amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

last week think progress published report a senior fellow ian millhiser that was "brett kavanaugh said he would kill roe v. wade last week and all must know a noticed." the story was declared fake news by facebook fact checker with a conservative outlet the weekly standard, which attacked ian millhiseser in an editorial. no hazard wrote that supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh may have committed a very serious crime, possibly even a sex crime or maybe he didn't. that editors at the weekly standard responded --

for more, we continue our conversation with ian millhiser, the senior fellow at the center for american progrgress action fundnd and the editor of thing progress justice, as well as dahlia lithwick from senior editor at slate.com. this is complicated, ian. can you please explain what happened? >> suffice it to say the weekly standard folks do not like me very much will stop i think their assertion that brett kavanaugh such a good man is not wearing well this week. but what happened, there are two different pieces. i think the first piece is the more important one. i wrote this piece and it made a legal argument. it said that in brett kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, he said that he would apply something called it ruled that would determine whether or not a right is protected by the constitution.

i took that statement and then i ed it againstgh another statement he made in 2017 for he said roe v. wade is inconsistent. he said he would apply glue expect and a 2017 he said roe v. wade is inconsistent with it. it is not that hard to figure out what he thinks about roe v. wade. the weekly standard is one of five outlets, the only ideological outlet -- there's no liberal outlet that has the power to do this -- that facebook is given the power to censor other content that is shared on facebook. if that content is deemed to have a factual error. -- weekly standard decided mi headline i said he said it and no one noticed. does the word "said" mean yes to say the exact words or not the exact words? i've have heard more opinions on that question this past two weeks than i ever thought possible. but in any event, they used this

to censor my peace, to label it fake news to impose the exact same sanction on me and this piece that would be imposed upon a piece that claimed the pope and worst donald trump or some other completely fabricated -- endorsed donald trump or some other completely fabricated life. outletkly standard -- an that personally attack me in an editorial last week, should not have the power to censor my work or any other liberal outlets of interestnflict and facebook should strip them of that authority. amy: let's talk about what happened next. which is the one of broke the story about the secret letter that dianne , republished your piece saying the story was effectively nuked from facebook with other outlets faced with

traffic and monetary consequences if they shared it. this is extremely significant. explain. this is in just the weekly standard weighing and. explain what happened with facebook. >> sure. the way that facebook works -- if i can get into a little bit of the business of journalism. i don't think the big secret that digital journalism is run by. -- run by clicks. facebook has a system, and they send about 10% to 50% of thing progress' total traffic to us. is what are nonpartisan outlets and the weekly standard that has this power. if they deem something to be fake news, then it loses 80% of the traffic it would have gotten from facebook. that is the first thing that happens. the second thing is a push application is sent to everyone who shared it informing them it

is "false news." the third thing that happens is everyone who shared it, even the people who shared a before the weekly standard ways and, gets punished. all of their content gets downgraded and is less likely to show up in people's newsfeeds from that point forward. so the weekly standard has an extraordinary power, not just to censor the rival outlets him a but to effectively try to nuke the bottom line of outlet that they disagree with. and our position is, look, if i were -- if i were a defense attorney and i walked into court and the prosecutor was sitting there wearing a black robe and wielding a gavel, i would say that is not appropriate because you're not allowed to be the judge of your own case. when you are one of the adversaries in a debate, you should not also get to judge who is telling the truth. amy: do you want to weigh in? >> i could not agree more with ian.

for one thing, mark stern and i had written a similar fees --piece. our's did not get attack. his got tagged entirely for a semantic internal fight about literally -- amy: and the significance of this. facebook determines what so many people read. thef you're talking on telephone, that is what it has basically become. the phone company is beeping outwards it does not agree with. when facebook has this kind of monopoly on information, when they deem something is not true -- i want to take this a step further. ian, if you can s say who the ft checker was thatat deemed your piece fake news. >> the name of the fact checker

iven a single 25-year-old staffer at the weekly standard the power to decide which news which does not. amy: i want to take this a step further because we have been talking about this astounding whort said she is now willing to testify before the committee about what she alleges brett kavanaugh did to her in high school, the attempted rape. she has made available all sorts of information in "the washington post" fees, the nose of her therapist in 2012 when she was in couples there be with her husband describing what happened to her, and again in 2013 when she described his attempted rape. the third man in the room while she alleges brett kavanaugh held her down, groped her, tried to rip her clothing off and put

his and over her mouth and she was terrified she could die, the third man in the room was mark judge them a brett kavanaugh's friend from the elitite prep school. the weeklywrites for standard, among other publications. >> there's a lot of things about mr. judge that i think are sketchy. he apparently wrote a memoir -- it is sort of thinly fictionalized. instead of calling the school georgetown country day, sexual name, he calls it loyola country day. there is even a character in the book briefly named bart o'kavanaugh. but mr. judge's book is pretty tremendous. he talks about lots of drinking. who's your book quote at the

prep school he and kavanaugh went to is some women need to be beaten like a gong or something to that effect. so this is the character witness that brett kavanaugh is bringing and to say, yeah, i didn't do it. he saw what happened and i wasn't there. amy: and the bookmark judge wrote describes his blackout e of thinkingcultur at his elite high school. >> it is this extraordinary book that, like, if you were to write something to destroy your credibility and to destroy your credibility particularly in this instance where the accusation is that you and a classmate got in thend participated sexual abuse of a woman, this book would completely blow your credibility. amy: dahlia a lithwickuch an amg

-- the arc of this is extraordinary because if you remember after anita hill testified in front of an all-male senate judiciary committee, senator democrats declined to bring forward witnesses who would hahave corroborated her story on both sides. amy: she is among those democrats at the time -- >> joe biden. amy: senator joe biden. >> it was a dumpster fire. but it led to what we now nostalgically think about as the europe the woman. women like dianne feinstein, a lot of women in the senate say that was the watershed most of women were furious at the treatment of anita hill and pushed women into the senate and record numbers. here we are at thehe end of thte seems very little has changed. if you look at -- if you map the

points of vestry on to what we're seeing now, here's a woman who comes forward reluctantly. she does now want to be outed. she is outed. there is -- this all happens after the hearing is formally over. at each turn, it looks exactly the same. amy: anita hill has issued a statement on the sexual allegations against brett kavanaugh -- "given the seriousness of these allegations, the government needs to find a fair and neutral way for complaints to be investigated. i have seen firsthand what happens when such a process is weaponized."." so now i want to go back to a clip from the 1991 confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee at the time, clarence thomas, when anita hill testified during the hearing alleging sexual harassment against thomas. this is from anita hill's opening statement. threeer approximately

months of working there, he asked me to go out socially with him. , and telling next the world about it, or the two most d difficult expenses of my life. it is only after a great deal of agonizing consideration and sleepless number -- great number of sleepless nights that i am able to talk of these unpleasant matters to anyone but my close friends. amy: so dahlia lithwick him a talk about this, the enormous pressure that anita hill is under. i think something echoes clearly to the credibility of dr. christine blasey is that she felt she needed to tell someone, but did not want to come forward , did not want this to be made public, but when reporters started crawling around her workplace and her home -- you know, were there and asking her

if this, she felt story's going to be told, she wanted to be told by her. this is going to be a great, great personal experience -- expense, she feels. toremember what happened anita hill. she was derided for being promiscuous. she was derided for being a liar. they said, why did you not come forth at the time? i mean come all of the questions about her integrity coming what you mean you did not report? she was her boss and did not report? at every turn, given opportunity to listen to what she was saying or two malign her personally, the decision was made to malign her personally. she is spent the rest of her life -- she said after the hearing, i'm going to take a year and try to sort out the sexual harassment in the workplace than. all of these years later, she is still doing that. i think if you look at the ways in which -- and she is amazing,

by the way. having gone through the wood chipper, she is extraordinarily ofeful that the sort of arc the moral universe is trending toward fairness. but the ways in which this maps so perfectly onto her experience and immediately when dr. ford came forward, we started hearing murmurs about maybe she was drunk, why didn't she come forward, you know, they were just kids and who among us hasn't assaulted a 15-yearar-old drunkenly at a party? very profound way. whatat is depressing about thiss how little has changed, even though so much should hahave changed right after her hearing. amy: ian millhiser, what do you first see for this week -- foresee this week? there were discussions that maybe staffers would speak to both brett kavanaugh and dr. blasey, but lily dr. blas has said the stakesey much higher

bus and she is willing to testify. she did not want to take this risk but at this point she feels it is her only choice. >> i think all eyes are going to be on hand for republican senators. certainly, collins and workouts he, who people are been looking at for a while -- like the only real realistic votes against kavanaugh. jeff flake, who is a flake. has a tendency to say big things and then not follow through on them. but maybe this time he will. and you will stop positive vote from havin happening. maybe bob corker. there are handful of republicans. the thing to keep in mind as this, two republican senators have the power to stop this. if two republican senators come forward and say we will vote no on brett kavanaugh until we get to the bottom of this, that puts a stop to this. it stops the thursday vote in the committee. it stops mitch mcconnell from

ramming this vote through. all it takes is two republican senators to come forward and say, we need to know what happened here before this person is given a lifetime appointed to the supreme court of the united states. amy: so you already have a number of senators speaking. you have corker. you have flake. and then there is murkowski and collins. quite areare already republicans who are wavering here. >> they are wavering. what we need more is wavering. what we need is definitive statements. if jeff flake wants to stop this, if you was to show integrity -- jeff flake is retiring, so he is nothing to lose. the magic words that jeff flake needs to use is "i will vote no on brett kavanaugh if the thursday vote is not canceled." until we hear those magic words from jeff flake -- he has not said very much. amy: corker is also retiring. >> corker is also retiring. susan collins is the senator from a blue state. she is from maine.

she can run -- even before this happened, she could run for reelection in 2020 as a senator who saved roe v. wade or the senator who killed roe v. wade. now she can be the senator who put someone who has a credible allegation of attempted rape on the supreme court, or she can be the person who said stop. on thisjust lost ian issue. dahlia lithwick, you're covering this very same beat about what susan collllins can do. justo i important thingsan said that are worth reiterating. these folks do not have to vote no on kavanaugh. all they have to do is vote no on kavanaugh until we find out what happened. that is an awfully low risk proposition given, as ian said, pretty credible allegations that something very violet happened to this woman. that is the first thing. the second thing, and this is important, this really does give

cover to people like collins and murkowski who have been playing this game of saying, ok, i get it, he was put on the court to overturn roe but i don't think he's going to do it. and the claims that they believe is good he says roe precedent. this gives them cover. they don't have to guess what he's going to do the future. all they need to do is scrutinized what is alleged to have happened in the papast. that is a much easier proposition for them. amy: and what ian millhiser tweeted "to summarize, confessed serial sexual predator nominated a man who is credibly accused of attempted rape to be the key vote to strip women of reproductive freedom" which brings us back to the issue that both you andian wrote about in this issue of roe v. wade. and what brett kavanaugh is saying right until now. oftalked about the story facebook and censorship anand ft checking and what is called fake

news and what isisn't, but the substance ofof the point that yu wrote about on roe v. wade and what we understand the kavanaugh has said, right until now in 2018. >> it is so important, amy. this is a person who there was no doubt. donald trump was unequivocal when he ran for office he said "i will put someone on the court who will overturn roe." what aboutp also punishing women who had abortion. then he put someone on the court who has quite an extensive -- ofy of writing justin the dissent in roe. amy: and that was still gorsuch. >> and now kavanaugh. he is picked someone who is spoken, who is written in the gores a case about abortion on demand -- all of the codewords are there. amy: the immigrant woman who wanted to have an abortion who was being held in texas and ultimately did succeed in getting one, but kavanaugh

actually wrote that she shouldn't. >> he would have put up new sheinary roadblocks -- had done everything share to do undeder the law, and he constructed new test that would have made it virtually impossible for her to procure an abortion. all of this happened. the pro-life groups, by the way, pushing them out and celebrating him. this is the beginning of the end. roe ends. then he gets on the standard says, i'm not going to do anything to roe. we have had to accept that. if you think about the visuals of those confirmation hearings, of women dressed up as the handmaid's tale, women being dragged -- 200 woman being dragged screaming from the senate. you can say, oh, this is not polite, but this is life and death for women. and to say, oh, i have an open mind with a history that he has, that is the central issue that we're losing a little bit now in conversations about whether he told the truth or even this

conversation. there is no doubt what will happen to women's reproductive health care. you can call it what you want to call it, you can call it reversing roe, but we know where he stands. and the notion this is going to be a hard question for collins and murkowski who claim to be for reproductive rights, this just got a lot easier for them. now they just have to say "we should hear this woman out." amy: and we will see what happens, whether dr. christine blasey ford is able to testify before the senate judiciary committee to talk about what she alleges is brett kavanaugh's attempted rape of her. dahlia lithwick is senior editor at slate.com. ian millhiser, senior fellow at the center for american progress action fund. only come back, we go south to texas to the story of a man who was in his apartment, a police officer enters his apartme thinking it is her own, and to send dead. we will talk about what happened next.

♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we go now to dallas, where protests continued in the wake of the shooting and killing of a 26-year-old black man in his own apartment by a white dallas police officer.

the officer amber guyger, has , been charged with manslaughter after she entered botham shem jean's apartment and opened fire, killing him. police claim the officer believed that his apartment was hers. outrage is growing as the community demands answers about the circumstances of botham jean's death. on sunday, nearly 100 protesters marched d through h dallas witho coffins to at&t stadium ahead of the dallas cowboys game. the coffins symbolized the deaths of jean and oshae terry, whwho also was fatally shot this month by a north texas police officer. questions have been raised over why there was a three-day delay in charging officer guyger and how she failed to know she was not in her own apartment. jean's family also is criticizing police for issuing and making public information from a search warrant on jean's apartment. a police affidavit shows that officers seized, among other items, about 10 grams of

marijuana and a marijuana grinder from jean's apartment. this is allison jean, botham jean'momotherspeaeaki at a news conference on friy.y. >> t the iormamati receieid yestery is to meorse tha the ll that gotn the rnrning of idayay, ptembebe 7. to have s smemear in n su a tt treihinknk s shows arpersons o are reayy nanast who a a really dirty, and are going toololorpp dis coveup for t devil aer yger. i d't ow my y n to be involved in sh.h. wantnt tfind o out w wheth thehe toxicocogy repornn aer has been release becse she w th murrer. amy: amb guyger out on a $3,000 bon vestigats have ten a blo mple frothe offir to tes r drugs d alcoho but the

no infoation onesults o at test any infmation on a search warrant of her apartment. well, for more, we are joined by civil rights attorney lee merritt, who is representing the family of botham jean. welcome to democracy now! can you explain what is happening in this case? people have to be all overstorye officer who gets off duty, walks into -- well, the police claims she thought it was her apartment, but it was the apartment of botham jean, then shoots him dead. please, explain. >> we know that if this were in the reverse, for example, if a black man walked into a white police officer's home and shot them to deafening claimed he thought he was in his apartment, this would be going very, very differently. so right now we know that what amber guyger has offered as her explanation is not true. it is demonstratively false. her story has changed significantly since september 6

when she offered she was trying botham opened the door, surprised her, and then she shot him. the story that she offered to rangers a few days later was that she actually entered the apartment where the door was already opened, saw a solo wet, thought it to be murder, gave instructions and then fired at it. neither of the stories make sense because neither comport with common sense or the reality of the layout of that apartment. number one, outside of her apartment looks completely different than the apartment of botham jean. example, his apartment has a bright red rug there to greet people so they will know it is his apartment. her apartment did not have that rug. those doors were sure shut doors. i have been in mr. jean's apartment.

i let the door go slowly and they slam shut every time. so the idea it was somehow mysteriously opened doesn't compmport with the mechahanics f the apartment. amy: botham jean a native of solutia, graduated from harding university in arkansas, extremely applicable of, worked for pricewaterhousecoopers, multinational consulting firm in downtown dallas. 'se merritt, was amber guyger apartment raraided and searchedy police? you have botham jean's mother saying they are now leading a smear campaign, the police, against. him. >> as you pointed out, botham jean lived 26 years. only not bes to not accused of a c crime, but to completely avoid police encounters. his mom will describe to you that he was deathly afraid of american police and the idea of a police encounter, so he kept his registration up to date,

kept his car mechanics of the day because he feared some sort of traffic stop would lead him into it and unwanted encounter with what has an international reputation of a very deadly police force. he went 26 here's without being accused of any crime whatsoever, avoiding contact with law enforcement whatsoever. it took him being killed by dallas police officer rim to become a criminal. does for him to become a criminal. the police sought a warrant to enter his home. to specifically look for evidence of a crime, to look for drug paraphernalalia. that is what the war all four. following his murder, and t thee was no raid of her home, there were no warrants issued for any of her property, no warrant issued for her car or for her locker at the police department that she allegedly just left. there was no word issued for her apartment just below. so the focus of this investigation since it happened has been on ways to find exculpatory evidence or lookingg

for ways to justify her actions that are clearly unjustifiable. there could be no place that is supposed to offer more refuge than one's own home. amy: so what is the family demanding right now? did note ofofficer guyger have to speak to police -- she's a police officer, but for three days? >> that's right. in fairness, no one accused of a crime has to speak to police officers ever, of course, under amendment. citizens are protected from having to testify against themselves. however, law enforcement officers are given three days under their internal affairs policies to prepare a statement. she volunteered her story the night of. unfortunately, it changed since then.

to back up with the families to manning in this case, the charges that have gone forward three days later, which was manslaughter be increased to murder. --can't find a sophistic sufficient justification for entering the home. we know what she's saying now is not true. that applies the element of malice that we think the chargre of m murder as opposed too mamanslaughthter would be more apprpropriate. is simple reququest the fafamiy made of the city of dallas and the dadallas police department s this officer be fired stop whether she commmmitted murder r manslaughter, as we believe, she committed a crime, a serious crime. there is no reason she should remain employed with the dallas police department. we also call for the dallas police department to end the smear campaign a against botothm jean and focus their energies on gathering evidence, collectingg or disiscovering when mrs. who might make clear what action happened that night. amy: i want to thank you for being with us and hope we can

speak you soon about of elements in this case. lee merritt is a civil rights attorney and is representing the family of botham jean, who was shot and killed by dallas police officer amber guyger in his own apartment. she said she mistook his apartment for hers. happy birthday to sam alcoff!>m

announcer: now please join me in welcoming sally kohn and julie lythcott-haims. [cheering and applause] julie: well, hello, everybody. welcome to tonight's program. i'm julie lythcott-haims, as marissa said, author of "real american" and "how to raise an adult." and tonight, it is my pleasure to be here in conversation with sally kohn. sally comes from a life of activism and organizizing, and she's now a political commentator, currently on cnn and formerly on fox. which we are gonna talk about that. she's a columnist, the host of the podcast "state of resistance," and most importantly for our present purposes, author of a brand-new,