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For Immediate Release
September, 19 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
NARAL Responds to Susan Collins' Interview on Maine Radio Station
Collins makes on-air comments to discredit Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and unfairly puts burden of proof on Ford as opposed to Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON
Today, Senator Susan Collins went on a Maine radio station in which she appears to side with Brett Kavanaugh over Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue issued the following statement in response:
"We believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. It is both extremely disturbing and a grave insult to women in Maine and across the country that Senator Collins is buying into the Trump tactic of undermining survivors and trying to bully Dr. Blasey Ford. Every shred of evidence points to the fact that Dr. Ford, who has everything to lose and nothing to gain from this vicious process, is telling the truth, and that Brett Kavanaugh has lied over and over again. If it's truly Senator Collins' intention to side with Brett Kavanaugh over Dr. Blasey Ford, she will never again be able to claim the mantle of an ally to women or survivors, and that is not something that women will ever forget-- not next week, not next month, and not in 2020 when she's up for reelection."
In the interview, Collins says:
"Much to my surprise it now appears she's turning down all 3 options even though her attorney said earlier this week that she would come testify,"
"I just don't understand why the hearing shouldn't go forth."
""It's not fair for Judge Kavanaugh for her not to come forward and testify... I don't think she can reject all those options otherwise there are these very serious allegations hanging over the head of a nominee who has emphatically denied them."
NBC's Ken Dilanian reports today that a number of former prosecutors and FBI agents have said today that people who make up allegations tend not to demand that the FBI investigate them. Dr. Ford has understandably asked that the FBI investigate the incident before senators hold hearings on the allegations.
Even before the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, Mainers had been screaming from the rooftops that they do not want Kavanaugh on the court and have been asking Susan Collins to listen to them.
Collins has claimed to be an ally to women and a champion of #MeToo, has publicly condemned sexual assault and sexual violence. Women are now depending on her to stay true to those statements.
Collins' recent actions include:
- Displaying a willingness to go further than many of her colleagues in condemning Trump's sexual assault allegations
- Championing legislative effort to decrease instances of sexual assault on college campuses and to provide justice for survivors and perpetrators.Taking a stand against Larry Nassar by introducing a bill to require amateur athletic organizations to report sexual assault immediately.
- Strongly condemning sexual assault incidents as "heinous," and showing disappointment with the RNC support of Roy Moore, even going as far as to call it a "mistake."
Dedicating funding in her home state of Maine to combat sexual assault and domestic violence, including:
- $240,000 in funding for Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MECASA) and the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (MCEDV)
- $300,000 in funding for sexual assault and domestic violence advocacy in immigrant community
- $1.18 million in funding for rural domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking assistance programs
- $1.7 million in funding to support legal services for domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking victims
- $147,891 in funding for Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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'The Never-Ending Hunger Games of Gaza': IDF Kills 70+ Palestinians Trying to Get Food Aid
"It was a massacre," said one witness, adding that Israeli troops continued firing on people as they fled.
Jun 17, 2025
With the world's eyes on the escalating Israel-Iran conflict, the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday killed at least dozens of people waiting for food trucks in the Gaza Strip, yet another IDF massacre of starving Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that while Palestinians were gathered on a route used by humanitarian assistance trucks in Khan Younis, Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a nearby home and then targeted the crowd with gun and tank fire.
The Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser Hospital initially confirmed that more than 50 people were dead and over 200 others were wounded. Al Jazeera later reported that the ministry said the death toll had risen beyond 70.
People in the crowd were "blown to pieces, body parts were scattered all over the place," witness Saeed Abu Lebda told the outlet. "The number of victims is way more than those brought to the hospital. But no one could reach them to provide help."
At Nasser Hospital, a witness named Alaa recalled to Reuters that "all of a sudden, they let us move forward and made everyone gather, and then shells started falling, tank shells."
"No one is looking at these people with mercy," Alaa added. "The people are dying, they are being torn apart, to get food for their children. Look at these people, all these people are torn to get flour to feed their children."
As The Associated Pressreported:
Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire. "It was a massacre," he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled from the area.
Mohammed Abu Qeshfa said he heard a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. "I survived by a miracle," he said.
"A witness who spoke with Haaretz said that the Palestinians were hit in an area that the army considers an active combat zone, and they were not in the vicinity of an established distribution center nearby," according to the Israeli newspaper.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that "earlier today, a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area."
"The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd's approach. The details of the incident are under review," the Israeli military continued. "The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops."
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israeli assault on the Palestinian enclave had killed at least 55,432 people, with thousands more missing in rubble and presumed dead.
Over the past 20 months, the IDF has repeatedly slaughtered Palestinians trying to access food assistance, including at hubs recently set up by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) following an Israeli blockade on aid.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a lengthy Tuesday statement that GHF "is directly responsible for the escalating Israeli crimes against starved Palestinian civilians near aid distribution points in central and southern Gaza."
"The foundation's operational model involves luring civilians to specific locations coordinated with the Israeli army, where they are subjected to killing, injury, and cruel and degrading treatment," Euro-Med Monitor said. "These points have effectively become death traps used as tools in Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population for over 20 months."
The monitor called for independent international investigations into the Tuesday killings and GHF's role "in facilitating and executing serious crimes committed against Palestinian civilians," as well as a halt on all financial or logistical support to the foundation, criminal probes against all individuals affiliated with it, and civil lawsuits for implicated entities and individuals.
"Euro-Med Monitor also calls on all states, individually and collectively, to uphold their legal obligations and take urgent action to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza in all its forms," the group added. "Finally, Euro-Med Monitor urges the international community to impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel in response to its systematic and grave violations of international law."
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'A Clear Choice': Bernie Sanders Endorses Zohran Mamdani for NYC Mayor
"We need new leadership that is prepared to stand up to powerful corporate interests and fight for the working class."
Jun 17, 2025
With the United States—and the Democratic Party—facing a "fundamental choice" between politics dominated by corporations and billionaires or by the needs of ordinary Americans, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday said that for 8 million people in New York City, there is "a clear choice as to the path forward."
With one week left until voting ends in the city's Democratic mayoral primary, the senator announced his endorsement for progressive Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.
"Status quo politics is not good enough."
"How does New York effectively address the crises in affordable housing, education, crime, drugs, transportation, childcare, and many more?" said Sanders (I-Vt.) in a statement. "The answers will not be easy, but one thing I do know: They will not be solved by a Democratic establishment dependent on super PACs funded by billionaires who could care less about the needs of working families. We need a new politics and new leadership which is prepared to stand up to powerful corporate interests and fight for the working class."
The senator applauded Mamdani's push for free public buses, cutting fees for small businesses, and investments in citywide mental health services, which he plans to pay for "by asking corporations and the richest 1% of New Yorkers to pay their fair share in taxes."
Sanders' endorsement came two days after Mamdani joined Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) at a rally where the mayoral candidate said the election "isn't just about the future of our city, it's about the future of our democracy, whether billionaires and massive corporations can simply buy our elections."
"We know that this movement is more powerful than their money," he said.
Disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 over numerous sexual harassment allegations, has been leading in polls ahead of the primary, but a survey from Public Policy Polling showed Mamdani, who has focused his campaign on making the nation's largest city affordable for working people, in the lead last week.
Cuomo's lead has also narrowed considerably in other polls as Mamdani has called for a rent freeze for the city's 2 million residents who live in rent-stabilized apartments, a network of city-owned grocery stores to keep grocery prices low, no-cost childcare, and other policies aimed at making life in one of the nation's most expensive cities more affordable.
Corporate and real estate interests have ramped up spending against Mamdani as he's gained momentum and harshly rebuked Cuomo in public statements and debates, attacking the former governor's numerous past scandals, cuts he made to Medicaid, and his March 2020 policy of requiring nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Sanders noted that Mamdani "is funding his campaign largely through small-dollar donations, including more than 27,000 individual contributions."
Mamdani has also signaled strong opposition to President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, directly confronting border czar Tom Homan about immigration agents' abduction of Columbia University organizer Mahmoud Khalil, while Cuomo recently urged New Yorkers not to "overreact" with protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as he said the agency is "going to do things that are illegal and unconstitutional."
While the mayoral election will directly impact a relatively small number of Americans, progressive organizer Corbin Trent wrote in a column at Common Dreams on Saturday that "all change starts somewhere."
"This is where we find out if Democrats will transform or keep managing democracy's decline while the world burns," he wrote. "The clock's ticking."
"Every crisis we face—from troops in our streets to endless wars to families who can't afford basics—comes from the same source: a political system that serves power instead of people," Trent added. "Zohran represents a chance to try something different. That's why his potential success terrifies them more than Trump's authoritarianism. Fascists don't threaten their consulting contracts. Politicians who might actually deliver for working people do."
Warning that the U.S. faces a "pivotal and dangerous moment" in its history, Sanders said Tuesday that "status quo politics is not good enough."
"We need the kind of visionary leadership that Zohran is providing in this campaign," said the senator. "In my view, Zohran Mamdani is the best choice for mayor of New York City."
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Trump Call for Evacuation of Tehran—A City of 10 Million—Denounced as 'Terroristic' Threat
"It's like telling the entire country of Sweden to evacuate," said one scholar.
Jun 17, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's social media post urging residents of Tehran to evacuate "immediately"—a call shared online at 2:00 am local time—intensified chaos in the densely populated Iranian capital amid Israel's deadly bombing campaign.
"Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" Trump wrote on his social media platform as Israel's war on Iran entered its fifth day.
Video footage that emerged in the wake of Trump's post showed a highway full of traffic as Iranians attempted to flee Israel's onslaught, which has killed or injured more than a thousand people so far. There have also been reports of long lines at gas stations, some of which have been forced to close after running out of fuel.
"They should've done the deal." President Donald Trump called for the evacuation of Iran's capital of Tehran after Israeli attacks on the country sent the region into conflict and uncertainty. pic.twitter.com/sjnFRVEcFN
— USA TODAY Politics (@usatodayDC) June 17, 2025
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention was among those condemning Trump's evacuation call for Tehran, denouncing it as a "terroristic" social media threat "unbecoming of a head of state." Tehran is home to around 10 million people, roughly equal to the population size of Israel.
"President Trump should be ashamed for being the lapdog of genocidaire and petty dictator Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and for following in the obsequious footsteps of former U.S. President Joe Biden," the Lemkin Institute said in a statement. "We call on President Trump to deescalate the situation immediately by pulling the Israeli PM back from this war of aggression and by pursuing a robust and truly independent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East."
Assal Rad, a Middle East scholar and fellow at Arab Center Washington DC, asked, "Where are 10,000,000 people supposed to evacuate to?"
"It's like telling the entire country of Sweden to evacuate," Rad wrote on social media. "Even if that was possible and they all had places to go, the traffic is not moving and gas is scarce. Even if they could all get out, what are they coming back to?"
Following his social media post, Trump signed a joint statement with other Group of Seven leaders calling for a "resolution of the Iranian crisis" that "leads to a broader deescalaton of hostilities in the Middle East, including a cease-fire in Gaza."
The Washington Postreported that Trump initially declined to sign the G7 statement "but reversed his position following discussions with other leaders in the group and changes to the initial draft."
An unnamed U.S. official would not tell the Post what specific changes secured Trump's backing, but the final "statement omitted language that called for both Iran and Israel 'to show restraint,' which appeared in an earlier draft of the agreement."
Trump left the G7 summit in Canada early, soon after calling for the evacuation of Tehran. The National Iranian American Council expressed hope that the president's evacuation message "does not mean an unauthorized U.S. entry into the war, or that he has knowledge of further depraved attacks from Israel."
Trump is planning to hold a meeting on Iran in the White House Situation Room with his national security team on Tuesday, Axiosreported, as congressional opposition to deeper U.S. involvement in the war grows.
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