California Senator and likely presidential candidate Kamala Harris spread a misleadingly edited video of Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing testimony, falsely claiming Kavanaugh views birth control as the equivalent of abortion. From that, the argument goes, if Kavanaugh voted against Roe v. Wade, birth control would be banned.https://twitter.com/SenKamalaHarris/status/1038136274593505280Harris’ perpetrated this fraud by editing out the first part of Kavanaugh’s statement, which made clear that he was quoting what litigants in a case had claimed.We covered it all in Kamala Harris’s Big Kavanaugh Lie:
Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) is the latest Democrat to jump on the deception shuttle to, she hopes, the White House in 2020. She tweeted an 11-second video of soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in which he says, “Filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to.”The problem? Kavanaugh was answering a question about and specifically citing the language of a specific case involving Priests for Life.Harris takes deceptive editing to jaw-droppingly unethical depths by saying that Kavanaugh’s language, which is not actually his language at all, is a “dog whistle” for, she asserts, “going after birth control.”Setting aside the fact that the right is not “going after birth control,” missing from this clip are the key words just before this clip starts: “They said.”
“It was a technical matter of filing out a form in that case. But they said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to.”
Harris’ falsehood was widely shared on social media, so much so that both Politifact and WaPo felt the need to fact check it. Both ruled it false.
Left-leaning Politifact rated it False:
Democrats rallied around Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s reference to popular contraceptive methods as “abortion-inducing” during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing.Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., tweeted an 11-second clip in which Kavanaugh said, “Filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to.””Kavanaugh chooses his words very carefully, and this is a dog whistle for going after birth control,” Harris tweeted. “He was nominated for the purpose of taking away a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions. Make no mistake — this is about punishing women.”Several other Democrats tweeted similar statements.Harris’ tweet takes Kavanaugh’s statement out of context.Harris cut an important second out of the clip — the attribution. Kavanaugh said, “They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.””They” refers to a Catholic nonprofit group, Priests for Life. Kavanaugh was answering a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about a case in which he argued Priests for Life shouldn’t have to provide women with the contraceptive coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act for religious reasons.
WaPo’s fact-checker gave it Four Pinochios:
Some might argue that it’s a judgment call, open to legal interpretation, as to whether Kavanaugh “uncritically” used a term that riles advocates of abortion rights.But a plain reading of Kavanaugh’s answer during the hearings shows that it is broadly consistent with his written opinion. One can question why he used the phrase “abortion-inducing drugs” rather than “abortion-inducing products” or “abortifacients.” But it’s pretty clear from the context that he was quoting the views of the plaintiffs rather than offering a personal view.Harris’s original tweet, with the “they say” language removed, was slightly mitigated by the second tweet a day later, providing the full context. But there was no acknowledgment by Harris that the original tweet was misleading. She earns Four Pinocchios — and her fellow Democrats should drop this talking point.
Enter one Hillary Clinton today on Twitter, after all the evidence was in that Harris’ claim was false, including the Politifact and WaPo fact checks.
Hillary repeated Harris’ false accusation in a Twitter thread. This clearly was a planned out series of tweets by Hillary, not just a retweet:
As of this writing, there are almost 10,000 retweets, rising rapidly.
Hillary not only didn’t visit Wisconsin, she didn’t visit the truth on her repeat of Kamala Harris’ Big Lie about Kavanaugh.
It’s all in keeping with the purpose of the malicious and false attacks on Kavanaugh, as I pointed out in Death Throes of #StopKavanaugh:
The goal here is no longer to stop Kavanaugh from being confirmed. These false accusations will not do that.The goal is to delegitimize Kavanaugh much as the left delegitimized Clarence Thomas as a jurist.And beyond that, once there is a firm conservative majority in place, to delegitimize the Supreme Court.
If you don’t think the midterms matter, then you haven’t been paying attention.
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