Christine Blasey Ford Honored in ACLU LA As Handmaids Protest Kavanaugh at Federalist Society

Christine Blasey Ford speaks at the ACLU of Southern California's Annual Bill of Rights Dinner in Beverly Hills on Nov. 17, 2019.Richard Shotwell / via NBC News

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, made a surprise and rare public appearance Sunday night at an event with the ACLU of Southern California in Beverly Hills.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was greeted by protesters dressed as the reproductive slaves in the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" while Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's Senate testimony was played on a large video screen outside the Federalist society venue. via Jennifer Bendery Twitter.

Ford, who famously accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of having sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, accepted the Rodger Baldwin Courage Award, saying that she had a responsibility to the nation to speak out about the alleged assault during a small party of teenagers in suburban Maryland in 1982. Ford explained that her knowledge of Anita Hill’s testimony against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas helped persuade her that she must step forward during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

"When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous. I was simply doing my duty as a citizen," she said. “I was simply doing my duty as a citizen, providing information to the Senate that I believed would be relevant to the Supreme Court nomination process. I thought anyone in my position, of course, would do the same thing.”

Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh has kept a low profile since his confirmation, rarely appearing in public. The judge addressed the Federalist Society, a conservative legal foundation, in Washington DC on Friday November 15. Kavanaugh was greeted by protesters dressed as the reproductive slaves in the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" while Ford's Senate testimony was played on a large video screen outside the venue.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was greeted by protesters dressed as the reproductive slaves in the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" while Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's Senate testimony was played on a large video screen outside the Federalist society venue. via Jennifer Bendery Twitter.

Who's For Burning It All Down? American Women Are Thinking About The French Revolution

I've been thinking and reading a lot about the French Revolution this past week. The willingness of the French to have both a carving of Lilith AND Eve with Adam on the Notre Dame Cathedral tells me not to be afraid.

Unlike John Ashcroft throwing a drape over Lady Justice's naked breast in the nation's capitol, the French have never covered up Adam, Lilith and Eve -- Adam's first wife but she was too bossy and stormed out of the Garden of Eden, refusing to submit to Adam.

So France survived the French Revolution. I haven't checked on the tiki torches or just how unruly the mobs became, but France survived -- white male superiority intact, but they did get rid of the king. Writer Maya Singer is on the same track, and she makes a lot of sense.

And this pondering of a burn it down revolution is written for Vogue magazine. VOGUE MAGAZINE IN AMERICA. Bob Dylan would be proud.

When Trump tells you all those college-educated white Republican women leaving the party are running home to take care of their men and male children after the Kavanaugh hearings, don't take the bite of this poison apple.

Educated Republican women can walk and chew gum at the same time. You know . . . womanly multitasking, brains firing on all cylinders.. . that sort of thing. I quote Maya Singer:

"If you’d asked me, before last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings with Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, where we were on the road to revolution, I’d have said we were somewhere around “the people are very mad but they’re working within the system.” As of today, I feel like the revolution could kick off any minute now, because with the vote to send Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the GOP (and Joe Manchin) have officially flipped us the bird.

When I say “us,” I mean all of us. Not just women. Not just Democrats. Standing by Brett Kavanaugh—a historically disliked nominee, with crappy poll numbers (even before Dr. Ford came forward with a credible allegation that he’d sexually assaulted her in their teens) who walked right up to the line of perjuring himself in his Senate testimony and exposed himself as a both a jerk and a partisan hack—was, make no mistake about it, a display of power. A president who badly lost the popular vote, abetted by 51 Senators who represent a mere 44 percent of Americans, rammed through their nominee just to show us they could. Trump and McConnell could have easily jettisoned Kavanaugh in favor of an equally conservative replacement; instead, fearful of looking weak, they stuck with him, not in spite of all the protest but because of it. God forbid they seem to entertain the concerns of their constituents, because then those constituents might think they have a claim on how this country is run, and who for.

Ask yourself: For whom, right now, is this country being run?"

Projection Artist Robin Bell Strikes Kavanaugh's DC Courthouse With Brutal Messages

Projection artist and activist Robin Bell has turned his highly-effective visual projections on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, targeting his federal courthouse in DC with interchanging slogans: ‘Brett Kavanaugh Is A Sexual Predator’, ‘Brett Kavanaugh Lied Every Time He Testified’, ‘Brett Kavanaugh Must Withdraw’, and ‘#Believe Survivors’.

Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee has been accused of a sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, allegations he has denied. The two will appear in front of the Senate Judicial Committee on Thursday. On Wednesday, another woman, Julie Swetnick, walked into the national spotlight, claiming that Kavanaugh had been present while she was gang raped in 1982. And on Wednesday evening, a fourth anonymous, but highly-detailed charge against Kavanaugh was revealed.

On Tuesday night, Bell pulled up in front of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States courthouse in a specially modified light projection van, beaming his message onto the facade of Kavanaugh’s workplace in an effort to highlight the allegations against the nominee and create a public shaming against the Supreme Court nominee. The guerrilla intervention was a collaboration with the women’s advocacy group Ultra Violet.

“It was good to be able to help amplify other people’s voices on this one,” Bell told artnet News in a call. “We made a statement that we believe survivors, that this is who this person is, and that we’re going to go to where he works and project it on the building. It’s somewhat cathartic.”

“I’ve been getting a lot of messages and I can tell you [the projection] really helped people who feel hurt right now and are trying to not allow someone like Kavanaugh to be in power, to continue to be in power, and get to the Supreme Court,” Bell continued.

SC Nominee Brett Kavanaugh & Accuser Christine Blasey Ford To Testify Sept. 26

The announcement that accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford have both been invited to testify under oath in a public hearing next Monday ended a day of Senate Republican leaders projecting defiance on calls to slow down the confirmation process.

Dr. Ford has accused Judge Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a house party when he was 17 and she 15. Ford charges that a “stumbling drunk” Kavanaugh attacked her, with his friend Mark Judge present, when she went upstairs to go to the bathroom. According to Ford, Kavanaugh then jumped on top of her, tried to take her clothes off, and when she tried to scream, put his hand over her mouth and turned up the music. She said was able to free herself when Judge jumped on the bed, too, sending the three tumbling, giving her a chance to run into the bathroom and lock the door.

Blasey Ford took and passed a professionally administered polygraph test, administered by a retired FBI agent.

The hearing with Judge Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, sets up a potentially explosive public showdown, stirring up painful to women memories of the 1991 testimony of Anita Hill, who accused the future Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Next Monday’s hearing will play against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and countless sexual harassment and sexual assault accusations against Donald Trump. His presidency has fired up Democratic women across the nation in massive civic actions and unheard of numbers of women running for political offices at every level in every state.

In an article by her friends in tonight’s The Mercury News, the headline reads #MeToo spurred Christine Blasey Ford to open up. . .

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was a key force in ending the misguided perceptions among Republican white men leaders that the scheduled vote by the judiciary committee would still happen on Thursday. Or that the hearing would somehow not be public.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), a senior member of the judiciary committee, told reporters Monday morning that a hearing was out of the question, calling it a  “show trial.” But after a meeting with Collins in her office, it became clear that his position was no longer untenable, writes The Daily Beast.

“I have said that in order for me to assess the credibility of these allegations that I want to have both individuals come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and testify under oath,” Collins told reporters Monday afternoon.

Collins won; Cornyn lost. And Collins was joined shortly after by her close associate, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, another pro-choice Republican woman.

Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), made it clear Sunday evening that he would not support Kavanaugh without Blasey Ford publicly telling her story.

“Obviously these are serious charges,” Flake, who sits on the judiciary committee, told reporters. “And if they're true, I think they're disqualifying.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday night that he also found believable testimony from Blase Ford the end of Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Today there are no female Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, but there are four Democratic women, including ranking member Dianne Feinstein, who was elected the year after the Hill-Thomas hearings, in what came to be known as "The Year of the Woman."

Both Sen. Collins and Murkowski are more moderate than most Republican senators. They definitely hold the keys to Brett Kavanaugh’s future, but we shouldn’t assume that other Republican men won’t be persuaded to vote down the nomination.

No one is guaranteed a seat on the US Supreme Court.