First Draft on Politics: Differing Views of Kavanaugh Emerge

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, September 4, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Politics »]( [Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, center, on Capitol Hill in August.]( Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, center, on Capitol Hill in August. Erin Schaff for The New York Times Good Tuesday morning, Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today: - Two wildly different portraits of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh [are set to emerge when he appears on Capitol Hill]( for the opening of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. If confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Judge Kavanaugh [would swing the court sharply to the right](. - William Burck is the lawyer [deciding which documents about Judge Kavanaugh can be released]( as he also represents current and former White House officials in the special counsel inquiry. - Economic growth under President Trump has not helped everywhere. It has lifted wealthy areas, which were already growing before he took office, and it has [left the most economically troubled swaths of the country waiting]( for their share of the good times. - Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama stood one after the other to [honor John McCain]( extolling him as a one-of-a-kind figure and offering an implicit reproach of Mr. Trump. Meghan McCain, Mr. McCain’s daughter, [offered a more explicit rebuke]( of Trump-era Republican politics. - A U.S. attempt to [turn the billionaire Oleg V. Deripaska into an informant]( was part of a broader effort to gauge the possibility of cooperation from several Russian oligarchs in Vladimir V. Putin's circle. - Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House. Ayanna Pressley, [a rising star challenging a progressive incumbent]( wants to change that. - [See what’s coming up next on the primary calendar »]( — The First Draft Team HAVE A CONFIDENTIAL NEWS TIP? Do you have the next big story? Want to share it with The New York Times? We offer several ways to get in touch with and provide materials to our journalists. [Learn More »]( ADVERTISEMENT NEW YORK | SEPTEMBER 12 [One Nation, Divisible by Media]( Jim Rutenberg, a New York Times media columnist, talks with the television journalists Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’s chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports”; Bret Baier, the chief political anchor for Fox and Norah O’Donnell, co-host of “CBS This Morning,” about how the nightly broadcast news shows that once fed Americans a diet of uniform facts have been replaced with an array of radio and cable news shows that tend to reinforce biases. [• Get tickets here »]( On Washington [Why a Predictable Supreme Court Fight Is a Sign of a Broken Process]( By CARL HULSE [Little stands in the way as Republicans move to quickly put Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.]( Little stands in the way as Republicans move to quickly put Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Erin Schaff for The New York Times The Senate on Tuesday will begin what is expected to be a contentious but predictable Supreme Court showdown under a judicial confirmation process that appears to be almost irreversibly damaged and polarized. The elimination of the 60-vote filibuster against most judicial nominees by Democrats in 2013 and by Republicans against Supreme Court nominees in 2017 has upended the Senate’s role of offering advice and consent on the president’s picks. It now allows the majority party free rein to push through nominees with little to no consideration for the views or objections of the minority — a major break in Senate tradition. The development has major implications for the integrity not only of the Senate, but also of the federal courts, which are increasingly seen by the public as just another venue for political wrangling. [Read more »](  [Representative Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee’s ranking Democrat, left, gives opening remarks during a hearing with former F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok while people hold up guilty signs featuring former associates of President Trump.]( [Democrats, Eyeing a Majority, Prepare an Investigative Onslaught]( By NICHOLAS FANDOS With their confidence growing, House Democrats are preparing an onslaught of investigations that would put President Trump on defense and slow talk of impeachment. [Second Insider Attack Kills Service Member in Afghanistan]( By HELENE COOPER The attack is the second in past two months, bringing the number of American service members killed this year in Afghanistan to six. [Representative Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, right, is seeking his 11th term. In the Democratic primary, he is being challenged by Ayanna Pressley, left, a city councilwoman in Boston.]( [Mike Capuano Is in the Political Fight of His Life]( By ASTEAD W. HERNDON The Massachusetts congressman, a longtime progressive Democrat, is hoping to stave off a challenger in Tuesday’s primary election. [Rob Hurst, manager of Edgartown Commons on Martha’s Vineyard, has had to scrub bathrooms this summer because five Jamaican workers who had long worked at the hotel couldn’t get visas.]( [Companies Say Trump Is Hurting Business by Limiting Legal Immigration]( By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ AND STEVE LOHR The government is making it harder to hire foreigners by denying visas, asking for more information and delaying approvals, corporate leaders say. [A Social Security Administration office in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Union officials say labor relations at the agency, already confrontational, have at times been poisonous since President Trump took office.]( [Federal Workers Brace for New Push on Trump Anti-Labor Goals]( By NOAM SCHEIBER President Trump met a legal setback in moving to curb civil servants’ unions, but agencies may be able to achieve the same goals on their own. [The majority leaders in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature are women. Jennifer Williamson, the who leads the Democrats in the state House of Representatives, campaigned in Portland last week.]( [Political Year of the Woman? Been There, Done That, Oregon Says]( By KIRK JOHNSON Women already control the governor’s office in Oregon and more top state legislative posts than in any other state, and now have track records to defend at the ballot box. [Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor of Georgia, must placate a range of interests from social conservatives to the discrimination-sensitive corporate community in Atlanta.]( [After a Primary on the Fringe, Georgia Republican Tacks Toward the Center]( By RICHARD FAUSSET Brian Kemp won the Republican nomination for governor as a “politically incorrect conservative.” Ahead of a competitive general election, though, he has moderated that message. [United States Special Forces troops helped train Nigerien soldiers in first aid in Agadez in April.]( [After Deadly Raid, Pentagon Weighs Withdrawing Almost All Commandos From Niger]( By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF AND ERIC SCHMITT The plans, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, would also close military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya. [President Trump with the Indian leader, Narendra Modi, at the White House in June 2017.]( [Trump’s Rougher Edge Complicates Trip by Pompeo and Mattis to India]( By GARDINER HARRIS Trade tensions, threats of sanctions and even President Trump’s reported mocking of the Indian leader have contributed to a suddenly long list of diplomatic challenges. [U.S. Marines outside the embassy in Havana in February. Diplomats working here reported strange noises and mysterious symptoms that doctors and scientists say may have resulted from strikes with microwave weapons.]( [Microwave Weapons Are Prime Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers]( By WILLIAM J. BROAD Doctors and scientists say microwave strikes may have caused sonic delusions and very real brain damage among embassy staff and family members. [Maria Butina’s efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel were detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails.]( [Wife of Former N.R.A. President Tapped Accused Russian Agent in Pursuit of Jet Fuel Payday]( By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, MICHAEL LAFORGIA AND ANDREW E. KRAMER Maria Butina surrounded herself with prominent American conservatives and dubious characters bent on making a fast buck. It was not always easy to tell one from the other. [From Criminal Convictions to Ethical Lapses: The Range of Misconduct in Trump’s Orbit]( By LARRY BUCHANAN AND KAREN YOURISH Here are all the people connected to President Trump who have been charged with crimes or found to have violated federal ethics rules. [Attorney General Jeff Sessions was attacked by President Trump on Twitter after the Justice Department brought charges against two Republican congressmen.]( [Trump Blasts Sessions for Charging G.O.P. Members Before Midterms]( By KATIE ROGERS AND KATIE BENNER The president, in a pair of tweets, said the Justice Department was putting the re-election chances of two “popular” Republican lawmakers at risk. [The Justice Department, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is redefining civil rights enforcement as it moves to support lawsuits like one brought by Asian-Americans against race-based college admissions.]( [Trump’s Justice Department Redefines Whose Civil Rights to Protect]( By KATIE BENNER A decision to back a lawsuit seeking to curb race-based college admissions follows a pattern by the Justice Department to reshape civil rights enforcement. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. And consider [subscribing to get unlimited access to nytimes.com and our apps.]( ADVERTISEMENT HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [washington-newsletter@nytimes.com](mailto:washington-newsletter@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). 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