Chris Hedges's Blog, page 459

Sen. Warren’s New Bill Could ‘Redress a Century of Housing Discrimination’

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday unveiled a bill that one racial justice advocate said would be the first law since 1968 “to redress a century of housing discrimination.”

The Massachusetts Democrat who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has railed against modern-day redlining since a February expose by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Reveal found 61 cities where people of color were more likely to be denied a home mortgage than their white counterparts, even when they had the same income, sought the same size loan or wanted to buy in the same neighborhood.

“Housing discrimination is illegal. It’s illegal right now. But (Reveal’s) data show it happens even so,” Warren said in an interview Tuesday. “That means we need more aggressive programs to address it and it’s not enough simply to say we are going to try to get people to enforce current law. We need structural change if we are really going to have housing equality in this country.”

Anti-redlining provisions are part of a much larger bill Warren called the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act. It aims to ease access to owning or renting a home through a combination of government regulation, zoning reform and billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for poor and working-class families.

The bill is likely to receive a hostile reaction from the banking industry. In a statement, a spokesperson from the American Bankers Association said the trade group is still reviewing the 67-page bill but is “keenly interested in the nation’s housing policy.” Another trade group, the Mortgage Bankers Association, did not respond to a request for comment.

The reforms in the proposed legislation would be funded by dramatically increasing the estate tax to levels not seen since the 1990s. Because of this, Warren’s bill is essentially dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. Even if Democrats retake control of Congress in November, it’s unlikely the bill would be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

But the effort is being taken seriously by political observers, in part because Warren is a potential presidential candidate, and it also provides a populist vision for an economic future that may be embraced by Democrat voters.

“A decade after the housing crash and financial crisis, the nation is still suffering from a housing crisis,” Zandi said. “Today, it is a mounting lack of affordable housing.”Warren commissioned an independent analysis of the legislation, which found the bill would lead to the construction or rehabilitation of 3 million housing units over the next decade, close the gap between demand and supply of housing, create 1.5 million new jobs and lower rents for lower and middle-class families by an average of $100 a month. The analysis was performed by Mark Zandi, chief economist of the non-partisan Moody’s Analytics.

The bill “would go a long way toward addressing this mounting housing crisis,” Zandi said.

Earlier this year, Warren took to the floor of the Senate, calling the findings of Reveal’s investigation “disgraceful” and saying they “should make us all sick to our stomachs.” She sent letters to federal banking regulators and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson asking what they were doing to solve the problem. She also grilled Carson in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill.

Warren spent months crafting the legislation, consulting with civil rights groups, academics and industry groups. Her goal was to deliver more affordable housing to lower-income residents while providing a path to homeownership for people of color living in communities where banks and other mortgage lenders have long failed to lend.

Her office worked with leaders of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Housing Law Project and Matt Desmond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Evicted.”

At the center of the bill are massive new government investments in housing targeted at groups left behind by the economic recovery.

Among the proposed new federal programs is down payment assistance on home loans for long-time residents of neighborhoods that were “redlined” from the 1930s to the 1960s, when the federal government discouraged banks from lending in communities with large numbers of immigrants and African Americans. As a result of those policies, people of color were largely cut out of the New Deal programs like the GI Bill which propelled millions of lower and working-class whites into the middle class.

“Housing wealth has a huge generational component to it,” Warren told Reveal. “Grandma and Grandpa buy a house. …. House values go up over time. They take money out of the house to start a small business or if they want to send a kid to school. If they’re wealthy enough to be able to live in the house until they die, they pass that wealth onto the next generation, and the next generation does better, buying a nicer house.

“When an entire community is (denied) an opportunity, then that means the opportunity to build wealth has been taken away from them,” she said. “This bill addresses that problem head on.”

The bill would also extend $2 billion in support to borrowers who, a decade after the housing bust, still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Many are in minority communities where banks made a higher percentage of high-interest loans during the boom, which critics said were “designed to fail”

The proposed legislation also restructures the Community Reinvestment Act to include credit unions and independent mortgage companies. The 1977 federal law was designed to fight  redlining by requiring banks to lend to all communities, particularly poor and working-class ones. Currently the law only applies to banks and only in areas where they have a branch that takes deposits.

“If passed, this would be the first act of legislation since the 1968 Fair Housing Act to redress a century of housing discrimination,” Mehrsa Baradaran, a professor at the University of Georgia and author of the book “The Color of Money,” wrote in a letter to Warren.

“By focusing on down payment assistance, CRA reform, and non-discriminatory housing vouchers, this legislation will not only help families buy affordable homes, but it will also build community wealth,” she wrote.

Consumer groups say extending the Community Reinvestment Act to non-bank lenders is particularly important because these institutions make up an increasing share of the mortgage market.

Earlier this year, Reveal exposed that a group of mortgage companies controlled by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made the overwhelming majority of their loans to white borrowers in white neighborhoods in ethnically diverse metro areas including Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Washington, DC. The companies helped nearly 6,000 families buy homes in those cities in 2015 and 2016, but escaped regulation under the Community Reinvestment Act because they are not banks.

Reveal reported that America’s largest bank, JP Morgan Chase, in Washington, D.C., was not regulated under the Community Reinvestment Act because its only lending office in the city was a “private bank” office that serves wealthy clients rather than a deposit-taking branch for the public. The bank turned away 26 percent of African Americans and 18 percent of Latinos who sought conventional home purchase loans in the DC area in 2015 and 2016. It denied 7 percent of applications from white homebuyers. Chase has since announced a major expansion of branches in the nation’s capital.

Reveal reported on loopholes in the Community Reinvestment Act in February. Among them, the law is race-neutral. That means banks can claim credit for lending to poor and working-class neighborhoods of color by focusing their lending on wealthy white newcomers who drive gentrification and displace long-time residents who the law was designed to help.

The bill does not add race as a factor under the Community Reinvestment Act. But the down-payment subsidies would only be available to residents who had lived in a formerly redlined neighborhood for at least five years.

Credit unions, which also would be forced to lend to the poor, oppose the bill.

“Credit unions have not and do not engage in the discriminatory lending activity,” Jim Nussle, the president and CEO of the  Credit Union National Association said in a statement. “Therefore, it makes no sense to subject them to the type of punitive requirements that banks with a history of redlining must follow.”

Ryan Donovan, the association’s chief advocacy officer, said credit unions are already meeting the needs of their communities so any added regulation would make it more expensive for them and their customers.

“At its core, it’s a good bill. We have a lot of interest in there being more affordable housing for Americans,” Donovan said. “We just think that adding regulatory burdens to credit unions is a really poor way of doing it.”

The Trump administration is moving in the opposite direction, seeking to weaken provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act. Last month, the nation’s top bank cop, the Comptroller of the Currency, proposed new rules that would give banks flexibility in how they meet their obligations under the 40-year-old law. Housing advocates have said these changes to the Community Reinvestment Act would come at the expense of poor and working-class neighborhoods because they would allow banks to choose which communities to serve. A spokesman for the federal banking regulator declined to comment on the bill.

The American Bankers Association has supported the Trump administration’s plan. In its statement to Reveal, the group said it remained interested in “modernizing” the Community Reinvestment Act.

In addition, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, under the leadership of Carson, has been trying to jettison a tool called “disparate impact,” which the government has used to file fair lending cases.

The standard, used during the Obama administration and upheld in a 2015 Supreme Court decision, allows prosecutors and civil rights groups to use statistical analysis to prove patterns of discrimination. Reveal used these techniques, which have also been deployed by the Justice Department, in its February investigation.

In 2018, the U.S. Is Even More Gilded Than in 1918

It took 100 years, but America has returned to its unequal past. With a vengeance.

The year many consider the height of the Gilded Age, when John D. Rockefeller’s wealth was at its peak, was exactly a century ago, in 1918. By that time, Rockefeller had amassed about $1.2 billion — the equivalent of $340 billion today. America’s economy and aggregate wealth were much smaller in those days, which made Rockefeller a truly towering figure.

Just over a decade after Rockefeller’s fortune peaked, the Great Depression put an end to America’s first Gilded Age.

America eventually recovered from the ruins of the Great Depression and made huge strides toward economic equality.

Between 1945 and the early 1970s, circumstances for all Americans, rich and poor alike, improved. The pace of improvement for average Americans, though, was greater than for those at the top. The once yawning gap between the rich and the rest of us narrowed dramatically during that period.

Eventually, though, America’s economic and tax policies changed, triggering a long, painful process that’s increasingly concentrated wealth and income at the top.

Those egalitarian days of the mid-20th century now are a distant memory. Jeff Bezos’ net worth now fluctuates around $160 billion. Bill Gates’ net worth sits within a whisker of $100 billion, and would be well over that had he not contributed tens of billions to charity. Warren Buffett, whose wealth now equals $90 billion, is also closing in on a 12-figure net worth.

Can we compare the concentration of wealth today to the height of the Gilded Age, when robber barons sat on massive piles of wealth while the masses struggled?

In a word: Yes. And actually, it’s worse.

Consider the ultimate topmost slice of America: the top .000004 percent. That’s an incredibly elite group; only one of every 25 million households can claim membership. In 1918, when America had just 25 million households, that exclusive club had only one member: the John D. Rockefeller household.

Today, America has over 125 million households. So, America’s top .000004 percent today is comprised of its five wealthiest households: the Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page households.

Those five wealthiest American households are sitting on a total of $470 billion — nearly 40 percent more than Rockefeller’s 2018 wealth equivalent of $340 billion.

But even that comparison understates how much more gilded the America of 2018 is.

Rockefeller, you see, was far more of an outlier in terms of wealth than his 2018 counterparts. So, once you get past Rockefeller, the comparison of 1918 to 2018 is far more pronounced.

According to Forbes, the second .000004 percent of 1918 households — that of Henry Frick — were worth $225 million, the modern-day equivalent of $63.7 billion. That was less than 20 percent of Rockefeller’s holdings.

Today, according to the Bloomberg billionaires list, America’s second .000004 percent — the group consisting of Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, David Koch, and Jim Walton — have combined wealth of about $250 billion, four times the modern-day equivalent of Henry Frick’s wealth.

Indeed, no matter which of 1918’s titans of wealth you consider, the corresponding slice of America’s 2018 elite controls a greater portion of the country’s wealth.

The bottom line: America has not just returned to Gilded Age levels of wealth concentration: It has very clearly surpassed them. We now live in a country more gilded than it’s ever been.

Popular movements are rising to share the wealth. Hopefully it won’t take another crash for them to succeed.

Welcome to Our Dying Empire

When you think about it, Earth is a relatively modest-sized planet — about 25,000 miles in circumference at the Equator, with a total surface area of 197 million square miles, almost three-quarters of which is water. It’s not so hard, if you’re in a certain frame of mind (as American officials were after 1991), to imagine that a single truly great nation — a “sole superpower” with a high-tech military, its capabilities unparalleled in history — might in some fashion control it all.

Think back to that year when the other superpower, the lesser one of that era, so unbelievably went down for the count.  Try to recall that moment when the Soviet Union, its economy imploding, suddenly was no more, its various imperial parts — from Eastern Europe to Central Asia — having largely spun free. It’s hard now to remember just how those months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and that final moment in 1991 stunned the Washington establishment. Untold sums of money had been poured into “intelligence” during the almost half-century of what became known as the Cold War (because a hot war between two nuclear-armed superpowers seemed unimaginable — even if it almost happened). Nonetheless, key figures in Washington were remarkably unprepared for it all to end. They were stunned. It simply hadn’t occurred to them that the global standoff between the last two great powers on this planet could or would ever truly be over.

And when you think about it, that wasn’t so illogical. Imperial rivalries had been the name of the game for so many centuries. A world without some version of such rivalries seemed genuinely unimaginable — until, of course, it happened. After the shock began to wear off, what followed was triumphalism of a soaring sort. Think of that moment as the geopolitical equivalent of a drug high.

Imagine! After so many centuries of rivalries between great powers and that final showdown between just two superpowers, it was all over (except for the bragging). Only one power, the — by definition — greatest of all, was left on a planet obviously there for the taking.

Yes, Russia still existed with its nuclear arsenal intact, but it was otherwise a husk of its former imperial self. (Vladimir Putin’s sleight-of-hand brilliance has been to give what remains a rickety petro-state the look of a great power, as in MRGA, or Make Russia Great Again.) In 1991, China had only relatively recently emerged from the chaos of the Maoist era and was beginning its rise as a capitalist powerhouse overseen by a communist party — and, until that moment, who would have believed that either? Its military was modest and its leaders not faintly ready to challenge the U.S. It was far more intent on becoming a cog in the global economic machinery that would produce endless products for American store shelves.

In fact, the only obvious challenges that remained came from a set of states so unimpressive that no one would have thought to call them “great,” no less “super” powers. They had already come to be known instead by the ragtag term “rogue states.” Think theocratic Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Kim Il-sung’s (soon to be Kim Jong-il’s) North Korea, none then nuclear armed. A disparate crew — the Iraqis and Iranians had been at war for eight years in the 1980s — they looked like a pushover for… well, you know who.

And the early results of American global preeminence couldn’t have been more promising. Its corporate power initially seemed to “level” every playing field in sight, while conquering markets across the planet. Its thoroughly high-tech military crushed the armed forces of one rogue power, Iraq, in a 100-hour storm of a war in 1991.  Amid a blizzard of ticker tape and briefly soaring approval ratings for President George H.W. Bush, this was seen by those in the know as a preview of the world that was to be.

So what a perfect time — I’m talking about January 2000 — for some of the greatest geopolitical dreamers of all, a crew that saw an “unprecedented strategic opportunity” in the new century to organize not half the planet, as in the Cold War, but the whole damn thing. They took power by a chad that year, already fearing that the process of creating the kind of military that could truly do their bidding might be a slow one without “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” On September 11, 2001, thanks to Osama bin Laden’s precision air assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they got their wish — what screaming newspaper headlines promptly called “a new day of infamy” or “the Pearl Harbor of the twenty-first century.” Like their confreres in 1991, the top officials of George W. Bush’s administration were initially stunned by the event, but soon found themselves swept up in a mood of soaring optimism about the future of both the Republican Party and American power. Their dream, as they launched what they called the Global War on Terror, would be nothing short of creating an eternal Pax Republicana in the U.S. and a similarly never-ending Pax Americana first in the Greater Middle East and then on a potentially planetary scale.

As their 2002 national security strategy put it, the U.S. was to “build and maintain” military power “beyond challenge” so that no country or even bloc of countries could ever again come close to matching it. For them, this was the functional definition of global dominance. It gave the phrase of that moment, “shock and awe,” new meaning.

A Smash-Up on the Horizon?

Of course, you remember this history as well as I do, so it shouldn’t be hard for you to jump into the future with me and land in September 2018, some 17 years later, when all those plans to create a truly American planet had come to fruition and the U.S. was dominant in a way no other country had ever been.

Whoops… my mistake.

It is indeed 17 years later. Remarkably enough, though, the last superpower, the one with the military that was, as President George W. Bush put it, “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known,” is still fruitlessly fighting — and still losing ground — in the very first country it took on and supposedly “liberated”: poor Afghanistan. The Taliban is again on the rise there. Elsewhere, al-Qaeda, stronger than ever, has franchised itself, multiplied, and in Iraq given birth to another terror outfit, ISIS, whose own franchises are now multiplying across parts of the planet. In no country in which the U.S. military intervened in this century or in which it simply supported allied forces in a conflict against seemingly weaker, less-well-armed enemies has there been an obvious, lasting victory of the kind that seemed so self-evidently an American right and legacy after 1991 and again 2001.

In fact, there may not be another example of a truly great power, seemingly at the height of its strength and glory, so unable to impose its will, no matter the brutality and destructive force employed. The United States had, of course, been able to do exactly that, often with striking success (at least for a while), from Guatemala to Iran in the Cold War years, but “alone” on the planet, it came up cold. Of those three rogue powers of the 1990s, for instance, Iran and North Korea are now stronger (one of them even nuclear-armed) and neither, despite the desires and plans of so many American officials, has been toppled. Meanwhile, Iraq, after a U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003, has proven a never-ending disaster area.

Not that anyone’s drawing lessons from any of this at the moment, perhaps because there’s that orange-haired guy in the Oval Office taking up so much of our time and attention or because there’s an understandable desire to duck the most obvious conclusion: that Planet Earth, however small, is evidently still too big for one power, however economically overwhelming or militarily dominant, to control. Think of the last 27 years of American history as a demo for that old idiom: biting off more than you can chew.

In 2016, in what came to be known as the “homeland,” American voters responded to that reality in a visceral way.  They elected as president a truly strange figure, a man who alone among the country’s politicians was peddling the idea that the U.S. was no longer great but, like Putin’s Russia, would have to be made great again. Donald Trump, as I wrote during that campaign season, was the first presidential candidate to promote the idea that the United States was in decline at a moment when politicians generally felt obliged to affirm that the U.S. was the greatest, most exceptional, most indispensable place on the planet. And, of course, he won.

Admittedly, despite a near collapse a decade earlier, the economy is seemingly soaring, while the stock market remains ebullient. In fact, it couldn’t look sunnier, could it? I mean, put aside the usual Trumpian tweets and the rest of the Washington sideshow, including those Chinese (and Canadian) tariffs and the bluster and bombast of the leakiest administration this side of the Titanic, and, as the president so often says, things couldn’t look rosier. The Dow Jones average has left past versions of the same in the dust. The unemployment rate is somewhere near the bottom of the barrel (if you don’t count the actual unemployed). The economy is just booming along.

But tell me the truth: Can’t you just feel it? Honestly, can’t you?

You know as well as I do that there’s something rotten in… well, let’s not blame Denmark… but you know perfectly well that something’s not right here. You know that it’s the wallets and pocketbooks of the 1% that are really booming, expanding, exploding at the moment; that the rich have inherited, if not the Earth, then at least American politics; that the wealth possessed by that 1% is now at levels not seen since the eve of the Great Depression of 1929. And, honestly, can you doubt that the next crash is somewhere just over the horizon?

Meet the Empire Burners

Donald Trump is in the White House exactly because, in these years, so many Americans felt instinctively that something was going off the tracks. (That shouldn’t be a surprise, given the striking lack of investment in, or upkeep of, the infrastructure of the greatest of all powers.) He’s there largely thanks to the crew that’s now proudly referred to — for supposedly keeping him in line — as “the adults in the room.” Let me suggest a small correction to that phrase to better reflect the 16 years in this not-so-new century before he entered the Oval Office. How about “the adolts in the room”?

After all, from National Security Advisor John Bolton (the invasion of Iraq) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (a longtime regime-change advocate) to CIA Director Gina Haspel (black sites and torture), Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis (former Marine general and CENTCOM commander), and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (former Marine general and a commander in Iraq), those adolts and so many like them remain deeply implicated in the path the country took in those years of geopolitical dreaming. They were especially responsible for the decision to invest in the U.S. military (and little else), as well as in endless wars, in the years before Donald Trump came to power. And worse yet, they seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the process.

Take a recent example we know something about — Afghanistan — thanks to Fear: Trump in the White House, Bob Woodward’s bestselling new book. Only recently, an American sergeant major, an adviser to Afghan troops, was gunned down at a base near the Afghan capital, Kabul, in an “insider” or “green-on-blue” attack, a commonplace of that war. He was killed (and another American adviser wounded) by two allied Afghan police officers in the wake of an American air strike in the same area in which more than a dozen of their compatriots died. Forty-two years old and on the eve of retirement, the sergeant was on his seventh combat tour of duty of this century and, had he had an eighth, he might have served with an American born after the 9/11 attacks.

In his book, Woodward describes a National Security Council meeting in August 2017, in which the adolts in the room saved the president from his worst impulses. He describes how an impatient Donald Trump “exploded, most particularly at his generals. You guys have created this situation. It’s been a disaster. You’re the architects of this mess in Afghanistan… You’re smart guys, but I have to tell you, you’re part of the problem. And you haven’t been able to fix it, and you’re making it worse… I was against this from the beginning. He folded his arms. ‘I want to get out… and you’re telling me the answer is to get deeper in.’”

And indeed almost 16 years later that is exactly what Pompeo, Mattis, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and the rest of them were telling him. According to Woodward, Mattis, for instance, argued forcefully “that if they pulled out, they would create another ISIS-style upheaval… What happened in Iraq under Obama with the emergence of ISIS will happen under you, Mattis told Trump, in one of his sharpest declarations.”

The reported presidential response: “‘You are all telling me that I have to do this,’ Trump said grudgingly, ‘and I guess that’s fine and we’ll do it, but I still think you’re wrong. I don’t know what this is for. It hasn’t gotten us anything. We’ve spent trillions,’ he exaggerated. ‘We’ve lost all these lives.’ Yet, he acknowledged, they probably could not cut and run and leave a vacuum for al-Qaeda, Iran, and other terrorists.”

And so Donald Trump became the latest surge president, authorizing, however grudgingly, the dispatching of yet more American troops and air power to Afghanistan (just as he recently authorized an “indefinite military effort” in Syria in the wake of what we can only imagine was another such exchange). Of Mattis himself, in response to reports that he might be on the way out after the midterm elections, the president recently responded, “He’ll stay… we’re very happy with him, we’re having a lot of victories, we’re having victories that people don’t even know about.”

Perhaps that should be considered definitional for the Trump presidency, which is likely to increasingly find itself in a world of “victories that people don’t even know about.” But don’t for a second think that The Donald was the one who brought us to this state, though someday he will undoubtedly be seen as the personification of it and of the decline that swept him into power. And for all that, for the victories that people won’t know about and the defeats that they will, he’ll have the adolts in the room to thank. They proved to be neither the empire builders of their dreams, nor even empire preservers, but a crew of potential empire burners.

Believe me, folks, it’s going to be anything but pretty. Welcome to that most unpredictable and dangerous of entities, a dying empire. Only 27 years after the bells of triumph tolled across Washington, it looks like those bells are now preparing to toll in mourning for it.

Forget Organic Food, Go for Growth

Conservation scientists say high-yield farms may help to solve the world’s great dilemma: how, this century, to feed nine billion, contain global warming and at the same time preserve the creatures of the wild.

They endorse intensive agriculture – chemical pesticides, inorganic fertilisers, indoor dairy herds and so on – as an acceptable answer to the challenge of meeting all three objectives.

But they add a cautionary note: the high-yield approach will work only if it is matched by ever more careful conservation of the world’s remaining wild spaces and habitats. They call it “the least bad way forward.”

The proposal, authored by British researchers and colleagues from Poland, Brazil, Australia, Mexico and Colombia, is based on the argument that high-yield systems which make the best use of the best farmland, while sparing the surrounding forests, savannahs, wetlands and drylands, would overall be less ecologically damaging and, best of all, use much less land.

“Agriculture is the most significant cause of biodiversity loss on the planet,” said study lead author Andrew Balmford, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge in the UK. “Habitats are continuing to be cleared to make way for farmland, leaving ever less space for wildlife.

Vital connection

“Our results suggest that high-yield farming could be harnessed to meet the growing demand for food without destroying more of the natural world. However, if we are to avert mass extinction it is vital that land-efficient agriculture is linked to more wilderness being spared the plough.”

He and his colleagues report in the journal Nature Sustainability that they took a closer look at an enormous range of studies of food production: these included the Asian paddy fields that produce 90% of the world’s rice, the farmlands of Europe that produce a third of the globe’s wheat, the Latin American ranches that produce almost a quarter of the world’s beef, and the European dairies that generate more than half its milk, butter and cheese.

And they found that in field trials, inorganic nitrogen fertiliser could push up yields with little or no greenhouse gas penalty, and reduce the use of water per tonne of rice. Judicious tree-planting for shade, shelter and forage could – in some cases at least – halve greenhouse gas emissions from cattle rearing. And in the European dairy sector, organic practices caused at least one third more soil loss, and took up twice as much land, as intensive high-yield farming.

The researchers concede that the available data is limited, and want to see a lot more research. Their finding is, on the face of it, at variance with another conclusion reported in the same issue of the same journal, which argued that there was also evidence that less intensive farming could deliver good outcomes for greenhouse gas emissions and for productivity.

The proper lesson to be drawn however may be simply that there is no single global answer to the triple challenge of food, climate and conservation: governments and societies will have to look carefully at all the options for their own farmers.

“Agriculture is the most significant cause of biodiversity loss on the planet. Habitats are continuing to be cleared to make way for farmland, leaving ever less space for wildlife”

But all three challenges are pressing: global warming and higher carbon dioxide ratios in the atmosphere threaten both overall yields and the nutritional values of the most important crops, while higher temperatures will encourage ever-hungrier insect predators.

Researchers have repeatedly made the case for preserving forests as a way of limiting climate change, and climate scientists have warned, again and again, that rising temperatures could dramatically affect the world’s wild habitats as well as the regional climates that support global agriculture.

The argument for high-yield intensive exploitation of a more limited extent of farmland is not new, and the Cambridge scientists have made the same case before. And, they stress, the results will be good only if investment in high-technology farming is matched by greater conservation efforts.

“These results add to the evidence that sparing natural habitats by using high-yield farming to produce food is the least bad way forward”, said Professor Balmford.

“Where agriculture is heavily subsidised, public payments could be contingent on higher food yields from land already being farmed, while other land is taken out of production and restored as natural habitat, for wildlife and carbon or floodwater storage.”

Trump Calls Hearing ‘Brutal,’ Praises Kavanaugh (Video)

WASHINGTON — The Latest on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (all times local):

11:40 p.m.

Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, a moderate Democrat, said he is voting “no” on Brett Kavanaugh’s bid for the Supreme Court. Jones said: “The Kavanaugh nomination process has been flawed from the beginning.” He said Dr. Christine Blasey (blah-zee) Ford was credible and courageous in her claim that she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh years ago. And he said late Thursday that he is concerned about the message the vote will be sending to sons and daughters, as well as victims of sexual assault.

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10:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump described Thursday’s heated Senate hearing as “brutal” and “hard to watch” during an evening GOP fundraiser.

But Trump also praised Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s performance defending himself against allegations of sexual assault.

Trump described Kavanaugh as a “great guy” and a “great man” as he headlined a fundraising dinner at his Washington hotel, according to an attendee who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to describe Trump’s speech publicly.

He made no mention of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, the person said.

Trump arrived late at the fundraiser, leaving the White House only after Kavanaugh had finished his testimony.

The fundraiser was for “Protect the House,” a joint committee that benefits the National Republican Congressional Committee and other groups.

— Jill Colvin

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9:40 p.m.

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona says it’s a “tough call” on whether to support Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court after his dramatic testimony on a sexual assault accusation.

The Republican is among a handful of undecided senators on Kavanaugh. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee, which is set to vote Friday morning on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

The senator was weighing his vote after testimony Thursday from California psychologist Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford, who said Kavanaugh groped her and tried to take off her clothes when they were teens. Kavanaugh, testifying second, forcefully denied the accusation.

Flake says Ford’s account “was compelling, but she’s lacking corroboration from those who were there.”

Asked how he will vote, Flake says, “let me process it.”

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9:05 p.m.

GOP Sen. Bob Corker says he’ll be voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The Tennessee Republican said Thursday that Kavanaugh is “qualified to serve.”

Corker says it took “courage” for Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he says the testimony presented no evidence to corroborate her allegation that he sexually assaulted her when they were teens.

Corker says Kavanaugh conducted himself “as well as anyone could expect.” Corker says he plans “to vote to confirm him.”

Corker is a moderate Republican senator whose vote wasn’t a certainty. Kavanaugh’s nomination will face a test in the Senate, which has a tight 51-49 Republican majority.

Kavanaugh resolutely denied Ford’s accusation.

___

8:10 p.m.

Republican senators say the Judiciary Committee plans to vote Friday morning on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second ranking-Republican, had said Thursday that the GOP conference would meet and “see where we are.” After meeting, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “There will be a vote tomorrow morning.”

Kavanaugh and a woman accusing him of sexual assault, California psychologist Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford, spent hours testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ford told senators that one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, groped her and tried to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh, testifying second, forcefully denied the accusation and said he’s never sexually assaulted anyone.

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8:05 p.m.

A Democratic senator who is undecided on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court says she needs to “fully digest” the committee hearing on a sexual assault allegation against him.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota praised the “courage” of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified to the Senate that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in a bedroom when they were teens. Kavanaugh in his own testimony denied ever sexually assaulting anyone.

Heitkamp also said it was important that the Senate Judiciary Committee heard Kavanaugh’s side of the story.

She stressed that a nonpartisan FBI investigation should be conducted to “bring greater clarity” to Ford’s claim and Kavanaugh’s denial.

Heitkamp is running for re-election this year in a state where President Donald Trump is popular, and she is under pressure over her vote on Kavanaugh. She is facing Rep. Kevin Cramer in a race seen as critical for Republicans’ chances to keep the Senate.

___

7:30 p.m.

A lawyer for Mark Judge says he “does not recall the events” described by Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford during her dramatic testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ford accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a gathering more than 30 years ago. She says Kavanaugh’s classmate Judge was in the bedroom when the assault took place.

Judge’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said Thursday that he “does not want to comment about these events publicly” and “will not respond to any media inquiries.”

Van Gelder says Judge “is willing to answer written questions, and he has. In addition, he is willing to participate in a confidential, fact-finding investigation.”

Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s allegation.

___

7:15 p.m.

Senate Republicans are huddling to discuss the next steps on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh and a woman accusing him of sexual assault, California psychologist Christine Blasey Ford, spent hours testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford told senators that one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, groped her and tried to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh, testifying second, forcefully denied the accusation and said he’s never sexually assaulted anyone.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday morning on Kavanaugh’s nomination, unless Republicans decide to postpone it.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second ranking-Republican, says the GOP conference will meet and “see where we are.” But he says the plan is still to have the vote.

___

7:10 p.m.

The final question to Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate Judiciary Committee was a spiritual one.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked the Supreme Court nominee on Thursday if he believed in God.

When Kavanaugh said he did, Kennedy told him this was a “last opportunity” to testify before “God and country.”

The senator asked the judge to look him in the eye. Then he asked Kavanaugh if the allegations of sexual assault from Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford were true.

Kavanaugh says, “They’re not accurate.”

Kavanaugh says he doesn’t question Ford’s testimony that she had been assaulted “by someone, some place.”

But Kavanaugh says he has “never done this to anyone, including her.”

___

7 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he didn’t watch Christine Blasey Ford testify about her accusation that he sexually assaulted her when they were teens.

Both Kavanaugh and Ford spent hours testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Ford going first. Ford told senators that one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, groped her and tried to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh, testifying second, forcefully denied the accusation and said he’s never sexually assaulted anyone.

Kavanaugh was asked by Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris near the end of the hearing whether he had watched Ford’s testimony.

Kavanaugh responded: “I plan to, but I did not. I was preparing mine.”

___

6:55 p.m.

President Donald Trump is backing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, calling the judge’s testimony during a Senate hearing “powerful, honest, and riveting.” Trump is declaring, “The Senate must vote!”

Trump defended his nominee on Twitter on Thursday shortly after the extraordinary hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded.

The president says the Democrats’ “search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist.”

Kavanaugh defiantly denied allegations he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford when they were high school students. Ford testified earlier in the day that she was “100 percent” certain Kavanaugh assaulted her.

___

6:50 p.m.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman accusing him of sexual assault when they were teenagers has adjourned after more than eight hours.

California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford testified first Thursday, saying that she had been terrified to come forward but felt that it was her civic duty. She says Kavanaugh pinned her against a bed when they were in high school, grinded against her and tried to take off her clothes. She says she considers it attempted rape.

Kavanaugh testified afterward, forcefully denying that he had sexually assaulted anyone and saying Democrats were trying to ruin his life.

The panel is set to vote Friday on whether to recommend Kavanaugh’s nomination move forward to the full Senate.

___

6:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump is encouraged by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s passionate denials of Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford’s claims that he sexually assaulted her in high school.

A White House official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the West Wing saw the judge’s opening statement as “game changing” and said Trump appeared to be reacting positively.

Trump watched the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Air Force One as he traveled from New York, then resumed monitoring back at the White House.

Two Republicans close to the White House say Trump expressed sympathy for Kavanaugh and his family for having to listen to Ford’s tearful recounting of allegations. After seeing Ford’s testimony, White House aides and allies expressed concern that Kavanaugh would have an uphill climb to deliver a strong enough showing.

But they say Trump was encouraged by Kavanaugh’s performance.

— Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey.

___

5:50 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has apologized after tangling with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar (KLOH’-buh-shar) over his drinking in high school.

The senator from Minnesota asked Kavanaugh on Thursday about his drinking habits during a hearing on sexual assault allegations. Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford says Kavanaugh was drunk at the time he sexually assaulted her.

Klobuchar said Kavanaugh wrote in testimony that he sometimes had too many drinks. Klobuchar asked whether he ever drank so much that he couldn’t remember what happened or part of what happened the night before. Kavanaugh answered “no.”

In a back-and-forth, he added, “Have you?” and followed up a second time.

Klobuchar said: “I have no drinking problem, Judge.” Kavanaugh responded: “Nor do I.”

After returning from a break, he apologized for asking her that question.

___

5:05 p.m.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says the Democrats’ treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is the “most despicable thing” he has seen in politics.

Graham said Thursday that Democrats sat on allegations against Kavanaugh and then sprung them on the nominee at the last minute in a desperate attempt to prevent his confirmation.

The South Carolina senator says Democrats want to “destroy” Kavanaugh’s life and hold the seat open in the hope of winning the White House in 2020.

Graham says a vote against Kavanaugh would “legitimize the most despicable thing I have ever seen in politics.” He also called the Democrats’ tactics “the most unethical sham.”

Graham supported Republicans’ ultimately successful efforts to block action on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.

___

5 p.m.

In a heated exchange with a Democratic senator, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh dismissed the scrutiny of his high school yearbook as an “absurdity.”

Democratic senators have been bringing up Kavanaugh’s yearbook as they question him about Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford’s allegation of sexual assault when they were teens. Kavanaugh denies the allegation.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked Kavanaugh about his yearbook and the “drinking” and “sexual exploits” it mentions. As Kavanaugh started to respond, Leahy tried to cut him off.

Kavanaugh retorted, “I’m going to talk about my high school record if you’re going to sit here and mock me.”

After Kavanaugh talked about how he “busted his butt” on academics and played sports in high school, Leahy said: “We got a filibuster but not a single answer.”

___

4:35 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is calling certain allegations against him a “joke” and a “farce.”

Kavanaugh made the statements while testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee following allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her in high school. Allegations by other women followed those by Ford.

Kavanaugh was referring specifically to allegations by Julie Swetnick, whose name and allegations became public Wednesday, a day before the hearings. Swetnick said in a sworn statement that she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s.”

Kavanaugh was responding to questions from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he said: “The Swetnick thing is a joke, that’s a farce.”

Feinstein asked Kavanaugh if he wanted to say more about Swetnick’s allegations. Kavanaugh responded: “No.”

___

4:15 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is apologizing to a high school acquaintance whose name was in a yearbook entry written by him and others with the word “alumnus” after.

Kavanaugh called Renate (reh-NAH’-tah) Schroeder Dolphin “a good female friend” whom people in his social circle “would admire and went to dances with.” He said the yearbook reference “was clumsily intended to show affection and that she was one of us.”

He says the media has falsely interpreted the term “alumnus” as being related to sex. He said it was not, adding that he and Dolphin “never had any sexual interaction at all.”

He says, “So sorry to her for that yearbook reference.”

According to reports, Dolphin had initially been one of 65 women to endorse Kavanaugh after the sexual assault allegations came to light from Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford. Kavanaugh forcefully denied the accusation.

Dolphin withdrew her endorsement after Ford’s accusation came to light.

___

4:05 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says Democrats’ actions in the past couple of weeks may mean he will never again get to do two things he loves, teach law and coach basketball.

Kavanaugh’s comments Thursday came in an extraordinary, 45-minute opening statement in which he repeatedly expressed rancor toward Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kavanaugh is blaming Democrats for the fraught environment stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct made by Christine Blasey Ford and two other women. He denied sexually assaulting anyone, including Ford when they were teenagers in high school.

The 53-year-old nominee gestured toward the Democrats seated to his right when he said that “thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to teach again.” He repeated that formulation when talking about coaching his daughters in basketball.

___

4 p.m.

Brett Kavanaugh says he never imagined the topic of sex would come up in a confirmation hearing, but he wants lawmakers to know he never had sexual intercourse or anything close to it during high school or for many years after that.

He said Thursday that for him and the girls he was friends with, the lack of major rampant sexual activity in high school “was a matter of faith and respect and caution.”

He says the committee has a letter from 65 women who knew him in high school and they said he always treated them with dignity and respect.

He says that letter came together in one night 35 years after graduation. He says they knew they would be vilified if they defended him.

Kavanaugh tells senators “think about that. They put themselves on the line for me. Those are some awesome women.”

___

3:45 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says the sexual allegations against him are a “calculated and orchestrated political hit.”

California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford testified Thursday that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during a gathering while they were in high school. She says she’s 100 percent certain it was him. Kavanaugh denies the allegations.

Both are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

He says part of the reason for the allegations is anger by some about President Donald Trump and the 2016 election, and out of revenge on “behalf of the Clintons.” In the 1990s, Kavanaugh was on the team that investigated President Bill Clinton as part of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s investigation. The report led to Clinton’s impeachment, though he was not removed from office.

Kavanaugh said Thursday that the allegations are also the result of money from left-wing opposition groups.

___

3:40 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is choking up before the Senate Judiciary Committee as he fights back against allegations of sexual assault.

The judge sounded angry and tried to hold back tears Thursday as he told senators he was “innocent of this charge.” Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford testified earlier that he groped her and held her down during a party when they were teens.

Kavanaugh “categorically denied” all aspects of her testimony, saying he never did those things years ago.

The father of two daughters says one of his girls said they should “pray for the woman” making the allegations.

Kavanaugh says, “That’s a lot of wisdom from a 10 year old.” He says, “We mean no ill will.”

Kavanaugh continued his testimony, his voice rising and choking up, throughout.

___

3:37 p.m.

Melania Trump has not been watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford.

Spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham says the first lady and members of her staff have been in meetings all day Thursday about her upcoming trip to Africa. The first lady is scheduled to depart Monday on a weeklong visit to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.

Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.

Kavanaugh denies Ford’s allegation. He has also denied claims of sexual misconduct against him a few other women.

___

3:35 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he “never had any sexual or physical encounter of any kind” with Christine Blasey Ford.

Kavanaugh is testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford testified earlier, telling senators that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a gathering in high school.

She says he and a friend barricaded her in a room and Kavanaugh got on top of her and covered her mouth so she could not cry out for help. She says she is “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who attacked her.

Kavanaugh said that he isn’t questioning whether Ford was sexually assaulted — but he says he did not do that to her or anyone. He says he’s “innocent of this charge.”

___

3:30 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is telling a Senate panel that he “will not be intimidated” into withdrawing his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh told lawmakers Thursday in his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. Never.”

Kavanaugh was speaking following testimony by California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford. She says that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens and that she is “100 percent” certain it was him.

Kavanaugh told lawmakers he is “innocent of this charge.”

___

3:25 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is giving a defiant opening statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee to clear his name of allegations of sexual assault.

Kavanaugh told senators on Thursday the allegations have left his family and his name “totally and permanently destroyed.”

The appellate court judge sounded angry, his voice rising. He says, “This confirmation process has become a national disgrace.”

He lashed out at the committee over the time it has taken to convene the hearing after Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford’s allegation first emerged. He says, “This is a circus.”

He urged senators to listen to the people who know him and not those making grotesque allegations against him.

___

3:15 p.m.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has told a Senate panel that his family and his name “have been totally and permanently destroyed.”

Kavanaugh spoke at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday after Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were in high school. She said she was terrified to come forward but did so because she felt it was her civic duty.

He says his confirmation process has become “a national disgrace” and a “character assassination.”

Ford says the attack is seared in her memory and she is “100 percent” certain that it was Kavanaugh who attacked her.

___

3:10 p.m.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is resuming with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh set to testify on allegations he sexually assaulted a girl when both were in high school.

Kavanaugh says the allegations are false. California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford testified for nearly four hours on Thursday.

She told senators that Kavanaugh attacked her at a gathering while they were in high school. She says he held his hand over her mouth so no one could hear her scream.

She says the attack is seared in her memory and she is “100 percent” certain that it was Kavanaugh who attacked her.

___

3:05 p.m.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’s now more convinced than ever that Democrats’ goal is to delay the vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee to after the midterms.

Graham spoke Thursday afternoon after Christine Blasey Ford finished testifying at a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. She says he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, which Kavanaugh denies.

Graham called Ford “a nice lady who has come forward to tell a hard story,” but he called her account “uncorroborated.” He complained that she couldn’t remember the house, the city or the month in which she says the attack occurred.

___

2:55 p.m.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is blasting Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee for failing to call additional witnesses to testify about allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school.

The New York senator said Thursday that it is “an outrage” that Republicans did not force Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge to testify under oath. Ford says Judge was present when Kavanaugh attacked her.

Both Judge and Kavanaugh have denied her allegations.

Gillibrand says the hearing “has been unfair” to Ford, noting that Republicans assigned a female prosecutor to question her on their behalf, even though Ford “is not on trial.”

Gillibrand said the message Republicans are sending to sexual assault survivors is, “We don’t believe you, your voice doesn’t matter and we don’t value you.”

___

2:45 p.m.

Several women in the audience stood up when Christine Blasey Ford finished testifying and said loudly, “Thank you, Dr. Ford!”

On Thursday afternoon, Ford finished her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers. She says he pinned her onto a bed, groped her and tried to take her clothes off while laughing with a friend, who was also in the room.

She said Thursday that she was “terrified” to be speaking at the hearing but felt that it was her civic duty to come forward.

Ford blew kisses to a couple of people in the audience after her testimony ended.

Kavanaugh is set to testify next. He has denied Ford’s allegation.

___

2:35 p.m.

The memoir of Brett Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge appears to support one aspect of Christine Blasey Ford’s account of the summer of 1982.

Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that she ran into Judge at the Potomac Village Safeway where he worked six to eight weeks after she says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while Judge watched. Ford said Judge was arranging shopping carts and seemed “nervous” to see her.

Judge wrote in his book “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk” that he worked at the local supermarket the summer before his senior year, which would have been 1982. Judge says he worked there to raise money for football camp.

Ford has been criticized for saying she could not remember the precise date of her alleged assault.

Kavanaugh and Judge have denied Ford’s allegation.

___

2:20 p.m.

Two attorneys representing Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford at her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing say they’re working for her pro bono.

Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich said Thursday they’re not being paid to represent Ford over her allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

Ford was pressed by attorney Rachel Mitchell if anyone was helping with her legal fees.

Ford said she understood a GoFundMe campaign was started to help her cover the costs of telling her story. She says friends were also helping pay for security for her and her family.

Bromwich said he had “no expectation of being paid.” Katz said similar.

Ford said Katz was recommended by the office of the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

___

2:15 p.m.

The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when both were teenagers has finished her testimony before a Senate panel.

California psychology professor Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford finished her testimony Thursday afternoon, about four hours after the hearing began. Ford alleges that one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, groped her and tried to take off her clothes. She said she was ultimately able to escape.

Ford showed no hesitancy in affirming the crucial question about the alleged attack, telling senators her certainty that Kavanaugh was responsible was “100 percent.”

Lawmakers are expected to next hear from Kavanaugh, who has denied the allegations.

___

2 p.m.

Christine Blasey (BLAH’-zee) Ford says she doesn’t have any political motivation for coming forward with accusations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were teenagers.

Ford is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the accusations.

When Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked Ford about her motive for appearing, Ford said she’d been trying to get the information on the alleged assault to the committee while there was still a list of potential high court nominees.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegation, and he’s set to address the committee later Thursday.

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

SEC Seeks to Oust Tesla CEO Over ‘Go-Private’ Tweet

DETROIT — U.S. securities regulators are asking a federal court to oust Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, alleging in a complaint that he committed securities fraud with false statements about plans to take the company private.

The Securities and Exchange Commission says in the complaint filed Thursday that Musk falsely claimed in an Aug. 7 statement on Twitter that funding was secured to take the company private at $420 per share, a substantial premium over the price at the time.

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan says that Musk had not discussed or confirmed key deal terms including price with any funding source. It also asks for an order enjoining Musk from making false and misleading statements along with repayment of any gains as well as civil penalties.

“Corporate officers hold positions of trust in our markets and have important responsibilities to shareholders,” Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, said in a statement. “An officer’s celebrity status or reputation as a technological innovator does not give license to take those responsibilities lightly.”

An SEC press release says the agency asked the court for a “bar prohibiting Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company.”

Tesla issued a response from Musk via email.

“This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed,” he said in the statement. “I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors. Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way.”

The complaint alleges that Musk’s tweet harmed investors who bought Tesla stock after the tweet but before accurate information about the funding was made public.

Ousting Musk would be difficult and could damage the company because he’s viewed by many shareholders as the leader and brains behind the company’s electric car and solar panel operations.

Joseph Grundfest, a professor at Standford Law School and former SEC commissioner, said Musk will likely want to avoid going to trial in the case and opening the door to “a lot of testimony about his state of mind.”

Grundfest said there are many potential ways the case could be settled, including some scenarios in which Musk stays on as CEO. He said that would likely entail putting some constraints on Musk, such as prohibiting him from making public statements without supervision and public approval.

“One possibility could be to appoint someone as a monitor over all of his communications. He wouldn’t be able to tweet or post anything directly without the approval of a chaperone,” Grundfest said.

He said other possible solutions would be to “constrain his ability to act in certain roles within the company.” He said Musk could agree to step down as CEO and instead take another title, such as chief production officer.

Grundfest said that whether Musk can stay on as CEO is “almost entirely up to Elon” and whether he is able to negotiate a settlement with the SEC.

“He is not going to be able to remain as CEO with no conditions. That is not on the table.”

Grundfest also said that the challenge for the SEC is to “appropriately discipline Musk while not harming Telsa’s shareholders.”

He noted the company itself is not being sued and that any penalty must be paid by Musk.

“If you totally kick Musk out of the company, that probably hurts shareholders more than anyone else,” Grundfest said.

The SEC alleged in the 23-page complaint that Musk made the statements using his mobile phone in the middle of a trading day. That day, Tesla shares closed up 11 percent from the previous day.

“He did not discuss the content of the statements with anyone else prior to publishing them to his over 22 million Twitter followers and anyone else with access to the Internet.”

The statements, the complaint said “were premised on a long series of baseless assumptions and were contrary to facts that Musk knew.”

Shares of Tesla fell 11 percent in after-hours trading to $273.56, after falling 2 percent before the market closed Thursday.

In its complaint, the SEC said that Musk’s go-private statement hurt short sellers, investors who borrow a company’s stock betting that it will fall. Then they buy the shares back at a lower price and return them to the lenders, pocketing the profit.

In August, more than $13 billion worth of Tesla shares were being “shorted” by investors, the complaint said.

Musk also failed to notify the Nasdaq stock exchange, on which Tesla shares are traded, before releasing the go-private tweet. Nasdaq rules require notification of plans to release “material information” at least 10 minutes before the release, according to the complaint. The tweet forced Nasdaq to suspend trading of Tesla shares Aug. 7 for about 90 minutes.

____

Olson contributed from New York.

Israel Accuses Iran of Harboring ‘Secret Atomic Warehouse’

UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran on Thursday of keeping a “secret atomic warehouse” just outside its capital, despite the 2015 deal with world powers that was meant to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Holding up a poster-board map of an area near Tehran as he spoke at the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu told world leaders that Iranian officials have been keeping up to 300 tons of nuclear equipment and material in a walled, unremarkable-looking property near a rug-cleaning operation.

Iranian state media called the announcement “ridiculous” and an “illusion.”

Netanyahu’s disclosure — which he presented as a big reveal on the international community’s biggest stage — came four months after Israel announced the existence of what it said was a “half-ton” of Iranian nuclear documents obtained by Israeli intelligence in the Shourabad neighborhood near Tehran. Israel said the cache proved that Iranian leaders covered up their nuclear weapons program before signing the nuclear agreement. Iran hasn’t acknowledged the alleged seizure.

“You have to ask yourself a question: Why did Iran keep a secret atomic archive and a secret atomic warehouse?” Netanyahu asked. “What Iran hides, Israel will find.”

Netanyahu didn’t specify what the material and equipment was, and it was not immediately clear whether it proved to be a violation of the nuclear deal.

Netanyahu also said Iranian officials had been clearing some radioactive material out of the site, which sits a short distance from Shourabad, and “spread it around Tehran.” He then even suggested that residents of the capital might want to buy Geiger counters.

In referring to Netanyahu’s statements as “ridiculous,” the Iranian state TV report said the country is committed to nonproliferation and Iran’s nuclear program is under surveillance of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The website of state TV briefly reported the Netanyahu accusation and called it an “illusion.”

Iran’s state-run, English-language Press TV channel carried Netanyahu’s remarks live but cut away after he made the allegation about the nuclear warehouse.

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal came after years of Western sanctions over Iran’s contested atomic program. The West long has feared it could be used to build nuclear bombs. Iran long has denied seeking atomic weapons.

Under terms of the deal, Iran is allowed to keep documents and other research. The deal strictly limits how many centrifuges — important equipment for making enriched uranium that can be used in nuclear power plants or in weapons — Iran can use and how large of a low-enriched uranium stockpile the country can keep.

Netanyahu said the warehouse stored “massive amounts of equipment and materiel,” and he said Israel shared the information with the IAEA. The Vienna-based agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

He noted that Israel had long opposed the multinational agreement with Iran. Israel considers Iran its biggest threat, citing Tehran’s calls for Israel’s destruction, its support for hostile militant organizations like the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group and Iran’s development of long-range missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear deal in May, and his administration has been re-imposing sanctions on Iran. Israel applauded the move, but many other nations lamented it as jeopardizing what they saw as the best chance to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power.

“Instead of coddling Iran’s dictators,” other countries should support the sanctions, Netanyahu said to applause. He accused Europe of “appeasement” of Iran, a word that harkens back to criticism of Europe’s approach to Nazi Germany before World War II.

Netanyahu is known for his showmanship at the U.N. In 2012, he famously held up a drawing of a cartoon bomb while discussing Iran’s nuclear program, saying “a red line should be drawn right here” and drawing it with a marker.

His accusation Thursday about Iran came shortly after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized Israel and the U.S. in his own speech, declaring that his people’s rights “are not up for bargaining” and that the U.S. was undermining the long-discussed two-state solution. But Netanyahu devoted less attention to the long-running conflict with the Palestinians.

Abbas halted ties with Trump’s administration in December after the U.S. recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and Palestinians have said a pending U.S. peace plan will be dead on arrival because of that and other recent U.S. moves that Palestinians see as favoring Israel.

“Jerusalem is not for sale,” Abbas said to applause as he began his speech. “The Palestinian people’s rights are not up for bargaining.”

He said Palestinians would never reject negotiation, but that “it’s really ironic that the American administration still talks about what they call the ‘deal of the century.'”

“What is left for this administration to give to the Palestinian people?” he asked. “What is left as a political solution?”

Netanyahu, in return, said the Palestinians’ accusations against his country were hypocritical and unwarranted.

“You condemn Israel’s morality?” he asked. “This is not the way to achieve the peace we all want and need and to which Israel remains committed.”

The Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza has led protests for months along the border with Israel, aiming partly to draw attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.

At least 137 Palestinians, mostly unarmed, have been killed by Israeli fire since the border protests began on March 30. During that time, a Gaza sniper killed an Israeli soldier. Hamas and Israel came close to serious conflict this summer as Gaza militants bombarded southern Israel with mortars and rockets, and Israel struck Hamas targets in Gaza.

Israel says it is defending its border against attempts by Hamas, a militant group sworn to its destruction, to infiltrate and carry out attacks. But Israel has faced heavy international criticism over the large number of unarmed protesters who have been killed or wounded.

While meeting with Netanyahu on Wednesday, Trump told reporters he believes that two states — Israel and one for the Palestinians — “works best.”

Hours before Netanyahu’s scheduled speech, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman expressed indifference to Trump’s remarks, saying Israel wants “a safe Jewish state.”

Netanyahu had reluctantly accepted the concept of Palestinian statehood but has since backtracked.

Palestinians have been split since Hamas seized Gaza in 2007, ousting forces of Abbas, who now governs just parts of the West Bank. Repeated reconciliation attempts have failed, and Abbas warned that further measures could be taken against Hamas if deadlock persists.

The Israeli and Palestinian speeches fell on the same day that members of a U.N. group of 135 developing countries formalized a decision to give the Palestinians the chairmanship in 2019. That stands to boost their aspirations for official statehood but angers Israel.

Palestinians were infuriated, and many Israelis were thrilled, by a series of decisions Trump has made, starting with his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Palestinians also claim the holy city as the capital of an eventual state. Earlier this year, Trump followed up on the recognition by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

His administration has also slashed aid to the Palestinians by hundreds of millions of dollars and ended U.S. support for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees.

Trump and his national security team have defended their position, saying decades of attempts to forge peace have failed.

Other leaders who spoke Thursday included Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, who told leaders he had “spared no effort to ensure that institutions are stable and to make sure we are creating a safe and stable environment conducive to investment and to relaunching growth” in his impoverished Caribbean island country since the U.N. peacekeeping mission there wrapped up in October 2017.

___

Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.

Kavanaugh Rages in Opening Statement, Proclaims Innocence

Emotionally battling to rescue his Supreme Court nomination, Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday denied allegations that he’d sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when both were high school students and told Congress the accusations and biting criticism by Democrats had “totally and permanently destroyed” his family and reputation.

Sometimes showing anger, other times fighting back tears, the conservative jurist launched a bristling attack on the “national disgrace” of his treatment by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Referring to the Constitution’s charge to senators in confirming high officials, he said, “You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with ’search and destroy.”

He vowed to continue his effort to join the high court, to which President Donald Trump nominated him in July. Now a judge in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, he seemed assured of confirmation until Ford and several other accusers emerged in recent weeks. He has denied all of the accusations, but it remained unclear how the dramatic testimony by Ford and Kavanaugh would affect his prospects.

“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit, never,” he said.

Shortly before, Ford had told the same senators that she was “100 percent” certain a drunken young Kavanaugh was the one who had pinned her to a bed, tried to remove her clothes and clapped a hand over her mouth as she tried to yell for help. A Kavanaugh friend stood by and they both laughed uproariously during the incident, she testified.

In her three hours of testimony, Ford’s tone was polite but firm as she detailed her accusations but offered no major new revelations. Rachel Mitchell, a veteran sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona who asked all questions for the committee’s all-male GOP senators, seemed to elicit no significant inconsistencies in her testimony.

Both Kavanaugh and Ford testified under sworn oath.

Kavanaugh, 53, struggled to hold back tears, particularly when he referred to his own family.

Asked about drinking in high school, he said he had, sometimes to excess. “I like beer,” he said, but he also said he’d never passed out and never attacked Ford. “I have never done this to her or to anyone,” he said.

The mood was intense as Kavanaugh’s voice filled the room for the extraordinary session, unlike Ford’s quiet testimony. Senators watched intently, the only sound the clicking of cameras. In the front row, family and friends quietly cried including his wife, Ashley, whose lips were trembling.

In an election-season battle being waged along a polarized nation’s political and cultural fault lines, Trump and most Republicans have rallied behind Kavanaugh, whose confirmation would provide a chance to cement the conservative majority of the court for a generation.

Republicans have accused Ford and the other women of making unproven allegations and have questioned why they’d not publicly revealed them for decades.

Among the television viewers on Thursday was Trump, who has mocked the credibility of Kavanaugh’s accusers. The president watched aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from the United Nations, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

During a break in the hearing, some of Kavanaugh’s strongest supporters gave no indications of wavering.

“You need more than an accusation for evidence. You need corroboration. That’s what’s missing here,” said No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said of Ford, “She’s a good witness. She’s articulate, an attractive person.”

Ford, now 51, has said of Kavanaugh, “I believed he was going to rape me.”

Asked by Patrick Leahy of Vermont for her strongest memory of the alleged incident, Ford mentioned the two boys’ “laughter — the uproarious laughter between the two and they’re having fun at my expense.”

When the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, asked how she could be sure that Kavanaugh was the attacker, Ford said, “The same way I’m sure I’m talking to you right now.” Later, she told Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that her certainty was “100 percent.”

The California psychology professor spoke carefully and deliberately during the hearing, using scientific terminology at one point to describe how a brain might remember details of events decades later. The boys’ laughter was “indelible in the hippocampus,” she said, using her scientific expertise to describe how memories are stored in the brain and adding, “It’s locked in there.”

Ford has said Kavanaugh friend Mark Judge was also in the room when she was assaulted. Judge has said he doesn’t remember the incident and has declined to appear before the panel.

She also recounted how the alleged attack altered her life, describing anxiety and claustrophobia that prompted her to demand adding a second front door when her home was remodeled. She also described nervousness while flying.

The Judiciary panel’s 11 Republicans — all men — let Rachel Mitchell, a Phoenix prosecutor, ask their questions. She began by expressing sympathy for Ford, who’d said she was “terrified” to testify. Said Mitchell, “I just wanted to let you know, I’m very sorry. That’s not right.”

Mitchell led Ford through a detailed recollection of the events she says occurred on the day of the alleged incident. But under the committee’s procedures, the career prosecutor was limited to five minutes at a time, interspersed between Democrats’ questions, creating a choppy effect as she tried piecing together the story.

Mitchell’s questions steered clear of the details of the alleged assault and focused at times on whether Ford was coordinating with Kavanaugh opponents. Mitchell asked who was financing her legal and security expenses. Ford responded that she had gotten help from well-to-do people back home and was aware of public contributions at the website GoFundMe.com but also said she’d not focused on such matters amid her family’s recent moves due to threats.

Kavanaugh’s teetering grasp on winning confirmation was evident when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, expressed concern, in a private meeting with senators Wednesday, about a new, third accuser, according to a person with knowledge of the gathering. Republicans control the Senate 51-49 and can lose only one vote. Collins is among the few senators who’ve not made clear how they’ll vote.

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

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.

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.

Kavanaugh referred repeatedly Thursday to detailed calendar pages he had provided from the 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.

New York Times Apologizes for ‘Inappropriate’ Christine Blasey Ford Tweet

During Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, The New York Times’ opinion page called into question the credibility of his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. Ford alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982.

A forum for conservative commentators Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens, among others, the Times’ opinion page has been criticized for normalizing far-right ideas. In a tweet, the Times wrote: “[D]o you find her testimony credible?” with three choices: “yes,” “no” or “unsure.”

The Times quickly deleted the poll.

We’re sorry for this tweet. In retrospect, a Twitter poll is insensitive in light of the gravity of this hearing. We’ve deleted it. pic.twitter.com/4CqRhkuCat

— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2018

We also recognize that asking only about Dr. Blasey’s credibility was inappropriate. We had intended to tweet a second poll about Judge Kavanaugh’s credibility this afternoon.

— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2018

Ford said in her testimony Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that since coming forward with her story, death threats and harassment have forced her and her family to move out of their house.

“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” Ford said.

“Apart from the assault itself, these last couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life. I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me,” she said.

Weiss, a New York Times op-ed editor and staff writer, also opted to quickly delete a tweet that seemed critical of Ford:

hey Bari why’d you delete this tweet? pic.twitter.com/DCyPWjX2kc

— Katherine Krueger (@kath_krueger) September 27, 2018

Weiss was criticized for her blasé attitude toward sexual assault. “Let’s say he did this exactly as she said,” Weiss said on MSNBC earlier this month. “Should the fact that a 17-year-old, presumably very drunk kid, did this, should this be disqualifying? That’s the question at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

Previously, a public editor might have been able to follow up and hold the staff at the opinion desk accountable in-house. But in May 2017, the Times eliminated the position. “The one thing an ombud or public editor can almost always do is hold feet to the fire, and get a real answer out of management,” former public editor Margaret Sullivan tweeted at the time.

Could This California Race Tip Congress to the Democrats?

“Abortion. Murder.” That was one eligible voter’s emphatic answer to volunteer Gale Vogel’s pitch for Katie Hill, a pro-choice candidate running for Congress in the kind of suburban Los Angeles district Democrats must flip in order to win control of the House in November.

He was so emphatic, in fact, that I could hear his voice clearly from where I was standing on the sidewalk, a substantial distance from the house. Vogel had asked him about the issues that guided his decision at the ballot box.

“I enjoyed talking to you,” she said. “Any other issues?”

“Abortion,” he repeated loudly.

“Not a vote for Hill,” Vogel commented as she moved on to a neighboring residence. She walked the rolling hills of the Santa Clarita subdivision at a brisk pace, even though the temperature hovered in the mid-90s.

At one house at the end of a steep driveway, a couple greeted her in a friendly manner. The man liked candidate Hill. He supports Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. He watches Bill Maher on HBO. “I appreciate everything you guys are doing,” he told Vogel.

Katie Hill is the executive director of a nonprofit organization assisting the homeless. She’s never held political office but was active in the successful campaign for Los Angeles ballot measures to provide housing and other services for the indigent. The Republican incumbent, Steve Knight, is a former Los Angeles police officer and Army veteran who previously served in the state Legislature. He was elected to the House in 2014.

Knight’s re-election is crucial to the GOP, which maintains a slim majority in the 435-member House. In heavily Democratic California, Democrats hold 39 of the 53 House seats, and Republicans can’t afford to lose a single contest. As of now, California’s 25th District is rated a toss-up by the authoritative Cook Political Report. In the last presidential election, Hillary Clinton barely emerged victorious there, earning 50.3 percent of the vote.

On Saturday, I drove to Santa Clarita, a city about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the Santa Clarita Valley and surrounded by barren hills and subdivisions, it’s one of the most affluent parts of the district, with a median income of $82,607. The area’s boundaries extend eastward to the high desert around Palmdale and Lancaster, where incomes and home values are lower.

At Hill headquarters in a Santa Clarita shopping mall, regional field director Angela Giacchetti was assembling the women and men who would canvass the neighborhood. They ranged from millennials to such baby boomers as former Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who had offered his services for the afternoon.

I joined Vogel, who lives in Santa Clarita, and her canvassing partner, Ellen O’Laughlin, a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher who had driven many miles from her home in Hawthorne, close to Los Angeles International Airport. O’Laughlin had not been active politically until Donald Trump was elected president. “I watched the debates. That was it,” she said.

“I’ve never done this before,” Vogel echoed as she drove us to their assigned neighborhood. “I’d only been marginally interested.” Over the past two years, she has protested Trump’s immigration crackdown and knocked on doors, even in the occasionally grueling California heat.

The Hill campaign recruited Vogel and O’Laughlin through ads on Facebook and other social media, later sending them a list of voters they were to contact that day. One of their phone screens looked like a Google map, showing the houses designated for a visit. Another had the names of the homes’ occupants, along with their party registration and voting history. Vogel’s phone contained 76 names, her quota for the afternoon.

Canvassing is as old as politics itself. At the turn of the 20th century, big-city bosses sent workers out to apartments, tenements and saloons, looking for support. When I began my career in journalism many years ago, the canvassers carried clipboards with paper lists of voters. Over the last 18 months, these have largely been replaced by phone apps and email.

On a street of virtually identical two-story homes, Vogel rang a bell. The person listed had moved. “OK, thank you,” she said, tapping away on her cellphone.

A separate house had two signs—“No solicitors” and “Beware of the dog.” She entered “inaccessible” on her phone. At another residence, a man said he “kinda liked Katie.” She put him down as a Katie Hill supporter, sending her entry to the Hill campaign in real time.

How did Vogel gain access to so much information in the first place? The Hill campaign had either gathered it on its own or hired one of the growing number of private companies that assemble such lists. Zillow, for example, lists the value of every home; the Department of Motor Vehicles provides car registration. Marketers know an inordinate amount about buying habits, religion, reading, clothing and food tastes. Each of these data points is then sorted by computers and loaded onto a list of potential voters.

Campaigns are most interested in what political professionals call “the likely voter universe.” This might include someone who voted in two of the last four election cycles. The man who “kinda liked Katie” probably made the list. He and others like him will be targeted with further visits and phone calls as Election Day nears.

But technology alone won’t win this election. Trump’s widespread unpopularity will cost him votes, as will his treatment of Kavanaugh’s accusers specifically and women more generally. Ultimately, however, it will come down to volunteers like Vogel and O’Laughlin to turn out Democratic voters. In a hotly contested election cycle, this could make the difference in the 25th District and others across the country.

“Who is going to step up and say [to Trump], ‘You can’t do this’?” Vogel said. “I guess it is us.”