“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.” And with that, President Trump threw off his restraints and attacked Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser by name amid negotiations for hearing. (In fairness, few people have had more direct interaction with sexual assault victims than Donald Trump)

+ “What’s surfacing in these comments is something that has, up until now, mostly been dodged, or left unspoken: that it has traditionally been accepted for men to sexually assault women, particularly at parties, particularly when they’re young. But the fact that this behavior has been tacitly understood as permissible does not mean that people—even while young, even while drunk at parties—have understood it to be O.K.” The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino on the notion that sexual assault isn’t a big deal.

+ Meanwhile, the negotiations over when hearings will happen are ongoing. As is political maneuvering. Here’s the latest from CNN.