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.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
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