High drama in Senate for pivotal Kavanaugh-Ford showdown

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee braced for a history-making clash as Brett Kavanaugh and one of his accusers awaited their chance to testify Thursday about her claim that the Supreme Court nominee sexually attacked her when both were teenagers.

The embattled appeals court judge emphatically rejected that allegation from Christine Blasey Ford as well as accusations from other women as Republican leaders struggled to keep support for his elevation to the high court from eroding.

The committee of 11 Republicans, all men, and 10 Democrats was to hear from just two witnesses on Thursday: Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge who has long been eyed for the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor who accuses him of attempting to rape her when they were teens.

Early Thursday, all was eerily quiet outside the hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, across the street from the Capitol. Photographers and a contingent of Capitol Hill Police officers waited in the hallway, and access to corridors near the room was restricted. There were no signs of the modest number of public spectators who will be allowed inside.

Republicans have derided Ford’s allegation as part of a smear campaign and a Democratic plot to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination. But after more allegations have emerged, some GOP senators have allowed that much is riding on Kavanaugh’s performance. Even President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh and fiercely defends him, said he was “open to changing my mind.”

“I want to watch, I want to see,” he said at a news conference Wednesday in New York.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied all the allegations, saying he’d never heard of the latest accuser and calling her accusations “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.”

The conservative jurist’s teetering grasp on winning confirmation was evident when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, expressed concern, in a private meeting with senators Wednesday, about the third accuser, according to a person with knowledge of the gathering. Republicans control the Senate 51-49 and can lose only one vote for Kavanaugh to prevail if all Democrats vote “no.” Collins is among the few senators who’ve not made clear how they’d vote.

Collins walked into that meeting carrying a copy of Julie Swetnick’s signed declaration, which included new accusations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh and his high school friend Mark Judge.

Collins said senators should hear from Judge. After being told Judge has said he doesn’t want to appear before the committee, Collins reminded her colleagues that the Senate has subpoena power, according to a person who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The hearing was to be the first time the country sees and hears from the 51-year-old Ford beyond the grainy photo that has been flashed on television in the 10 days since she came forward with her contention. In testimony released beforehand, she said she was appearing only because she felt it was her duty, was frankly “terrified” and has been the target of vile harassment and even death threats.

“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court,” she was to tell the senators. “My responsibility is to tell the truth.”

Republicans are pushing to seat Kavanaugh before the November midterms, when Senate control could fall to the Democrats and a replacement Trump nominee could have even greater difficulty. Kavanaugh’s ascendance to the high court could help lock in a conservative majority for a generation, shaping dozens of rulings on abortion, regulation, the environment and more.

Republicans also risk rejection by female voters in November if they are seen as not fully respecting women and their allegations.

In a sworn statement, Swetnick said she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s.” Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, who also represents a porn actress who is suing Trump, provided her sworn declaration to the Judiciary panel.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they attended Yale University, raised her profile in a round of television interviews.

Republicans largely expressed confidence in Kavanaugh, emerging from a closed-door lunch with Vice-President Mike Pence Wednesday to say the nominee remained on track for confirmation.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said all week that Republicans will turn to a committee vote on Kavanaugh after the hearing. They hope for a roll call by the full Senate early next week with the aim of getting him on the court as its new term begins.

Collins’ unease was not the only suggestions of creeping doubt among Republicans. Asked whether there were signs of Republicans wavering in their support of Kavanaugh in their lunch, Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican, paused briefly before saying “no.”

In the hearing, Democrats planned to ask Kavanaugh if he’d be willing to undergo FBI questioning about the various claims — a request Republicans oppose — and press him about his drinking and behaviour as a teenager.

Questions for Ford were expected to be aimed at giving her a chance to explain herself.

Republicans have hired an outside attorney, Phoenix prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, to handle much of their questioning. Thus, they will avoid having their all-male contingent interrogating Ford about the details of what she describes as a harrowing assault.

Democratic questioners will include two senators widely seen as potential presidential candidates in 2020: Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who aggressively challenged Kavanaugh during the judge’s earlier confirmation hearing.

Ford planned to tell the committee that, one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, “groped me and tried to take off my clothes,” then clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream before she was able to escape.

“I believed he was going to rape me,” she will say, according to her prepared testimony.

Kavanaugh is being challenged on multiple fronts by his accusers, former classmates and college friends. They say the good-guy image he projects in public bears little relation to the hard-partying behaviour they witnessed when he was young.

In his prepared testimony, the 53-year-old appellate judge acknowledges drinking in high school with his friends, but says he’s never done anything “remotely resembling” what Ford describes. He said he has never had a “sexual or physical encounter of any kind” with her.

He also provided the committee with detailed calendar pages listing in green-and-white squares the activities that filled his summer of 1982 when he was 17 years old — exams, movies, sports and plenty of parties. That’s the year when Ford says she believes the assault occurred.

Nothing on the calendar appears to refer to her.

Ford released sworn statements from people who said she had told them about the assault in later years.

Late Wednesday, the committee released a flurry of other documents of unclear significance.

Transcripts of private interviews with committee investigators show they asked Kavanaugh about two previously undisclosed accusations received by Senate offices. One came in an anonymous letter sent to the office of Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., describing an incident in a bar in 1998, when Kavanaugh was working for the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton. The other accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in college. Kavanaugh denied them both.

The committee also released a summary of its work that noted its staff had spoken to two different men who believe they “had the encounter” with Ford, rather than Kavanaugh. The committee notes do not detail what came of those conversations.

Activity on Capitol Hill is likely to grind to a halt during the proceedings, with lawmakers glued to their televisions during what is widely seen as a sequel to the politically explosive hearings of 1991 with Anita Hill, who accused now-Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Thomas denied Hill’s accusation.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick, Padmananda Rama, Matthew Daly, Julie Pace and AP photographers J. Scott Applewhite and Carolyn Kaster contributed to this report.

Kavanaugh testimony: http://apne.ws/xkhv2Yv

Ford testimony: http://apne.ws/Wpklfy3

Kavanaugh testimony from Sept. 17: http://apne.ws/fmGaR3x

Kavanaugh testimony from Sept. 25: http://apne.ws/PBbVJpg

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For more coverage of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, visit https://apnews.com/tag/Kavanaughnomination

Lisa Mascaro, Alan Fram And Laurie Kellman, The Associated Press

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Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax

Published on January 16, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

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The problem with deficits and debt

Published on January 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.

But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.

Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:

Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.

Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.

Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).

Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.

Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.

Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.