Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial ascent to the Supreme Court has been difficult for many women, particularly those who have endured sexual assault. But any survivors who are struggling in the wake of the confirmation now have one new and unexpected resource to turn to: Brettkavanaugh.com.
According to reports, the website launched the same day Kavanaugh was sworn in through the efforts of Fix The Court, a non-partisan organization that advocates for increased transparency and honesty within the Supreme Court. The site consists of a simple landing page that includes multiple links to different groups specializing in helping sexual assault victims, and they include the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, End Rape On Campus, and the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
“The start of Brett Kavanaugh’s tenure on the Supreme Court may look like a victory for one interest group or another,” the website reads. “But, more importantly, it is putting a national focus on the issue of sexual assault – and how we as a country can and should do more to prevent it and to support those who have experienced it. This past month, thousands of survivors came forward to tell their stories. We applaud your bravery. We believe you.”
In a statement on its website, Fix The Court executive director Gabe Roth explained that three years ago, he bought a handful of URLs that related to possible Supreme Court nominees. One of these was BrettKavanaugh.com. He also secured BrettKavanaugh.org and BrettKavanaugh.org, which now redirect back to the Brett Kavanaugh landing page.
“I believe Dr. Ford. I believe Prof. Hill. I also believe that asking for forgiveness is a sign of maturity and strength, not weakness,” Roth wrote.
Roth also referred to a divisive public ceremony that the White House held for Kavanaugh on Monday, during which President Donald Trump apologized on behalf of the nation for “pain and suffering” that the new justice been forced to endure” after several women, including Christine Blasey Ford, accused him of sexual misconduct.
“Watching last night’s White House event and listening to the President again cast doubt on veracity of Dr. Ford’s claims, while not hearing a word of contrition from the newest justice, was difficult for many Americans who have experienced sexual misconduct firsthand,” Roth said in his statement. “Fix the Court stands with you. We believe you, and we support you. And if you seek additional resources, you can go to BrettKavanaugh.com.”
The devil works fast, but Saturday Night Live works faster: Somehow, between the close of the final Senate vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation around 4:15 P.M. ET on Saturday and the airing of the show less than seven hours later, the writers room managed to come up with a cold open that imagined how Senate Republicans must be celebrating Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
In the skit, GOP senators are cracking open cold brewskis in tribute to Kavanaugh, who mentioned beer no fewer than 30 times in his Senate hearing following Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s powerful allegations of sexual assault. The atmosphere? Full-on “locker room” vibes.
“Republicans read the mood of the country, and we could tell that people really wanted Kavanaugh,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Beck Bennett) told CNN reporter Dana Bash (Heidi Gardner). “Everyone’s pumped, from white men over 60 to white men over 70.”
Kate McKinnon also reprised an appearance as Sen. Lindsay Graham. When Bash asked how he felt about the vote, Graham had an ecstatic response: “How amazing is this? We made a lot of women real worried today, but I’m not getting pregnant so I don’t care,” he said as “This Is How We Do It” pulsed in the background.
“We couldn’t have done it without Susan Collins,” Graham continued, referring to Republican Sen. Collins’ pledge to vote yes on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. “Susie, get over here!”
“The last thing I wanted was to make this about me,” Sen. Collins (Cecily Strong) tells Bash. “That’s why I told everyone to tune in at 3 P.M. so I could tell all my female supporters, ‘Psyche!'”
Bash questioned if she thought there was any credit to Dr. Blasey Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh.
“Listen, I think it’s important to believe women, until it’s time to stop,” she said as Sen. Graham made bunny fingers behind Bash’s head. “I’m a guy’s gal, OK? I can party with the big dogs and, whoop whoop, we’re gonna have fun tonight…. Now we’re gonna party like it’s 2020 when Susan Rice takes my seat.”
Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, had tweeted “Me” when Jen Psaki asked who would run for Senate in Maine in 2020, indicating she’s open to running.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed on Saturday as the 114th U.S. Supreme Court Justice. The final vote was the conclusion of a weeks-long process of primary confirmation votes, hearings, and powerful testimony—particularly the testimony delivered by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault and took her allegations to the Senate floor, where she unflinchingly and bravely detailed her account to the judiciary committee.
During the confirmation vote Saturday afternoon, protestors could be heard screaming and shouting from the public gallery, with cries of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “I do not consent!” Thousands of other protestors surrounded the Supreme Court Building and U.S. Capitol.
Twitter users, of course, took to the platform to express their feelings after Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote on Saturday.
And finally, there was one strong message that shone through: “November is coming.” Kavanaugh’s confirmation—and nomination—seems to have raised awareness that voting in the upcoming midterm elections is more important than ever.
During a grueling eight-hour hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford detailed the alleged assault she faced at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh while both were in high school, opened up about moving out of her home because of the death threats she’s received, and even managed to explain how the hippocampus works.
And what did Supreme Court judge nominee Brett Kavanaugh discuss when he finally took the stand? Beer, mostly. How he really, really, really likes it. So much so that he brought it up over 30 times during his testimony, according to a Buzzfeed count.
When we were first introduced to Kavanaugh, he was touted as a boy scout of sorts. A family man. A Christian. A virgin. But the version we met on Thursday was a beer-drinking, fun-loving guy, as Kavanaugh described his younger self (around the time of Ford‘s reported attack) as just a typical boy who loved basketball, getting good grades, and going to the occasional party.
As he put it, “I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did.”
“Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer. But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out, and I never sexually assaulted anyone.” Meaning, he was just a boy being a boy, doing boyish things—nothing more.
Driving home his preference for ales over harder liquors could have been a device to downplay the allegations that Kavanaugh was known as a heavy drinker. A college friend of his, Liz Swisher, recently told The Washington Post that “Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling. There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out.… But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.”
How could the allegations against him be viable, if he was only casually drinking brewskis with his bros? is what Kavanaugh could have been hoping we’d wonder. Well, if he spends anywhere close to the amount of time he talks about beer actually drinking the damn beverage, let’s just say gravity wouldn’t be his friend.
But regardless of Kavanaugh’s motives—there’s one thing we can actually all agree on: Kavanaugh f*cking loves beer!
So in this spirit of bipartisan agreement, we’ve compiled a list—without comment—of the top 10 times Kavanaugh spoke about his beloved drink of choice while testifying:
1. “Listen to the people I’ve grown up with, and worked with, and played with, and coached with, and dated, and taught, and gone to games with, and had beers with.”
2. “When I was in town, I spent much of my time working, working out, lifting weights, playing basketball, or hanging out and having some beers with friends as we talked about life, and football, and school and girls.”
3. “The calendars show a few weekday gatherings at friends’ houses after a workout or just to meet up and have some beers.”
8. “Anyone who’s known me like a lot of these people behind me, have known me my whole life, know, you know, I got a weak stomach, whether it’s with beer or with spicy food or anything.”
9. “I like beer. I don’t know if you do. Do you like beer, Senator, or not? What do you like to drink?”
10. “No…. We drank beer and…so did, I think, the vast majority of people our age at the time. In any event, we drank beer and still do, so, whatever, yeah,”
Ah. Boys will be boys. Enjoy your beers this weekend.
Christine Blasey Ford, a professor, mother, and former childhood acquaintance of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. There, she will recount her side of the story for Senators, and the world at large, sharing in great detail the night she says Kavanaugh assaulted her.
Ford’s prepared opening remarks were released Wednesday, in which she shared just how deeply the alleged event from 1982 affected the rest of her life.
“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” Ford wrote. She explained how she and Kavanaugh attended nearby schools—hers an all-girls academy and his an all-boys. Their social circles intersected. As she recounted, they weren’t quite friends but knew of one another well enough. But, in the summer of 1982 their worlds would collide, and for Ford, Kavanaugh would from then on become an ever-present figure in her memory.
“One evening that summer, after a day of swimming at the club, I attended a small gathering at a house in the Chevy Chase/Bethesda area. There were four boys I remember being there: Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and one other boy whose name I cannot recall,” she wrote. When Blasey Ford walked in, Kavanaugh and Judge were already visibly drunk. She had only one beer throughout the night.
When she made her way up the stairs to the second floor of the house to use the bathroom, that’s when Blasey Ford said the attack began.
“I was pushed from behind into a bedroom. I couldn’t see who pushed me. Brett and Mark came into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. There was music already playing in the bedroom. It was turned up louder by either Brettor Mark once we were in the room,” she wrote. “I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. “
From there, she alleges that Kavanaugh attempted to take off her clothes, but had trouble due to his intoxication and the fact that she was wearing a one-piece bathing suit.
“I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hardfor me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me,” she said.
During the assault, she writes, Judge jumped on the bed, which made all three of them tumble over. That, Ford wrote, was the moment she escaped. From there, she ran into the bathroom and locked the door until the boys left. She then ran down the stairs and out the door. As she explained, she has thought of that event frequently as it was “seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult.”
In the remarks, Ford explained how she tried every avenue available to her to warn the committee about Kavanaugh and her allegations against him. She first called and met with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and her staff, and finally sent a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein promised to keep the letter confidential, but it soon leaked, prompting Ford to tell her story herself, which she did to the Washington Post earlier this month.
Her testimony, along with the answers to questioning will be heard in full on Thursday. They will also be heard alongside Kavanaugh’s own testimony. The conservative judge released his prepared remarks, which read in part, “There has been a frenzy to come up with something — anything, no matter how far-fetched or odious — that will block a vote on my nomination,” adding he unequivocally denies the claims brought by Ford.
However, she won’t be the last woman he has to answer for. Since Ford came forward, two more women have joined in with their own accusations against him. On Wednesday, Julie Swetnick, a woman who also knew Kavanaugh in high school, alleged that Kavanaugh and Judge were both present at a party where she was drugged and “gang raped.” A third accuser, Deborah Ramirez, is a former Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh’s. As she explained to The New Yorker, Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in college and “thrust his penis in her face,” causing her to “touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”
Still, none of these accusations against Kavanaugh will stop him from pursuing the highest court in the land. As he will tell the committee tomorrow, “The efforts to destroy my good name will not drive me out.”
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids, so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Did everybody you encountered on Thursday seem a little more energized than usual? Did your boss whistle on her way to her desk? Did you spot your UPS delivery man dancing down the street with a package? Did even your dog seem to trot with a little more pride, perhaps forgoing her typical shame-eyes while she watched you pick up her poop?
That’s because all of them saw Senator Cory Booker (D—New Jersey) lean over his mic at the Kavanaugh hearings and utter two words in response to Senator John Cornyn’s (R—Texas) threat to have him expelled from the Senate for leaking committee-confidential emails.
“Bring it,” Sen. Booker said. “Bring it.”
Somehow the day managed to have a perfectly bitchy tension, kind of like when you rent a house with friends and the trip goes on one day longer than it should.
It was a hell of a kickoff—and a fitting one. Day Three, given that we watched the same people open their mouths, over and over, should have had all the thrill of a slowly deflating balloon. And if we’re honest, it wasn’t some great success. Both Democrats and Republicans spent much of the session launching valiant attempts to get Kavanaugh to promise he isn’t beholden to the president and that he wouldn’t thwart investigations into him. Kavanaugh’s response to their 600 efforts? Guys, stop! I hate labels—“yes” and “no” are so limiting. Let’s talk about something else—have I mentioned my “four greatest moments in the history of the Supreme Court?” Oh, I have, and it’s really pissing you off that I’m saying it again? Shh—gonna do it anyway!
Yet somehow the day managed to have a perfectly bitchy tension, kind of like when you rent a house with friends and the trip goes on one day longer than it should have and you’re like, Wait, I think I hate my friends. That’s where we’re at. Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii) is glaring at Kavanaugh like he’s the guy who picked the house but hasn’t paid his share yet. Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) is grumbling about protestors like they’re the loud new boyfriend no one knew was coming. And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D—Rhode Island) jaw is vibrating with that brand of fury specific to no one else but him ever taking out the goddamn trash.
Here’s your rundown of the best moments from the worst vacation ever.
Best 11th-hour sensation: Senator Kamala Harris (D—Calif.)
PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla
A mood.
Before we get to Day Three’s events, we need to talk about what happened at the end of Day Two—at least an hour after most of America had retreated from C-SPAN and rushed into the kinder arms of America’s Got Talent. As the eve wore on, Kavanaugh, too, looked like he was dreaming of getting home to his couch and his DVR pileup (Mentalist reruns in standard definition, I’d bet). Perhaps he was a little tired, and so he didn’t hear the bell ring when Sen. Harris took the mic. But soon enough, he realized: Night school was in session. She hammered him—watch the highlights here.
Fiercest ride-or-dies: Sen. Booker, Senator Dick Durbin (D—Illinois) and Sen. Hirono. After Sen. Booker’s “Bring it,” Sen. Hirono pointed out that she, too, leaked documents—come at her. And Sen. Durbin got all excited and said, “If there’s going to be some retribution against the gentleman from New Jersey, count me in.” Kinda love that Sen. Durbin’s rallying cry works equally well for Senate proceedings in 2018 and publick-house brawls in 1772.
Loudest dog whistle: In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz (R—Texas), Kavanaugh used the term “abortion-inducing drugs” to refer to contraception. The language comes straight from the fiercest anti-choice advocates and is also inaccurate. Contraception is not abortion, signed millions of American women and all of our doctors.
Worst reverse age-shaming: Kavanaugh on Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of EducationSenator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.) voiced the question that’s been making heads across America hurt this week: How does Kavanaugh define the difference between precedent and settled law when it comes to Supreme Court cases? In his answer, Kavanaugh said that Brown v. Board of Education is settled law because it’s “historical”—64 years old. Sen. Klobuchar grinned. “Roe is now 45 years old,” she said. “Why isn’t that a thumbs-up settled law?” Kavanaugh didn’t have a good answer for her.
Hypocrisy slay of the day: Sen. Hirono. Sen. Hirono, once again running low on f—s, went in on Kavanaugh’s record concerning reproductive rights, making the man wish he never met the phrase “undue burden.” See, in one case Kavanaugh ruled on, he said that people who opposed birth control on religious grounds shouldn’t have to fill out a form approving their employees’ health coverage of it. That, in his estimation, was “undue burden.” The phrase came up again in Garza v. Hargan, in which Kavanaugh’s decision sought to deny an immigrant minor an abortion. Kavanaugh wanted the procedure delayed until the girl found foster parents who could talk it through with her—letting her pregnancy tick on towards the 20-week deadline for abortions under Texas law. That delay, he argued then, did not constitute “undue burden.” Sen. Hirono scoffed at the irony laid out by the two cases: “So filling out a two-page form was too much,” she said. “But it was not too much for [Jane Doe] to wait around for foster parents to be found.”
Best circus advocate: Senator Lindsay Graham (R—South Carolina).
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
Send in the clowns.
After Sen. Hatch mumbled that the proceedings had turned into “a circus,” Sen. Graham quipped, “I wanna defend circuses. Circuses are entertaining and you can take your children to them.” An excellent line, but I wasn’t surprised—the last 18 months have afforded Sen. Graham plenty of chances to defend a clown.
Guy we’re most done with: Senator John Kennedy (R—Louisiana). Of all the whining the Republicans have done this week about protestors exercising free speech, Sen. Kennedy’s has been the whiniest. After Kavanaugh himself said, in the wake of a protestor’s shouting, that the students behind him were getting a chance to learn about democracy, Sen. Kennedy—who’s a dead ringer for this choir-boy doll my grandmother used to put out at Christmas, though that’s neither here nor there—looked down at the girls and snooted of the interruption, “It’s happened over 200 times in the last three days. It’s not really how democracy’s supposed to work.” Actually, girls, it is. If democracy needs less of anything, it’s old white guys looking down from on high, telling you what to think.
The detective drama spinoff I’d most like to watch:Klobuchouse.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Nothing but respect for my Law & Order candidate.
She—Sen. Klobuchar is the unflappable good cop, smiling with catlike calm when a suspect spits her questions back in her face. He—Sen. Whitehouse—is the keyed-up bad cop, a cross between Statler from The Muppets and that one snappish teacher from high school who, looking back, probably had some stuff going on at home. They’re good cops on their own—but together, they’re great.
