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Senator Jeff Merkley @SenJeffMerkley
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
The hearing from yesterday has caused many women from across the country to re-experience the trauma and terror of sexual assault and aggression in their past– with hundreds calling my office to share their stories.
Their lives were touched by sexual assault or aggression. Take seriously the experience Dr. Ford had, because it is an experience that is not too dissimilar to those experienced by friends, family, neighbors, coworkers in your lives.
I want all of those women who have called or are thinking about calling to know: You are being heard. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this nominee.
I can assure you that such aggressive and dehumanizing behavior should be a disqualifying factor for anyone proposed for to be nominated to a positon of service.
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More from @SenJeffMerkley see all

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Tonight, when @realDonaldTrump addresses the nation, let’s all remember that the only crisis on the border is the one he created by separating families, snatching kids from their parents, blocking refugees from legally seeking asylum and putting lives at risk.
Yesterday, I went to New Mexico with @RepTorresSmall, @JoaquinCastrotx , @RepEscobar, @RepJerryNadler, @davidcicilline, and members of the @HispanicCaucus to investigate the death of Felipe Alonzo-Gomez.
Felipe’s death is tragic, as is the death of 7-year-old Jakelin earlier in December. No child should ever die in American custody from insufficient medical care.
Read 8 tweets
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Everyone: this is a call to action to #ReleaseCristy – a young girl being held in detention.
Please demand that @ICEgov release “Cristy” and her mother from detention. “Cristy” is celebrating her Quinceanera - 15th birthday – today. #ReleaseCristy
We met with “Cristy’s” mom during our visit to the Dilley Family Internment Camp (officially the South Texas Family Residential Center) last week. #ReleaseCristy
Read 7 tweets
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I just left the tent city at Tornillo. It is a child prison camp. They refused our request to speak with the children who are held there.
The vast majority of these children have parents or other family members who are ready to sponsor them in the US, but the Trump Administration has deliberately created a bottleneck so that it’s difficult for the children to be released.
They’re also threatening to hand over any undocumented family members to ICE, discouraging sponsors from coming forward.
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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1/ (TW: sexual assault):

One reason many survivors do not report is b/c society has taught us to measure sexual assault w/ a ruler.

I'm going to talk about a couple of factors that have been empirically demonstrated to correlate w/ non-reporting. nyti.ms/2Cy0vgA
2/ After I was raped, I remember thinking that, despite all the evidence that I had been raped, it might not really be rape b/c I was not simultaneously threatened w/ murder.

I also thought it could not really be rape b/c, tho I was strangled, I was not beaten.
3/ These same doubts were echoed by some around me. For example, my boyfriend at the time told me that he had talked to another friend who had been raped. He said, "They broke two of her ribs, so what happened to her was *really* bad."
Read 22 tweets
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Survivors of sexual assault are delivering tearful speeches in Susan Collins’s Capitol office. One woman says this month is the first time she’s ever come close to talking about being assaulted.
Retired professor Elaine Johnson, 68, says her speech a few minutes ago in Collins’s office was the first time she’s spoken in a public setting about what happened to her as a child and teenager. Says she was inspired by Blasey Ford, says a Collins yes vote would be “crushing.”
Annabelle Rutledge of conservative Concerned Women for America walks in and says she’s also a sex assault survivor but “it’s terrifying to me” that her brothers or nephews could face unfounded allegations 36 years later. People are arguing with her. Quite a scene in an office.
Read 4 tweets
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That Bret Stephens column is the usual mix of bad faith double standards, slippery rhetoric, and calculated omissions
But there IS something clarifying in the meant-to-be startling revelation that, in this case, Bret Stephens Approves of Trump, which is that "a man is being accused of sexual assault" is the point at which #nevertrump becomes #actuallytrump
This, however, is the most stunning rhetorical move: three women who have are testifying have become--without the benefit of "corroboration"--an accumulation of hearsay.

I struggle for an interpretation that isn't "Women can't witness without someone vouching for them"
Read 9 tweets
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1. Woke up 3hrs too early, queasy and stressed. 2mins from now, we will likely be witness to a national misogynistic sham so deep and so blatant as to prove once and for all that the powerbrokers of US government do not believe women are human. #Kavanaugh #BelieveSurvivors #RAGE
2. I'll prob livetweet #Kavanaugh hearing, but I feel physically ill over how they've stacked the deck against #ChristinaBlaseyFord, ignored #JulieSwetnick's gang rape allegations, demonized #DeborahRamirez. How many more rapes will happen bec Trump &GOP brand claim women liars.
3. 0 reason other than corruption, misogyny, and partisanship for having no witnesses, no FBI investigation. Yet hypocrite Grassley, opens saying he wants a "Safe, comfortable, and dignified" hearing and a "show of civility"--then immediately misrepresents the issues. #Kavanaugh
Read 50 tweets
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1/ People who are framing this moment in history as a “test” of #Metoo are missing a number of fundamental points about the nature of the movement itself, its broader societal impact, &, indeed, how the modern GOP reacts to sexual assault.
2/ #MeToo isn’t being tested. It is showing its strength.

So many of us are not only unified in our outrage, we are talking about sexual assault more openly, & w/ more nuance, than ever before.

We are empowering one another.
3/ This isn’t a test of the #MeToo movement. It is the next stage.

If *anything* is being tested here, it is the GOP & its reaction to both the allegations & our outrage, as well as the party’s nefarious relationship w/ the issue of sexual assault.
Read 18 tweets
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Had a few guy coworkers crack jokes about Weinstein or harassment. Because it’s so funny to make light of the dangers OTHER PEOPLE face.
To some (and at best…), it’s funny because it’s theoretical and abstract and just stories that don’t touch them at all.
[TW sexual assault] They probably don’t know how many of the women around them, of their relatives etc. have been assaulted, harassed, etc.
Read 4 tweets

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