I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. What I do know is that it seems like there are a million new stories about Kavanaugh and the nomination process every day. This is one of those stories that’s about a lot more than just “another doughy misogynist is going to become a SCOTUS justice.” It’s a story about believing women’s stories, it’s a story about what men “get away with,” it’s about rape culture, it’s about run-of-the-mill optics, and it’s about white men being super-salty that their authority is being challenged in any way. Here are some of the stories from the past day:
A schoolmate of Christine Blasey Ford remembers. The former schoolmate remembers hearing about the incident at the time, and the schoolmate says that something definitely happened, and that we should believe Professor Ford, or at the very least get the FBI to investigate.
As for the FBI investigation. Trump still hasn’t authorized the FBI investigation or an updated background check into Kavanaugh. Republicans still claim that the FBI looking into Professor Ford’s story would be unnecessary and unprecedented. Except that when Anita Hill came forward during Clarence Thomas’s nomination, the FBI did investigate. It took three days.
No surprise, the GOP hopes Prof. Ford refuses to testify. Professor Ford has maintained, through her lawyer, that before she agrees to testify, the FBI should investigate. Republican senators are doing everything they can to fast-track Kavanaugh’s nomination, so even as they publicly plead with Ford to come to Washington and testify, they hope that their smear campaign against her has worked and she’ll be too intimidated to testify.
Ford’s lawyer issued another statement. Professor Ford basically says that no derp, the GOP isn’t acting in good faith, and it’s asinine that they would only call Ford and Kavanaugh to testify, especially considering there were witnesses and other people Ford told over the years.
Dear Professor Ford. Yesterday, the hashtag #DearProfessorFord began trending on Twitter. Women shared stories and praised Professor Ford for standing up for herself and for standing up to a powerful man who assaulted her and left her traumatized.
We want you to know that you are not alone. You are a survivor. Millions of us have your back.
We call on Senators to demand a full, fair and trauma-informed investigation.
Signed,
Your Sisters pic.twitter.com/fsGNSH1xpm— Paola Mendoza (@paolamendoza) September 19, 2018
#DearProfessorFord I believe you. I appreciate you. I can only imagine how hard it was for you to come forward with this information, and how difficult your life has been since. I hope you know that there are people who are in your corner.
— Dr. Donna M. Dopwell (@DonnaDopwell) September 20, 2018
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
#DearProfessorFord
I’m not smart enough for twitter. More of us are with you, even though you probably won’t know it
Why do you say you’re not smart enough for Twitter? You can spell, which is more than most people can do who tweet.
#DearProfessorFord I believe you and and stand with you.
Sweetie, Trump uses Twitter. I PROMISE you, you’re smart enough for it!
Astrid I know what you mean, I felt that way too. It seems really overwhelming/intimidating at first and it took me a long time to get on it.
My advice is start out by looking at someone you like, see who they follow, and follow some of the same people. Same with interests; find a topic you’re interested in and see who talks about it and follow some of those people. It takes a while but you will end up figuring it out!
Astrid, I agree with Lorelei. I’m on Twitter but I don’t fully engage. I pretty much participate only as a means to feel that I am heard which I don’t feel very often in my “real” life. So that’s my reason for using Twitter.
That said, I don’t like any negative replies and don’t have any interest in debating them. So I block those tweets. If I get replies most are “like” or a mild version of disagreement. Even if they agree with me but their other tweets are laced with profanity or other awful things I block them.
My round about point is that you can tailor it to your interests and preferences in engaging. As Lorelei wrote you can follow a person or cause you admire. Like with all social media it’s a mixed bag.
It is hard to believe that an accused sexual harrasing miscreant can be elected to influence the direction of the US over the next few decades.
Women who continue to vote for the Republicans, please help me out with your thought process.
Unbelievable.
I find it sadly believable, even inevitable. We already have Clarence Thomas. Nothing anyone says or does in support of Ford matters. The GOP cares only about their regressive agenda.
What comes after this travesty is just as bad. Nunes was secretly recorded at a fundraiser saying that after the elections the Republicans plan to fire Mueller, cut entitlements and gut other programs.
We know drump and most other Republicans are beholden to Putin and the Kochs.
IJ, funny you mention that, I was just thinking how the Kavanaugh stuff has blotted out everything else pretty thoroughly for the moment and was trying to remember what else I needed to be worried/enraged about. It just never ends.
EsMom, I always feel your pain when discussing this administration. I suspect your having a child and worrying about his future in this toxic environment makes it doubly worse.
Today more any since the election I feel like running away. I can’t imagine the terror Dr. Ford feels.
Indiana – link please? As my sense of anger and unease climb ever higher-
When there is a rush for no good reason, there is usually good reason to question it.
This guy is not a good guy. You can just tell sometimes.
They’re rushing because they have to get him confirmed before the mid-terms. They know they are going to lose big(ly) but if they have the SC stacked with conservative judges already it won’t matter as much. They know that once the dems take back the house and possibly (please!) the senate there is no way they’d get an extreme conservative judge through.
This has been their main goal all along. This, I believe, is why they put up with Trump’s nonsense. They need to get one more judge on the court.
There is also no time now to withdraw BK’s name and get someone else confirmed by midterms. So it has to be him. And now.
I am SHOCKED to discover that the man whose closet is apparently 93% skeletons (because why else wouldn’t the information be released?), who has lied multiple times under oath, who uses teenage girls as props even as he fights to leave a third of them haemorrhaging to death in a back alley and who waged a two-year long campaign of harassment against Vince Foster’s family was an over-entitled, private school douchebro who regarded girls as exploitable objects, with a wingman who advocated for “striking women like gongs”.
Well, not that shocked.
I know, right?
I have been glad to see The Onion been satirizing the sick culture of fraternities as of late — the fraternity system is an extension of this prep school culture and it’s time people think long and hard before supporting their sons in joining these toxic groups.
I’m so angry for her. She gets re-victimized all over again no matter her choice. If she shows up before the jury, they tear her apart. If she doesn’t show, people will get on her case for letting the nomination go through. They’re just garbage human beings with garbage sensibility.
Right, it’s a reprehensible set-up in which she can’t ‘win’ either way. The concept of justice for female victims of violence is entirely lost on the (old, white) men in power. And Susan Collins, our honorary white man.
I was watching Morning Joe this morning and one of the men on the panel, Barnicle, said he guarantee Kavanaugh will not get in. I’m hoping they have heard something through the grapevine. The FBI and dectatives can go back decades and find all those priests and exposed them as child sex predators and dectatives can go back decades and open up cold case with murders and get convictions, why is it to late to go back and have the FBI investigate Dr Ford’s sexual assault. The Senators are hiding something they know about Kavanaugh, I believe they know it’s true, she was assaulted.
Btw, Kavanaugh is being prepped for 8-9 hours per day at the Whitehouse for the hearing on Monday while Dr Ford is in hiding for her live and her family’s lives. How in good conscience Can these Senators demands Dr Ford shows up Monday ready to testify. Is the whitehouse
prepping her 8-9 hours a day to testify, I don’t think so.
Dr Ford is in hiding, which is terrible.
She’s also likely hunkered down with her legal team sorting through her options. Under enormous pressure that is completely unjust and monstrous, all because that ugly lout and his rotten crony decided — decided — when they were “old enough to know better” to corner her, silence her, grope her, rip at her clothes, and try to rape her, and now they are protected by the establishment of other men like them. It truly is the Handmaid’s Tale writ large. I hope her adult brain is helping her teenage brain stay calm.
I heard her attorney is pretty good and highly respected. I have faith that Dr. Ford will receive good advice on how to proceed. Some people on Twitter suggested she go on 60 minutes or another TV show to get her story out first and blow this into smithereens.
I can only hope, whoever her attorney is, that Stormy Daniel’s lawyer is secretly advising them.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.”
I do. They’re going to push his nomination through and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. The Dems don’t have the numbers and the GOP knows it. All of this is just window dressing to make people think that they’re considering the evidence when they’re not.
There is no way this guy isn’t getting confirmed – this has been a Republican wet dream for too many years and they’re not going to let that opportunity pass them by.
But hey, I guess now we can have that revolution and be content that at least we didn’t let that awful HRC into office, right?
Yeah, they’re faking it. They want to “hear” her means they want to eviscerate and shame her in public.
I’m so angry.
Same. I have enough rage to power every electric grid in the United States.
Everyone knows to call them Rapeublicans now, right?
If you live in a state with a Republican on the judiciary committee, get yourself on the phone today, tomorrow, and every day until this is over telling them that we need a full investigation and to stop rushing the nomination. If you have friends/family in those states who aren’t raging conservatives, ask them to do the same. I doubt it will actually stop them, but…you never know. I called my senator this morning and have asked my parents and siblings to take a few minutes to call also.
The Republicans on the committee are:
Grassley (Iowa)
Hatch (Utah)
Graham (South Carolina)
Cornyn (Texas)
Lee (Utah)
Cruz (Texas)
Sasse (Nebraska)
Flake (Arizona)
Crapo (Idaho)
Tillis (North Carolina)
Kennedy (Louisiana)
This has been sickening and brought up really uncomfortable memories of my own assault in college. I never said anything except to one friend at the time, who encouraged me to go to the police. I knew it was a he said/she said thing and my university would side with the fraternity boy and blame me. I hate that we are still in this place.
I’m so sorry HeatherBoBeather. You must be feeling awful right now. Some people I love were sexually assaulted. Not many people know how much it messed up their lives because in this society it’s not something you can talk about without being judged or what if’d. Those who don’t get this have their heads in the sand but ironically don’t know what it feels like to suffocate. I wish you and the people I love could have a “do-over” without the trauma. Know that there are people who care about you and believe you.
It’s almost too much to comment anymore. I read all of the comments. It upsets me to read women here and elsewhere sharing their own terrible stories, maybe hoping someone will listen, that their story will change a heart, change a mind.
I am almost incoherent with rage. I truly feel somedays I may have a heart attack. But I’m determined to outlive this mf’er.
UGH, that photo of him making that stupid, bullshit “Kaso…kaso..kasowhat” face. He’s a lying POS, just like the fat nazi who nominated him.
I think he gets through the Senate process. Unfortunately. The only way he doesn’t is if Murkowski’s Alaskan First Nation funders get angry about Kavanaugh’s views, and make her life miserable. Maybe we need to figure out how to reach Alaskan First Nation Women to make some noise?
The news about the “look like a model” to get a clerk job from Kavanaugh (advised by the Yale professors) really angers me. So not only do you need to attend the “right” prep school, the “right” Ivy, the “right” law school, and belong to the “right” societies, you also need to have the “right” look. On top of all that, you need to look like a Tommy Hilfiger model / Pharma Sales Rep. But a *diverse* Tommy Hilfiger model / Big Pharma Sales Rep.
To quote Childish Gambino: This is America.
Link please? Or should I forego it so reading it doesn’t make my head explode? I am sick to death of this S#!+.