susan Collins a ‘yes’ on Kavanaugh, drawing anger from protesters and praise from GOP

More: Brett Kavanaugh moves towards Supreme Court confirmation after Susan Collins, Joe Manchin pledge support

The page has said those donating wouldn’t be charged if Collins voted no on Kavanaugh. But on Friday, Collins seemingly put an end to the uncertainty, giving a nearly 45-minute speech on the Senate floor that explained her process and why she’d be voting to confirm him. 

“Susan Collins has betrayed the people, and especially the women and survivors, of Maine,” the campaign organizers said in a statement. “Thousands of Mainers wrote, called, visited, protested, begged and pleaded with Susan Collins to do the right thing – to be a hero – and vote no. She ignored them.”

The statement continued, “For years she has claimed to be an independent, a different kind of Republican, but today she shattered that facade forever. Her vote will reverberate long after she has left the Senate.”

The organizers said they were committed to defeating Collins in 2020 and pledged to “never let her forget” this decision. 

“Maine deserves a Senator who would recoil at the idea of confirming a proven liar, an emotionally unstable partisan, to the Supreme Court,” the statement said. “Maine deserves a Senator who will believe survivors, who will listen to their stories, and who will represent them with honor. Susan Collins is no longer capable of that.”

During her speech on the floor, Collins went through the issues, from Obamacare, same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and said Kavanaugh’s record and pledges before Congress were enough to keep her vote.

She said Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens, offered a compelling testimony before Congress, but ultimately no one could vouch for her claims or even remember the party. 

Collins said the allegations, in her eyes, “fail to meet the ‘more likely than not’” standard. She said she believes voting against Kavanaugh without witnesses or proof could start a “dangerous” precedent. 

“I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court,” Collins said, adding that her decision should not be “misconstrued as suggesting that unwanted sexual contact of any nature is not a serious problem in this country.”

A watchdog group asked the Justice Department to investigate the campaign against Collins out of concern the money donated was an attempt to bribe Collins’ vote and called it illegal. 

It’s illegal if “the payments are made in return for an explicit promise or undertaking by the official to perform or not to perform an official act,” the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) wrote in a letter to the Justice Department. 

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Will Republican Susan Collins of Maine face pushback after the swing vote senator said she’ll support Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court? Looks like she may already have a Senate challenger.

“Me,” Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser and United Nations Ambassador, tweeted Friday in response to a former White House colleague asking who might challenge Collins in a Senate race.

Collins, who would face re-election in 2020, received criticism from many liberals soon after she announced on the Senate floor that she plans to back Kavanaugh during Saturday’s final vote.

Jen Psaki, former Obama White House communications director, posed the question on social media after Collins’ announcement: “who wants to run for Senate in Maine? there will be an army of supporters with you.”

Rice was quick with her one-word reply.

The post picked up on Twitter, with thousands of shares and likes. Shortly after, the former diplomat tweeted again, clearing up that she wasn’t making an announcement just yet, but left the door open for a run.

Rice said she was “deeply disappointed” with Collins’ vote, adding “Maine and America deserve better.”

Collins was one of four wavering senators who will be the deciding votes on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, and Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, both said Friday they’d back Kavanaugh.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the only Republican to vote against a procedural vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination Friday, and she later said, “it just may be that in my view he’s not the right man for the court at this time.”

Kavanaugh faces sexual assault accusations from multiple women, all of which he denies.

Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller

 

 

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President Donald Trump is losing the trade war, at least according to his favorite measuring stick.

Trump has repeatedly cited the US’s ever-growing trade deficit with China, Mexico, and other nations as a primary reason for the trade war. And while many economists think the focus on trade deficits is misguided, Trump has made the reducing them one of the trade war’s main goals.

Based on the latest trade numbers, the president’s battle with China and other countries is not going so well.

The US Census Bureau reported Friday that the trade deficit increased to $53.2 billion in August for both goods and services, up from $50.0 billion in July. The goods trade deficit, which draws most of Trump’s attention, also increased to $86.3 billion, a $3.8 billion increase from the month before.

The primary reason for the increase in the deficit was a collapse in exports, especially soybeans, which fell off by $1 billion, a 28% drop from the month prior. China, the largest buyer of US soybeans, imposed tariffs on the American crop and it appears the restrictions are taking a toll.

Turning to Trump’s main trade war target — China — the news doesn’t look much better for the president. The goods deficit with China jumped to an all-time one-month record of $38.6 billion from $36.8 billion in July without seasonal adjustments. Year-to-date, the goods deficit with China is $261 billion, 8.3% higher than the $240 billion through August of 2017.

Similarly to the overall deficit, the imbalance with China worsened due to a drop in exports to the country according to Dan Silver, an economist at JPMorgan.

“Details in the August report show that nominal goods exports to China dropped significantly during the month following the implementation of tariffs by both the US and China early in July,” Silver said.

JPMorgan

But China wasn’t the only country to see its trade surplus with the US grow. The US goods-trade deficit with Mexico ticked up to $8.7 billion, a $2.3 billion increase from July, and the deficit with Japan increased to $5.8 billion, up $0.9 billion from last month.

Gregory Daco, the chief US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients that the trade deficit will likely continue to grow given recent trends.

“Looking ahead, cooler global momentum and the stronger dollar will continue to temper export growth while imports will stay well-supported by upbeat domestic demand, fiscal stimulus and the strong greenback,” Daco said. “Tariffs and persistent trade policy uncertainty are the key risks to our outlook.”