*By Carlo Versano*
Day one of Brett Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearings got off to a raucous start Tuesday: protesters interrupted the proceedings, Democrats called for an adjournment, and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he'd never before seen a hearing "led by mob rule."
It took seven hours before the nominee could deliver his opening statement.
The tactics, while good fodder for television, are unlikely to be very effective for Democrats, said Erin Delmore, a senior political correspondent for Bustle. They also reveal the level of Democrats' desperation, she said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar.
"It does show you how weak their hand is here," she said.
Democrats, in a futile effort to delay the hearing, were responding to growing frustrations from their base that the party has not been vocal enough in protesting the successor to Anthony Kennedy. If Kavanaugh, a staunch Republican, is confirmed, he may well tilt the court's ideology right-ward for at least a generation, as he'd replace a man who often acted as a swing vote on landmark decisions.
Justice Kennedy authored the majority opinions for [*Lawrence v. Texas*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/558/), which lifted the state's ban on sodomy, and 2013's [*Windsor v. U.S.*](http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/windsor-v-united-states-2/), the landmark decision that granted same-sex couples the right to marry in certain states.
The ever-polarizing *Roe v. Wade* is among the cases Kavanaugh's vote could turn. He has been asked about where he stands on choice by several moderate female senators, including Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who both said Kavanaugh told them he considered Roe to be "settled law."
The key question is, "does he believe *Roe v. Wade* was settled correctly," said Delmore. That's one interrogative he's unlikely to answer in this hearing.
"If \[Collins and Murkowski\] seem like this is enough for them, then this is over," Delmore said, referring to the chance that Kavanaugh could not be confirmed.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-women-who-will-determine-brett-kavanaughs-fate).
Political spectators are readying themselves for a midterm fight to the finish, but Gov. John Carney of Delaware thinks they would do well to focus on the issues ー not just winning the race. "It seems like we get bogged down in the politics of our own teams," Carney said of the divisive state of politics during an interview with Cheddar Monday. "It gets in the way of improving things that are important."
Amazon, Alphabet, Twiter, and other big tech companies are set to report quarterly earnings this week. Elon Musk says The Boring Company's high-speed transit tunnel will be open to the public on December 10. And Zane Holtz, star of the upcoming film 'Hunter Killer,' joins Cheddar to discuss what it's like working with big-name talent such as Gary Oldman and Gerard Butler in this new movie.
Valerie Plame Wilson says a movie about the George W. Bush White House's exposure of her covert role as a CIA agent is more relevant than ever in the Trump era of "lies and deception." Plame spoke to Cheddar Monday alongside director Doug Liman on the occasion of the re-release of Liman's 2010 film "Fair Game."
The Massachusetts Senator has urged the Fed once again to put pressure on Wells Fargo for its fake bank account scandal. Pete Schroeder, a financial correspondent at Reuters, said this rhetoric is in line with Warren's politics and does not necessarily signal a 2020 presidential run.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Arianna Huffington, the CEO of Thrive, is one of many business execs to pull out of the "Davos in the Desert" business summit in Saudi Arabia after the controversy surrounding a missing and presumed-dead Washington Post journalist. Huffington said she was "surprised" by the Trump administration's handling of the situation.
Deepa Seetharaman, tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal, said the company is still unsure of who's responsible for the most recent hack, in which 30 million user accounts were compromised. And perhaps more importantly, it still doesn't know where all the data went.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Cannabis may have just been made legal in Canada, but Canopy Growth has been getting ready for this moment for years. Cheddar's Baker Machado went to the company's headquarters in eastern Ontario to talk to the company's execs about the budding cannabis market.
Derek Riedle, the CEO of cannabis culture publisher Civilized, spoke with Cheddar about what is next in the changing landscape of pot in Canada and what breaking down the stigma surrounding marijuana could do for the industry and country as a whole.
