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DESCRIPTION:National Call to Action\n\nStay Mobilized Until Kavanaugh is Defeated: \nNo 
 “Business As Usual”\n\nEveryone Who Can Possibly Go to Washington, DC 
 Between Now and When Kavanaugh is Defeated—Get There NOW\n\nNo Reliance 
 on the Politicians \nThe Hands of the FBI Must Not Be Tied, the FBI Must Be 
 Free to Conduct a Full Investigation of All the Charges Against 
 Kavanaugh\nMass Direct Action Now to Defend Democracy and Defend Women’s 
 Rights\n\nConfirming Kavanaugh sends a message to women across the country 
 that victims of sexual assault should stay silent. Defeating Kavanaugh 
 sends a message that victims should speak out, stand up, and fight.\n\nStop 
 Rape and Sexual Assault\nTrump, the Abuser-In-Chief, Must Resign or Be 
 Removed\n\n\nProtest Wed. Oct. 3 at 12 pm\nThe Capitol, Washington, 
 DC\n\n\nResist. Confront. Disrupt. Fight to win (AND WE CAN WIN)!\n\nOver 
 the past week, the protests and confrontations in Washington, DC, by the 
 Resistance, the mass movement against Trump, have been pivotal in reversing 
 the impending catastrophe of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. 
 Above all, the courageous determination and action of women who are 
 survivors of sexual assault and abuse have been decisive in making it 
 possible to defeat Trump and the Republicans’ rush to put a sexual abuser 
 on the US Supreme Court. The indelible courage of Christine Blasey Ford’s 
 disclosure of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault and her testimony last 
 Thursday showed the nation a real hero. Other women have answered her call, 
 and have since come forward with their own searing accounts of 
 Kavanaugh’s sexual assaults: Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, and 
 Elizabeth Rasor. Our support for Dr. Ford and all these women is 
 unequivocal and categorical. The stand they have taken has dragged this 
 nation from the precipice of a national and international disgrace to the 
 genuine possibility of saving American democracy. \n\nDespite Prof Blasey 
 Ford’s courageous and obviously true testimony Thursday, afterwards, on 
 Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, the Republican politicians were 
 still attempting to jam Kavanaugh’s nomination through the US Senate 
 Judiciary Committee, filling the Senate hearing room with the gross male 
 rage of a bunch of crude sexist bullies, repeating one after the other the 
 long-discredited arguments misogynists have used to silence women trying to 
 fight against sexual assault. The Democratic politicians on the other side 
 who supposedly opposed Kavanaugh and rightly claimed to support Dr. Blasey 
 Ford’s testimony, behaved far too much as if they had been abused into 
 passivity themselves by the Republicans’ abusive ranting and raving, 
 rather than finding the courage to really defend Blasey Ford’s heroic 
 stand and actually fight to win.\n\nUnder these circumstances, two young 
 women, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher had to join Blasey Ford and 
 the other Kavanaugh accusers as the real heroes of this struggle. On Friday 
 morning, after the supposed open-minded Republican Senator Jeff Flake 
 announced that he would actually vote with the other Republicans to send 
 the Kavanaugh nomination to the full Senate for a vote for confirmation, 
 these two women caught the cowardly Senator Flake in an elevator. They 
 genuinely and passionately spoke truth to power. They expressed the 
 indignation and determination of millions of women across the nation and 
 the Resistance fighting for the future of democracy in America to break the 
 suffocating silence imposed on the victims of sexual assault and abuse by 
 American society for far too long. Their confrontation with the timid 
 Senator Flake communicated the reality that for the rest of his life, 
 wherever he goes, he will be held accountable for his role in accepting or 
 rejecting sexual predator Brett Kavanaugh on the US Supreme Court. They 
 demanded, “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” when Flake tried to 
 avoid hearing their own declarations of their histories of sexual assault. 
 Their bold and decisive action, not the passive, boring, and half-stepping 
 speeches of politicians inside the committee, forced Flake, after the 
 elevator confrontation, to change his position and demand an independent 
 FBI investigation of the sexual abuse charges against Kavanaugh before a 
 vote could take place in the full Senate. The audacity of Archila and 
 Gallagher is a model for how our movement can and must carry through on the 
 fight we need to make now.\n\nWith MORE of this kind of bold and determined 
 direct action in DC between now and the final vote on Kavanaugh, our 
 movement can win. We must make the most of this opportunity. With the 
 Senate confirmation vote officially postponed only by a week, we must act 
 and we must act fast. Hundreds of people have been protesting inside and 
 outside of the Capitol. Throughout the course of this entire process, fresh 
 Resistance forces need to flood the capital. We need a mass confrontation 
 of the movement with the politicians, especially the ever-so-timid waverers 
 Jeff Flake (R), Susan Collins (R), Lisa Murkowski (R), Paul Manchin (D), 
 and Heidi Heitkamp (D), and demand that they oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s 
 confirmation. This entire fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination makes clear 
 Rule #1 of the movement: do NOT rely on the politicians to fight; rely on 
 ourselves and each other to win. \n\n“Never again” begins now. It is 
 obvious the confirmation of Kavanaugh will send a message that in America, 
 people who are sexually assaulted or abused should keep silent. That 
 message must be defeated, and the message sent by Christine Blasey Ford and 
 the other heroic survivors who have been speaking out must prevail. 
 Kavanaugh has also clearly, throughout his career, been an enemy of the 
 legal and political gains of the women’s movement, in particular an enemy 
 of the right of women to control over their own bodies secured in 1973 in 
 the Roe v Wade decision. Despite the statements to the contrary of certain 
 cowardly waverers, it is obvious that Kavanaugh will take advantage of the 
 first opportunity he could get to overturn Roe all together, and until he 
 can accomplish that, vote to render Roe v Wade a dead letter in practice as 
 much as possible. Trump would not have nominated him if that were not the 
 case.\n\nIn addition to the message aimed at silencing the struggle against 
 sexual abuse and the attack on the fundamental rights of women, the threat 
 of Kavanaugh’s confirmation places democracy at stake in yet another way, 
 which is completely bound up with Donald Trump’s aspiration to create an 
 authoritarian presidency. Even among Trump’s short list of reactionary 
 candidates to nominate to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh stood out as 
 holding absolutely extreme positions in favor of presidential power and 
 against presidential accountability. In particular, Kavanaugh has publicly 
 argued repeatedly that presidents should not be subject at all to 
 investigations like the Mueller investigation. For the past year, the 
 Mueller investigation has been the only governmental process aimed at 
 determining the role the Trump campaign may have played in conspiring with 
 Putin’s attempt to distort and determine the results of the 2016 
 presidential elections. Only the Mueller investigation can make possible 
 holding Trump accountable for his numerous efforts to obstruct justice and 
 turn the FBI, the Justice Dept. as a whole, and the nation’s intelligence 
 agencies into his own personal state police. Given that there are already 
 four judges on the Court ready to uphold a very expansive view of 
 presidential power, Kavanaugh’s confirmation would create a long-term 
 majority prepared to uphold the emergence of a reactionary, authoritarian 
 presidential dictatorship over the next period of American history, 
 beginning with an imminent set of decisions pertaining to the Mueller 
 investigation. \n\nThe future of democracy is at stake. We are being called 
 by history to meet the challenge of this extraordinary moment. \n\n	To all 
 supporters of the movement to defeat Kavanaugh and Trump: get to DC this 
 week, however you can. Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme 
 Court must be defeated. While Dr. Ford’s forthright courage was 
 celebrated across the nation, anyone watching last Thursday’s performance 
 by Brett Kavanaugh shuddered in disgust at his debauched rage. His 
 performance was, from the beginning to end, the behavior of a guilty man. 
 His testimony left no doubt that he is a dangerous misogynist and sexual 
 predator. He presented an appalling display of exactly the kind of judge 
 who should never receive a lifetime appointment to the most powerful court 
 in the world. His testimony made utterly clear that Kavanaugh on the Court 
 would be the closest equivalent to giving Donald Trump a lifetime 
 appointment to the Supreme Court. \n\nUntil Dr. Ford came forward, 
 Kavanaugh’s nomination seemed all but secured. Today, the opposite is 
 true. Today, Kavanaugh’s nomination presents a test of the #Metoo 
 movement that has come forward against Trump’s misogyny, his promotion 
 and defense of sexual assault that has been central to his political 
 platform. As long as Donald Trump, as Abuser-in-Chief, remains in office, 
 misogynist men like Kavanaugh will feel they have a greenlight to attack, 
 harass, objectify and abuse women. By defeating the nomination of Kavanaugh 
 we will be dealing a blow to Trump’s attacks on democracy and his 
 movement of reactionary supporters who have been emboldened to carry out 
 misogynist, immigrant-bashing, and racist attacks. \n\nNow more than ever, 
 as our nation stands at a crossroads, the Resistance must rise to our 
 historic challenge. This is no time for “business as usual” or to rely 
 on the promises and maneuvers of cynical politicians or the FBI. BAMN calls 
 on all anti-Trump and pro-democracy Resistance fighters to join us in 
 action to defeat the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. 
 Supreme Court, and to force Trump to resign or be removed. The future of 
 freedom and democracy is in our hands.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/10/01/18817929.php
SUMMARY:Everyone Get to Washington DC to Keep Kavanaugh Off the Supreme Court
LOCATION:Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/10/01/18817929.php
DTSTART:20181003T190000Z
DTEND:20181003T230000Z
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