They are all beautiful ladies. When I read the accounts of Dr. Ford and the others what comes through is their inability to leave these incidents behind. Decades later, Dr. Ford continued to discuss the incident with Kavanaugh with friends in tears. There was even couples therapy.
The sexual assaults of women reach into the core of their being, into their survival memories. This is not a minor attack or a minor crime. Altered states of consciousness that are reported by many college women due to exactly what occurred with Ms. Swetnick; spiked drinks. These drinks do not cause memory loss but instead recurrent demands to remember moments of the assault to validate the reality of awakening to evidence of being assaulted. All the shame and worry are there that become an emotional scar. These behaviors by men are not about male bonding, it is about assault that never leaves a woman's soul.
People want to pass the attacks off as male bonding. Male bonding is about hunkering down as a sports fan, playing on a ball team, sharing hunting moments with friends and laughing off awkward moments when dates become their own embarrassments as a nervous arm around a girlfriend in a movie theater turns into a lap full of popcorn and cold ice in his lap.
Male bonding does not include drugging women or drinking games that turn into sexual assault. Those instances are carried out by men, young or old, that believe they are impervious to crime and ridicule. They enjoy the sex enough to call a woman a whore, witch or bitch because she wasn't quite as intoxicated as believed and can recall the incident to friends even decades later.
Today, Dr. Ford is wracked with worry about the fact Mr. Kavanaugh has lived a life of no regret while her conscience cannot find relief from the assault she sustained. She is worried, not just herself, but a country of women that will fall under his judgement and their lives will be changed forever. More than a decade ago when she confided in a friend she was aware of the fact Kavanaugh was a judge that carried considerable power within the judiciary already. That is a woman aware of her own assault as well as the the lack of justice she has sustained.
It is wrong for the US Senate Judiciary Committee to close hearings and FBI investigations while wonderful American women want to be heard. There is a reason they want to be heard and it requires bravery and conscience. In the year 2018 an American woman has to be brave to tell the truth about a man they are concerned will never act to benefit other women, but, only to victimize them for the legal choices they will no longer be able to make.
The US Senate Committee still has a lot of work to do on this nominee, by a President that also has little respect for women. It appears Republican politics are too scared of the truth to carry out a thorough investigation and a full throated reporting of the truth.
I admire everyone of these women and wish them well. Unfortunately, being brave sometimes means leaving home in order to be safe from threats of violence and a secure future. For that reality, I apologize.
September 26, 2018
The sexual assaults of women reach into the core of their being, into their survival memories. This is not a minor attack or a minor crime. Altered states of consciousness that are reported by many college women due to exactly what occurred with Ms. Swetnick; spiked drinks. These drinks do not cause memory loss but instead recurrent demands to remember moments of the assault to validate the reality of awakening to evidence of being assaulted. All the shame and worry are there that become an emotional scar. These behaviors by men are not about male bonding, it is about assault that never leaves a woman's soul.
People want to pass the attacks off as male bonding. Male bonding is about hunkering down as a sports fan, playing on a ball team, sharing hunting moments with friends and laughing off awkward moments when dates become their own embarrassments as a nervous arm around a girlfriend in a movie theater turns into a lap full of popcorn and cold ice in his lap.
Male bonding does not include drugging women or drinking games that turn into sexual assault. Those instances are carried out by men, young or old, that believe they are impervious to crime and ridicule. They enjoy the sex enough to call a woman a whore, witch or bitch because she wasn't quite as intoxicated as believed and can recall the incident to friends even decades later.
Today, Dr. Ford is wracked with worry about the fact Mr. Kavanaugh has lived a life of no regret while her conscience cannot find relief from the assault she sustained. She is worried, not just herself, but a country of women that will fall under his judgement and their lives will be changed forever. More than a decade ago when she confided in a friend she was aware of the fact Kavanaugh was a judge that carried considerable power within the judiciary already. That is a woman aware of her own assault as well as the the lack of justice she has sustained.
It is wrong for the US Senate Judiciary Committee to close hearings and FBI investigations while wonderful American women want to be heard. There is a reason they want to be heard and it requires bravery and conscience. In the year 2018 an American woman has to be brave to tell the truth about a man they are concerned will never act to benefit other women, but, only to victimize them for the legal choices they will no longer be able to make.
The US Senate Committee still has a lot of work to do on this nominee, by a President that also has little respect for women. It appears Republican politics are too scared of the truth to carry out a thorough investigation and a full throated reporting of the truth.
I admire everyone of these women and wish them well. Unfortunately, being brave sometimes means leaving home in order to be safe from threats of violence and a secure future. For that reality, I apologize.
September 26, 2018
By Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger
The lawyer Michael Avenatti on Wednesday (click here) identified another accuser of Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh, Washington resident Julie Swetnick.
Swetnick, in an affidavit posted online by Avenatti, claims that Kavanaugh, as a high school student in the early 1980s, with others spiked the drinks of girls at house parties with grain alcohol and/or drugs to "cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No.' "
Swetnick said these efforts by Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge were done so the girls "could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys." She said "I became the victim" of one such rape "where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present."...
...The woman, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh was in line with other boys, including his close friend Mark Judge, waiting to rape those girls at "many" parties, and that she once became a victim herself. The allegations were detailed in an affidavit released by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Swetnick's stunning claims, made on the eve of a Senate committee hearing for Kavanaugh and another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, came in an affidavit to a Senate staffer that was released by her lawyer. Ford claims Kavanuagh held her down on a bed and groped her during a gathering in the 1980s while another boy watched....
...The woman, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh was in line with other boys, including his close friend Mark Judge, waiting to rape those girls at "many" parties, and that she once became a victim herself. The allegations were detailed in an affidavit released by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Swetnick's stunning claims, made on the eve of a Senate committee hearing for Kavanaugh and another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, came in an affidavit to a Senate staffer that was released by her lawyer. Ford claims Kavanuagh held her down on a bed and groped her during a gathering in the 1980s while another boy watched....
