Kavanaugh Father-Son Cancer Powder Keg
If Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed by the Senate, sooner or later he may be asked to weigh some damning evidence — that his own father advocated for a product that he knew was carcinogenic to both mothers and fetuses. Unless he recuses himself. The ironies are piquant: While the son attended private, single-sex religious schools and adopted the traditional Catholic opposition to abortion, and even birth control, on the grounds the government should regulate women’s use of their own bodies and reproduction, the father made millions from the industry that marketed and sold female personal hygiene products — while keeping the government from guarding the consumers’ health and safety.
More than 10,000 active claims in US courts, mostly by women, allege that they got cancer from regular use of talcum products like baby powder. In one case last summer, a jury in Missouri awarded $4.7 billion to a group of 20 such women who sued the biggest manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson — for promoting its products while hiding evidence of the risks to women, their reproductive organs, and their babies. Sooner or later, one of these cases is likely to come to the Supreme Court. If he fails to recuse himself, Justice Brett Kavanaugh will be asked to consider evidence that his father, Ed, helped J&J market such products — even though they knew they were carcinogenic. Kavanaugh Sr.’s former employer is one of the named defendants in some of the biggest class-action cases filed so far.
But Brett won’t be alone in that predicament: His dad once hired John Roberts, now the Chief Justice, to fight regulations on the industry that the elder Kavanaugh represented for most of his adult life — an industry that made him wealthy, and a fixture on Washington’s social scene as a member of the exclusive Congressional and Burning Tree country clubs, where he helped his son connect with rich and powerful patrons who helped him reach the top. It’s no exaggeration that, if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, stuff like baby powder will have smoothed his slide into a seat on the highest court in the land.
During the confirmation process, Kavanaugh spoke often about his mother’s work as a judge, but only referenced the personal values his father instilled — nothing about the father’s work or clients. The all-consuming conflagration over what Brett Kavanaugh did or didn’t do in his high school and college years submerged this potentially volatile — and much more recent — issue. Despite an extensive record from 12 years as an appellate judge and thousands of pages of written opinions, Kavanaugh has been coy if not downright evasive about his own legal opinions, political values, and how he would apply them if confirmed. He’s deflected questions about “hypotheticals” as somehow irrelevant to his qualifications, stating that he would be a “fair and impartial arbiter” if confirmed.
Read more: https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/10/05/breaking-kavanaugh-father-son-cancer-powder-keg/
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