Joe Biden---sexual assault?

This guy is just a terrible candidate. He's running on the past and his past record sucks--almost nothing looking towards the future. His party had to step in to save his ass. He has no grass roots enthusiasm. He can't talk for longer than 5 minutes without making a huge gaffe or losing his focus--maybe a step away from an assisted living home. He's not out in public because his handlers know it's better to keep him out of the light and as quiet as possible and let Trump self destruct on his own.

But now we have this too---and I think Tara Reade is pretty credible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmVUQ7ii3_4

What the fuck? This guy's fucking horrible.

It's certainly being exploited by the Sanders campaign on social media (breathlessly). Could be true. Could be "her emails" all over again.

After Biden didn't fall down during the last debate or show full blown dementia, and trounced Bernie by 40% in Florida, it's pretty much time for throwing everything up against the wall. Will it stick? Will it rebound on Sanders (he's got his own sexual harassment problems from 2016 available for media recall)?

Time will tell.

Otherwise, what I find interesting about Sanders and Trump: many of their attacks on Biden are self-referential.

#2--there is an element of who knows and apparently the event was played down to harassment in her original complaint--that makes me think there really is something and she talks about how she looked up to him. It was also the 90's though and almost all the stigma was attached to the victim back then and women were much more reluctant to come forward at all. Tara though seems very believable to me. I would also point out his touchy feely behavior and the sometimes creepy remarks he's been prone to make and Sanders isn't the problem--it's clear he's not going to be the nominee.

This is going to be used against Biden by Trump. Burisma is there and now this is there and even if Trump is a sexual predator himself his base don't care about that.

>2 theoria:

Why the animus against Sanders? Is it only because of the potential vote drain?

I see Sanders fighting in the Senate like a dragonslayer. Meanwhile, Creepy Joe is, what, biding his time, trying to stay alive it seems...

Hmm, I don't recall anything about sexual harassment and Sanders, which seems odd as I think I would have had to have heard about it. What's the story?

I have to say, at this point, if Americans can dig up someone who at least has not actually raped someone, take that one, please and thank you.

#4--there was some weird story that Sanders wrote once---but that was like just out of college pre-Burlington Vt. mayor. Sanders strikes me as the kind of person with a really gruff exterior who is not touchy feely at all. To me that's a good thing.

>5 lriley:

No, that article thing I remember and that was a completely made-up scandal, rightwing bullshit distortion attempt, just ludicrously weak.

There's a discussion about that somewhere around here already.

Is that it? So, nothing.

Ya, the only thing against bernie is a poorly-worded but earnest and thoughtful attempt at a feminist essay from more than 30 yrs ago.

at this point i realize sanders isnt going to be the nominee; but for the purpose of consciousness raising for ongoing political action/organizing, i think its important to drive home to borderline-apathetic democrats and independents what a useless creepy centrist biden is, what an elitist and incompetent sham of an organization the dnc is, and how esp. with hindsight bernie's message will only grow more potent and compelling with time

(and that moreover bernie is merely a messenger; the message doesnt belong to him; it belongs to the ppl)

#6--that's pretty much it.

#7--how you treat others in your life (including people who work for you) is actually pretty important......and for democrats you don't really get to higher ground pointing out Trump's sexual predatory behavior when the guy you have running against him kind of has predatory stuff too nor if you have a partisan history of defending others in your party who have similar.

I have an idea we're not going to get much of an explanatory answer out of Joe either which he really needs to do.

Right-wingers, like their mascot the elephant, have long memories. They will never forget the serial rapist Bill Clinton and the many women who testified against him, all disbelieved by his supporters - Democrats - who all believed winning was more important than objectively opposing ALL abuse of the distaff sex.

Thus right-wingers feel free to ignore all charges against trump and to believe any and all charges made against Democrats, Biden, Sanders or whomever.

You reap what you sow. Chickens coming home to roost. Hypocrisy is its own reward.

tu quoque, motherfuckers.

Arwa Mahdawi has as good (and cynical) a comment as I suppose one could make on this dead-end, unwinnable argument. I've underlined what I think is the most important takeaway message, whatever one thinks about or happens with Reade, Biden etc.

Why has the media ignored sexual assault allegations against Biden?

... Reade’s story may be impossible to verify, but this is the case with the vast majority of sexual assault allegations. It is nearly always a case of “he said, she said” – and it is nearly always the “he’ that is automatically believed. The #MeToo mantra “Believe Women” doesn’t mean that women never lie; it means that our systems of power are biased towards believing men never lie. It means that it takes decades of allegations and scores of women coming forward for powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby to be brought to justice. All the mantra means is that you shouldn’t automatically disbelieve women.
...

There are some people who will insist that drawing attention to the new allegations against Biden is playing into the Republicans’ hands. That it will destroy Biden’s campaign and guarantee us four more years of Trump. Not only is that argument hypocritical, it is also hugely unlikely that Reade’s accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden’s ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven’t posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn’t stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn’t kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven’t exactly derailed his career.

>11 LolaWalser: I read that Mahdawi piece, and I agree with her, but one of the thoughts that struck me was that like Biden's plagiarism charge that drove him from the race in I think 1987, the Democrat establishment also knows about the rape charges, yet most important to both men and women of the oligarchy that are on the Democrat 'side' it's more important to prevent Sanders and what he represents to gain a national foothold in the US than to support any cause that entails an intellectual-moral stance. In other words, if anything, the situation in the US is even worse than Mahdawi suggests.

#12--I think that is exactly right. The democratic party would rather be complicit with a sexual assault crime than to get behind a growing movement within its own ranks to fundamentally change how it operates. They'd even rather lose the 2020 election by getting behind a weak candidate than change.

I think we can be certain of two things: 1. no one gives a damn about sexual injustice until/unless it serves their goals to pretend it does 2. yeah, to the Dems no less than the Republicans even a rightwing maniac is preferable to a run-of-the-mill (out in the sane world) social democrat.

>14 LolaWalser: see the current struggle of abortion clinics to remain open, to be considered essential, during the covid-19 crisis.

It's curious to me that this had died down and maybe it's just the coronavirus epidemic that's taken all the airspace. As far as I know there has been no response to this allegation from Biden or his campaign. True he's been hiding away in a basement or a bunker for some time even before this came out and only occasionally skyping from his cellar to some friendly media figure. It's not like he's being pressed on it at all.

Trump has proven over and over and every day of his presidency that he's not fit for the office he holds. Biden isn't nearly as bad but he's not fit for it either. The democratic party needs to find someone else and fast.

The Willie Horton party hounded B. Kavanaugh over a rigged hoax and now they're going to line up and vote for Biden.

> 17

Proving the point I made in my previous post - that the Democrats have created a world wherein everyone is free to believe or disbelieve the woman/women in any particular case.

I.e, feminists didn't care if Bill Clinton molested and raped dozens so why should repubs believe any woman making a charge against a repub?

It is all just partisan politics at its worst. Rape apparently does not count if it is YOUR guy doing the raping.

Sick and pathetic.

>17 Kuiperdolin: Maybe. I mean, it's true that it's ugly--and very stupid--that Democrats give Clinton a pass, and that they would rather throw Biden up for laughs/votes over someone who they think threatens their oligarchy, but none of that necessarily leads to the scavenged mind that comes up with something so leprous as this: "The Willie Horton party hounded B. Kavanaugh over a rigged hoax and now they're going to line up and vote for Biden."

#-19--My guess is that Kuiper is a Le Pen fan and in this case just an opportunist and a provocateur and rather than engage I prefer when possible to ignore him. That said it's true that the Democratic party went after Kavanagh and he more than deserved it. Now we have collective silence on Joe Biden. Well the previous month they went all in to make him their nominee when they saw he was pretty much down and out.

Why the Democratic Party has gone all in behind Biden is curious to me. He and his campaign have been silent for weeks. We haven't seen him give long speeches at all almost the entire campaign. He continually has been caught making unbelievable gaffes or verbally attacking voters. Mumbling incoherently--ending up all over the map when questioned on policy or some past vote or just shutting down groping for words like he's forgotten where he is.

And he has a history of crap policy--he has Anita Hill and the crime bill---he votes for war--he votes for banks and credit card companies. He loves some of his republican colleagues. He never was 'Working Class Joe'---he never had a working class job. He's more like good ol' get along Joe whose spiel seems to be he'll take us all back in the past to better times. He's against M4A--he has never shown any serious commitment to climate change and young people aren't going to be knocking on doors for him--there is no real enthusiasm for him. His campaign spiel is pretty much 'Vote for me. I'm not Trump' and it's like the Democratic Party thinks that's good enough.

I found Reade's accusation very believable. Biden is going to get attacked on Burisma and he'll get attacked for this too. Trump's base will stay with him--they don't care if Trump has raped a thousand women really it's not going to change their minds and this accusation is going to be used in an equivalent kind of way as Biden's done the same thing. Biden and his campaign looks to me incapable of countering that. They seem on their heels on the Burisma thing. He's morally compromised and incapable of defending himself. He wants to be POTUS but throughout this pandemic catastrophe he and his campaign have been invisible. The wind is out of the Democratic Party's sails at this point in time and their would be captain is almost to the point where he's more a danger to himself from tripping over his own shoelaces than he is to anyone else.

It has to be as simple as the fact that had they found out no other centrist could beat Sanders. I think the real shame is Sanders and Warren not coming together early enough that they had a real chance. When she saw her totals were low she should have made a deal for VP with Sanders and made those fuckers beat the two of them.
Here is a list for you:
Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, H. Clinton. That's hardly a 'presidential' lineup.

#21--my theory on this and it may be shit but Warren is a numbers person and Sanders is a make it happen person and I think Warren's campaign lost the plot over medicare for all. She was for it--then was challenged to justify the expenditures needed to bring it about and after she moved away from it and her campaign moved generally on a host of issues towards more centrist positions.

I'm kind of like Sanders--fuck the costs because for one thing I believe it will (in several years time at least) pay for itself in streamlining administrative costs, wiping out health premiums and savings from negotiating drug prices down--a net benefit for taxpayers as well as corporations who won't have to pay overhead insurance costs. There are many other benefits as well. But here's the other thing--both republican and democrat politicians mock and laugh at it all the time---they have no explanation however why it works in other parts of the world except I guess the 'we're different here' explanation. They also had no problem giving the wealthy and corporations a trillion dollar tax cut just last year and then we get all their bullshit 'how you gonna pay for it?' Nor do they have a problem finding trillions when it comes to overseas military adventurism. Nor do they have a problem paying for a 1000+ military bases in foreign countries around the globe. The money is there----it comes down to the choices we decide to make. M4A is very doable. What's standing in the way are the clowns in DC and their large donors.

To me when Warren decided to work out the numbers she was looking at this like a typical democratic party technocrat and that was a fatal mistake. She lost the left right there. Fuck worrying over the numbers. It can be made to work.

So this has kind of become a catch and kill story and a smearing of an inconvenient accuser of the would be Democratic nominee. Do I think Kavanagh assaulted numerous women? Yeah I absolutely do and even if he's not going to pay he should pay for it and Harvey Weinstein hasn't paid nearly enough but he's at least paying something and yeah Trump is no doubt worse but those things aren't an excuse. Is Tara Reade's accusation of Joe Biden sexually assaulting her legit? I think it's at least very credible and needs more investigating and scrutiny but that's not what we're getting---we're just getting a smear job and a lot of democrats are circling their wagons around Biden like republicans circled theirs around Kavanagh. If people want to seriously end this shit then they're going to need to hold their own would be heroes and saviors to the fucking fire.

Tara Reade says Joe Biden sexually assaulted her. She deserves to be heard (Guardian)

Critics of Tara Reade – the woman who has accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, when she was a staff assistant in his Senate office – claim that if her story were credible she would have told it sooner; and the mainstream media would have covered it. In fact, as her tweets and emails to reporters, media outlets, politicians and organizations demonstrate, Reade has been trying to tell her story for nearly a year, but was ignored or turned away. That is why she wound up telling her story publicly for the first time to me on my podcast...

Election Day, Americans will be asked to choose between two candidates, both of whom face credible allegations of sexual assault. Nobody is more upset about this than Tara Reade: “I tried so hard to be heard when there were 20 Democrats running,” she told me. Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape, became a Trump supporter when he cynically and opportunistically let her tell the story. But, Tara says, “I will never ever support Trump. I am never voting Republican.” Instead, Tara will not participate in an election “between the man who assaulted me and a man who has committed similar assaults on other women”...

crickets, crickets, crickets

It's got to be doubly galling first being a victim of a sexual assault and then getting either deliberately ignored, disbelieved or slandered in the press or by tastemakers and in the court of public opinion as well. I get that it's inconvenient at this time and with this guy currently in the White House and with an economy tanking and a virus running rampant. I'm led to the conclusion that we've lost all sense of standards in this country and it's not just those on the right. Biden's personal behavior has always been at least on the borderline of creepy so there's good reason to believe he's crossed that line before. Reade tells a believable story. The Democrats could have gone a different way and this guy has other moral and ethical issues and a history of being a war happy bank friendly corporatist with a lot of really shitty policy attached to his name and to boot he can't talk at length without getting tongue twisted or losing complete focus and shutting down. He's one step away from an assisted living home. Could the Democrats have possibly found someone worse? We're back to these centrist democrats here--the need to appease a narrow sliver of anti-Trump republicans is for some reason a goal and people like an overrated Obama doing a Blair impression and pulling strings behind the scenes.

Couldn't they at the very least have settled on someone who could articulate a message without fumbling and didn't have all kinds of sleaze and dirt in his closet? Is that too much to ask?

Yeah, letting Biden run at all was a major failure of everything--decency, imagination, good will, progressivism... It's as if the Democrats must mimick everything the other side did before the whole disgusting circus of a system finally falls apart.

Mind you, I can see them using precisely Biden's shittiness to appeal to Trumpo's shit-loving base. Maybe that was the plan all along...

#28--it's crazy. I can't see him as more than a figurehead---and if he wins that someone else--maybe a group of people are going to be running everything behind the scenes because I really don't think he's capable on his own. His campaign was at death's door before all these party apparatchiks got behind him. He doesn't know how to raise money--he doesn't know how to build coalitions--he can hardly talk--he doesn't inspire. He really has no policy that looks forward to the future at all and he lies--not nearly as much as Donald but still he lies quite a lot. Whatever success his campaign has had has been the work of others and he's only trotted out once in a while to talk for a few minutes or for short interviews with a super friendly journalist. Speaking of which we had Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe on MSNBC a few days ago telling the public how Biden was warning us all back in January and February about the seriousness of Covid-19 which is all utter laughable horseshit. He doesn't even talk about it much now. The sexual assault allegation doesn't get talked about though at all. He's not responded in any way to it. No one's pressing him to.

Not a very good answer by a clearly uncomfortable Stacey Abrams here. IMO she dodged her way all around it. You'd almost think from her response that the NYTimes is the word of God. Good on Don Lemon for finally really bringing some attention on mainstream media to this:

https://cnn.com/2020/04/29/politics/stacey-abrams-joe-biden-tara-reade-cnntv/ind...

So now we have the NYTimes rebutting Abrams for the comments she made last night on Reade's sexual assault allegations that pretty much make Abrams look like a tool:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/new-york-times-joe-biden-tara-reade-163405612.htm...

The Times bluntly stating that in no way did their investigation conclude that Biden was innocent. Also that the Biden campaign has been issuing talking points to its surrogates that the NYTimes had exonerated him and this wasn't true.

Is Joe Biden = d. trump?

Is Joe Biden worse than d. trump?

If the answer to both questions is "no" then, in terms of actually winning, are the only choices on Nov. 3 either Joe Biden or d. trump?

The answer is obviously "yes".

Now, do we all really need to waste another god damn second analyzing this stupid shit?

Answer: no.

Case closed, as there is no rule requiring anyone to stand six feet away from reality at all times.

For the love of god damn Christ, move the fuck on, people.

#32--no one said he was worse than Donald Trump. But even a little like Trump is not none and none is what the Democratic Party should strive for when looking for a nominee. I'm curious as well because this subject has always been one of your major gripes against Bill Clinton--and you even held it against Hilary in 2016 for being an enabler of Bill Clinton's sexual assaults and philandering. Is it because of the multiple allegations? To me it should take only one for us to step back and try to get to the bottom at least if it looks like it could be for real. So why does Joe Biden get a pass?

But anyway if the choice is between Trump and Biden like it almost certainly will be and especially if you live in a state that could go either way the most rational thing to do would be to vote for Biden even if he is falling apart cognitively and has a totally shit past. Keep in mind though I think Biden is a piece of shit.

Joe Biden can only wish he were Donald Trump's equal.

The Donald is a political prodigy who began his career by winning a presidential election out of nowhere.

Biden's only claim to relevance is riding on the coattails of the worst president ever.

As Tara Reade says, “I tried so hard to be heard when there were 20 Democrats running” (>24 John5918:). The Democrats were given every opportunity to select a candidate who has not been accused of sexual assault. They failed that test and chose not to, so you are left with two presidential candidates who have both been accused of sexual assault, Trump and Biden. Given a choice between two bad candidates I suppose you can either abstain from voting on moral grounds, or you can vote for the lesser of two evils. Hobson's choice.

I don't know enough about the US electoral system to know whether those are really the only two choices. Procedurally, is it too late to shame the Democrats into dismissing Biden and choosing a less tainted candidate? Or for Biden to do the honorable thing and step down of his own accord?

#34--yeah Trump is kind of like the Rape King. Hard to equal that.

>32 JGL53: An obtuse post, which is rare for our terse anti-tergiversator. The problem is Biden was the best choice available for a candidate likely to lose to Trump.

Pressure mounts on Joe Biden to address sexual assault claim (Guardian)

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is facing growing pressure to publicly address an allegation of sexual assault made by Tara Reade, a former aide to his Senate office. The former vice-president has remained silent about the accusation, a position that is seen as increasingly untenable in the wake of new reporting...

#38---and that's part of the issue too. Biden's done his level best not to answer. He's not been upfront. He sends out his surrogates to do it for him with talking points that turn out to have holes. If you're asking voters to hold Trump or other republicans to certain standards you better make sure your guy can hold up to them too. Sexual assault is disgusting whether it comes from Trump or Biden and all it takes is one time. That's the standard as I see it. There should be no second chances.

Again in an election between these two slobs it might be necessary to vote for Biden just to get this maniac out but Biden needs to be forthright about this and he needs to own up (not his handlers or surrogates) if he's guilty.

LOL! : the senile heir-apparent "has no clothes"!

"Is the Tara Reade Story Approaching Critical Mass?"

Fucking idiot Democrats were amply warned that they were doing the political equivalent of boarding the Titanic.

God! How they deserve what comes next! Morally-bankrupt assholes!

Everyone at the Democratic national convention should wear an orange jump-suit.

Next to their "Biden 2020" badges their "Hello my name is..." sticker should read,

"What? Me worry?!"

#41--you don't get to wear an orange jumpsuit simply because your principles are weak. You do get to (or you might anyway) for actually breaking the law as when in a criminal case you're referenced as Individual Number One for instance. Anyone Trump's already got a head start as far as the orange thing goes. He'd blend right into that jumpsuit.

Joe Biden denies sexually assaulting staff assistant Tara Reade (BBC)

US Democratic candidate Joe Biden has flatly denied sexually assaulting a former staff assistant, Tara Reade, nearly 30 years ago.

"I'm saying unequivocally: it never, never happened"...

I think he's lying like a lying thing that lies.

I'm sorry for all the decent Americans that it has come to this, would not trade places with you...

At this point my only wish is that Biden be put in a cell with Kavanaugh

>45 RickHarsch:

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/50645/does-the-statute-of-limitations-ap...

It's been a thing in our politics and society for a long time that those with financial or political power have a sense of entitlement--they can do whatever they want and get away with it. As the me too movement started pushing back against this bullshit there were those who made comment about Bill Clinton--that maybe he should have been held to account when he had power. In its way that was an acknowledgement by those on the democratic and/or the left side of politics that never again--that we would hold the line and we saw that with Kavanagh. The right side would muddy the water here like Brett was some innocent victim of a witch hunt---no he got exactly the scrutiny he deserved and he should not be a supreme court justice today. But that was an easy one for democrats because he was on the other side of the political spectrum. When it comes to your own side is when it gets harder but it's also more necessary...and to pick your spots and not to hold the line reeks of hypocrisy.

If Tara was assaulted by Biden she is a victim and for those who attack her now without really knowing if what she says is true they're making her a victim all over again.

I'm not sure whether Biden did what was alleged but his end of things does smell bad. Some of his past public displays have been more than a little creepy and he's hardly a paragon of moral fiber or character. This can be seen from Anita Hill to his plagiarism to his son Hunter's being a board member of a Ukrainian energy company. He's done his best to hide from this allegation--ignoring and avoiding and aided by the mainstream media for a while in that--then sending out surrogates with false claims about investigations and exonerations. It seems the complaint originally made by Reade is under seal and he has the means to let people see but intends to block access. If so what is he hiding? In the meantime he misdirects interested parties to somewhere he knows it isn't. Too fucking cute. One thing for sure though--there is the truth whether it ever comes to light or not and Biden is not a victim here.

The Democrats sacrificed Al Franken for much less than this, to say nothing of bloody Kavanagh and his ilk.

LMFAO!!!

(From The Hill (Washington, D.C.) Opinion | by Douglas MacKinnon)

"Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. For the Democrats, a truly desperate time could come if Joe Biden is forced to withdraw from the presidential race. While the former vice president is the presumptive Democratic nominee to face off against President Trump in November, his nomination is still far from official.

"Some Democrats tell me they fear that Biden’s political survival is getting more problematic with each passing day. They cite three main issues. The first is their concern that an allegation of sexual assault leveled against Biden by former staffer Tara Reade won’t go away anytime soon. If anything, it appears to be about to gain a new life." ...

Good.

... "Who might be in consideration to become the new nominee — and who would be selected as the vice presidential running mate? Several likely combinations come to mind, starting in many minds with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but one particular, truly out-of-the-box combination stops the discussion in its tracks: Hillary Clinton as the nominee and Barack Obama as her running mate." ...

And yes, that is both what "desperation" looks like as well as disgusting testimony to these, our truly and surreally insane times—not to mention a grand example of how the shitty world of 'clientelist' journalism does blatant pump-priming hackery.

God! How this shit-hole "of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy"-political-culture in the so-called advanced industrial world deserves to die!

I must be a lousy communicator since many here many times read into my posts a whole lot that is really not there - (maybe all the god damns and Jesus Christs I throw in for fun confuses some people?).

So I will make my position crystal clear. Anyone is a better choice than trump, who stinks more than any turd Satan ever crapped out.

OK?

Whoever is the democrats' nominee is the person for whom to vote, regardless. I doubt if there is another citizen of the U.S. that is anywhere the equal of trump regarding gratuitous evil actions.

OK?

It is indeed a Hobson's choice, but the time has come to vote for the lesser of evils.

It would be nice if the democrats dropped Biden at the convention, or he dropped out before then, and a person was nominated whom we all could admire and for whom we could vote with a clear conscience.

Based on the assumption this pleasant (and remotely possible) scenario does not eventuate, then it is Biden, the lesser of evils, clearly.

Again, case closed - over and out - and moving on to the hard questions of life:

So then - which is preferable - cynicism or nihilism? Or perhaps pragmatism? Or should we all just say 'fuck it" and dive right into absolutist hedonism?

Tara Reade: Biden sex attack accuser urges him to quit race (BBC)

A woman who accuses Democratic White House candidate Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her 27 years ago has called on him to quit the presidential race. In an interview, Tara Reade urged Mr Biden to "please step forward and be held accountable". She added: "You should not be running on character for the president of the United States"...

As well there is more corroborating evidence coming from the 1996 deposition made by Tara's ex-husband in their divorce proceedings in which her ex-husband cites sexual harassment issues from her time working in Senator Biden's office as something she couldn't get past as the one of his reasons for the breakup of their marriage.

Let me just say, it is the epitome of pure brass-balled chutzpah to hear Republicans in office making mouth noises about this case, when they have allowed Trump to avoid answering to his many accusers all along.

For purposes of this discussion, I would suggest that if you've ever defended Trump on anything, knowing his record, you can please sit down now. You're on record as to your feelings about accusations of this sort, and you're fine with them. Those still standing, please take the floor.

>53 kiparsky:

... "I would suggest that if you've ever defended Trump on anything, knowing his record, you can please sit down now."

On the contrary, they are Trump's critics, those in particular, who, while damning Trump as a serial sexual-groper, masher and as a pusher of his undesired interest in them on women, give Joe Biden, a man of Trump's generation, a pass for doing the same things. Those are the hypocrites. And those are the people who, if they had an ounce of moral or intellectual integrity, would have long ago shut the fuck up and sat the fuck down.

They are the ones assuming the convenience of a flagrant double-standard.

One needn't have ever either defended or condemned Trump's alleged misconduct toward women to qualify to point out the rank hypocrisy among Trump's critics who've now made it abundantly clear that, what they condemn in Trump as alleged behavior toward women, they're entirely prepared to dismiss and ignore where it concerns a certain Democratic candidate for the presidency.

Go fly a fucking kite.

#53--I agree. Republicans laid claim long ago to being arbiters of morality with all their culture war bullshit and those claims are about as hollow as it comes and yeah the current POTUS is a serial scumbag sex predator and just because all kinds of right wing religious fucks have circled their wagons around him doesn't absolve him of anything--just makes them all look like the turds they are.

That said the democrats who are summarily ripping apart Tara Reade's reputation without even the semblance of a fair hearing aren't really much better. No doubt her allegation is inconvenient at this time but it's been laying out there for months ignored and Joe Biden and ethical behavior aren't exactly synonymous and there are enough creepy touchy feely questionable moments from his past to certainly make me wonder.

All that said I can certainly understand someone voting for Biden just to get Trump out of office. Biden will make an awful POTUS IMO but Trump is about 100 catastrophes beyond awful right now.

>55 lriley: I must have missed the part where people were ripping up her reputation, but that's one of the nice things about avoiding most of the internet most of the time - it lets you miss a lot of idiotic rants. I mean, I seldom come across the phrase "go fly a fucking kite" in the the Times or in a conversation with a neighbor.

Speaking of which,
>54 proximity1: If you think that going after Biden on this accusation and letting Trump slide on dozens of much more serious and much more well-supported accusations is you not being a hypocrite, I really don't know what to say to that. See "brass-balled chutzpah", above. As I say, if you defend Trump, I already know everything I need to know about your views on accusations of sexual assault, nothing you can say will make any difference there.

That being said, thank you for your invitation. Unfortunately I think it would be difficult to find a place to do any kite flying in my neighborhood right now, and I don't think I can find a kite that will do that in any case.

>54 proximity1: Go fly a fucking kite

I can't help thinking of Mary Poppins. "Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height, let's go fly a kite and send it soaring..." I doubt whether either she or Mr Banks would have used the word "fucking", although her fake-Cockney chimney sweep friend might well have done so. She lived in a fantasy world too, didn't she, proximity1?

Joe Biden assault claim: What does 'believe women' mean now? (BBC)

>58 John5918: What does "believe women" mean now? I can't say much on that, because I don't tend to find slogans binding, but if someone brings an accusation of assault or harassment, I think that accusation should be treated as a credible claim and the accuser should be treated with respect.

We should look at the history a bit. Throughout most of this country's history, accusations of sexual assault have mostly been judged on the basis of the relative status or frankly, wealth, of the accuser and the accused. The ugly history of lynching, the long and sordid history of protected sexual predation in churches, and indeed the dozens of accusations levied against Donald Trump, all line up as evidence of this: "When you're a star, you can do what you want", as someone once said.
I don't think it's very much in doubt, so I'll just assert it: at most times and in most places in this country's history, a woman accusing a man of sexual assault would be believed and exalted if the man was of lower status, and discredited and reviled if the man was of higher status than her.

To my mind, anything that focuses us on the facts of the matter, and denigrates the status distinctions between the accuser and accused, is probably a good move. Even if the slogan is imperfect, "believe women" does at least put the attention on the important question: is the accuser's claim credible?
Oddly, in this country, this question has seldom been one that anyone has bothered to take into account one way or another. And if we're now actually treating accusations as serious claims, to be considered on their own merits, that can only be a good thing.

Now, do I believe Tara Reade? I believe that she has made serious charges, which should be heard in full. I do not believe that those charges should be heard as political sloganeering, I do not think they should be heard as the final word on anything, I think they should be heard as serious accusations of a serious crime. And in the same breath, I say that the dozens of women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment, assault, and rape should also be heard and their charges should be heard not as political sloganeering and not as any final word, but as serious accusations of a serious crime. They should be taken seriously - all of them.

In other words, none of these charges should be taken as proved on any one person's word, and none of them should be raised up or dismissed based on anyone's particular party loyalty. They are claims of fact, and they should be evaluated on evidence with an eye to justice - even though this goes against all of the traditions of this country.

And I'll say again: anyone who supports Trump today, knowing as we all do about the dozens of women who have accused him of assault, harassment, and rape, you have already shown your hand on the Reade accusation. You have already said to us, Reade should not be believed because Biden was a man of power and Reade was a woman of no power. And if you now say you think something different, you have told us everything there is to know about you, and nothing you say can be of any consequence to anyone, ever.

If you think I am incorrect in this, come and tell me why hypocrisy is a legitimate position. Tell me why it is right to believe some women, some of the time, when it is politically convenient to do so, and not to believe other women, other times, when it is not politically correct to do so.

For what it's worth: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-presses-immunity-argument-in-summe...

With nothing to be done about the assault charges by over two dozen women against Der trumpFuehrer, in the meantime then nothing is to be made of assault charges against any other politician on earth (excepting actual court cases). Otherwise it is just pure partisan politics, not to mention pure hypocrisy. And boring as god damn shit.

First things first, motherfuckers.

Moving on.

#61--first rule for setting standards is you can keep them yourself. Let's remember 2018 the democratic party elected more women than ever before and it was a good thing because our representation should always more than less reflect voter demographics. 2018 also didn't happen just by accident and the women's me too movement was very much a part of it.....so there are new dynamics coming into place now which is only right. The old patriarchy needs to die and that's not being anti-men it's recognition of the various sides and viewpoints of our diverse culture. White men are only part of that stew--not the greater part either. Much as the democratic party wants to be party to all and everyone it's not there yet and has a ways to go and it's dragging its heels to get there.

The old patriarchy needs to die and that's not being anti-men

Interesting statement.

Also, can you explain why it's not enough for them to retire? Why do they have to die, exactly?

#63--how about because we'll all have to anyway but really looking at the makeup of the congress and Senate it's like the Politburo that we use to laugh about years ago---a bunch of doddering old fucks.

>64 lriley: it's like the Politburo

Supposing that's true, why wouldn't retirements suffice? Why must it be death?

Just to clarify - was the call for the death of the individual patriarchs, or was it for the death of the patriarchy as an institution?

>66 kiparsky:

I was going to ask the same question. It's common enough parlance to speak of the death of an institution without any connotation of the deaths of any person.

#66--of course the institution but veganophile needs to troll.

>68 lriley: I'd like to believe that 62 was meant figuratively, but if that's the case then how do you explain your #64?

On a somewhat related note is that me or is nobody talking about draft dodging anymore since asthma boy Sleepy Joe became king of the Demonrats?

Used to be some folks here and elsewhere couldn't last an hour without making a bone spurs joke (which of course was always nonsense because had the Donald gone to Nam and covered himself in glory they'd be wailing about the pollicle VCs he'd have shot).

I think people just got tired of pointing it out. I mean, the guy is giving us plenty of new material - for example, his screwing up the COVID-19 response so royally and getting tens of thousands of working Americans dead seems a little more on-point at this particular moment in time. But you know, if you want to talk about his draft-dodging, what about them bone spurs anyway? Has anybody ever explained that?

Is this what you'd rather talk about because you want to distract people from the literally dozens of credible accusations of sexual harassment and outright rape that he's managed to get deferred, somehow? I know you don't want to talk about how you're supporting a rapist for re-election, but it does seem that bringing up random other failings of his is an odd way around it.

Maybe we should also talk about the times he and his father illegally refused to allow black people to rent from them? Or the small businesses that he stiffed when it came time to pay for the services he contracted for? Or the illegal immigrants he hired to work for him?

I mean, he's an absolute toe-rag in just about every respect, so if you don't want to talk about his special method of coping with the fact that nobody has ever touched his junk without being paid or coerced, there are lots of ways in which he's a useless bag of shit. But really, his rape problem does seem the most relevant to this thread.

#70--yes 'had the Donald done this....had the Donald done that'. I'm sure if Donald had deigned to make an appearance in the Vietnam War he would have won it all by himself. He is what is inferred to instead as a chickenhawk like that dork Ted Nugent and a whole bunch of republican shitbirds who did their level best to either not serve--Dick Cheney, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limburger or have their daddies step in and make sure they'd avoid it all--George W. Bush. Funny thing is every single one of them got a lot braver once they were safe and sound and also don't mind at all sending other people's kids off to die. Donald used his wealthy white boy silver spoon background for all it was worth and aided and abetted by his shitbird Klanner dad to on multiple occasions avoid going to Vietnam. That is not a lie. He didn't like the war. Neither did Muhammed Ali who took an honorable and principled stand against it. Trump has never had a principled bone in his body though--even the spurs in his feet know that. I pretty much look at the Donald as a physical coward--someone who likes to boast but when shit hits the fan he either hides or let's someone else do his fighting for him.

>72 lriley:

And Trump then went on to denigrate one of your genuine war heroes, John McCain.

I'm glad you mentioned Muhammad Ali. Principled conscientious objection is an honourable stance, a very different animal from draft-dodging.

>74 cpg:

Thank you. Interesting article.

#73--I'd pull back a little bit there John. I really don't have genuine war heroes and John McCain never met a war he didn't like. He would have had us fighting wars all over the Middle East--which we're doing anyway.....but even more.....but also over in Eastern Europe and against the Russians--particularly in the Ukraine--he was very hot to go there. McCain was a war ghoul every bit as much as John Bolton. What McCain had was a story of being shot down and imprisoned in a North Vietnamese prison camp. That story wasn't just his though.....it belonged to everyone else in that prison camp including his guards but some people have kind of made it his story distorting all the why's, what's, where's, who's and how's......and the Vietnam War was a bullshit war of aggression on our part and I don't think McCain ever sorted that out correctly.....and nobody would have been in that camp---probably would never have existed if it weren't for atrocious and very evil foreign policy decisions by American politicians and policy makers.

>76 lriley:

I would agree with most of that. I never liked McCain's politics nor the USA's wars of aggression, but in a USA where militarism and military veterans are idolised and almost fetishised, especially in conservative circles, I am commenting on the fact that Trump saw fit to denigrate him.

#77--I spent 4 years in the Coast Guard between 1981 and 1985. Joining the military was never high on my list of things to do. I joined more out of necessity than adventure. The Elmira/Horseheads/Corning NY area where I lived have been hit by a series of economic misfortunes and I was 23 and I'd lost my job and there wasn't really much as far as job prospects about at the time. I really joined to have a job for 4 years. My dad had been in the Marine Corps in WWII and Korea. He did not fight in Korea--the ship he was on was offshore and about to disembark when the armistice was signed so he was spared that one. I'm pretty sure he already had a good case of PTSD from the second world war. My younger brother went into the US Air Force before I went into the Coast Guard. He was way more into than I was and he spent 12/13 years in.

Somewhere around my first day in boot camp in Cape May I'd already made up my mind that this nonsense wasn't going beyond 4 years. I think it was about the moment I was putting my eyeglasses and wallet (you weren't allowed personal items) in a box to send back home. That doesn't mean I got nothing out of it, didn't have friends, or didn't have some good experiences but I never wavered from from the 4 years and done idea. It wasn't really me. You go into bootcamp as an E-1 rank--Seaman recruit and you graduate as an E-2 rank--Seaman Apprentice. I never went beyond E-2 in my 4 years because I didn't want to and yeah that meant I made shit money but I didn't care about that either. I've always been stubborn.

I did have friends though, so that was good and the last couple years I spent on Governor's Island which was off the tip of Manhattan and that allowed me to indulge in the then nascent punk rock scene and kept me near Madison Square Garden where my hockey team played and also I use to skate all the time at Sky Rinks which was a hockey rink then located on the 13th floor of an apartment building and which was a couple blocks down from MSG and which is now located along the Hudson River and called Chelsea Piers. I liked the NYC experience very much and one of my main benefits for me of being in the Coast Guard is it got me out of my hometown and gave me a chance to look at other places.

>78 lriley: Ah! Memories! I'm glad you brought us along.

>78 lriley: I really joined to have a job for 4 years

Reminds me of when Margaret Thatcher was boasting about "our boys" defending British interests in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict in 1982. An opposition politician (I believe it was Tony Benn) brought her down to earth by pointing out that "our boys" had joined the army because they were poor and unemployed and they needed jobs.

#80--there's a lot of differences even amongst military people. The ones that stay in enlistment after enlistment tend to be more conservative. For the most part they've bought into the whole shtick. Not everybody that does that but generally. At least a good part of the reason I went into the Coast Guard was I figured at best I'd be hanging around American shores not off somewhere else. I had no interest in getting into the middle of a shooting war. I didn't want to be shooting anything at anybody and I didn't want to get shot at either. My first year or so was mostly painting the boat I was on (which we were doing all the time whether we just did it or not) and sometimes up the Atlantic coast to do Loran missions---it's mainly navigational stuff. The ship I was on--the Unimak was out of Moby Dick's New Bedford Mass. and it went off into the naval yards in Curtis Bay (Baltimore) for some fix up before a trip to Guantanamo where the crew was put through all these drills (including a kind of gas chamber drill) but I left it in Baltimore for New York and never went to Cuba--so I missed that which was great because that trip was really shit. In New York I went to ET (Electronics Technician) school--flunked out pretty quick (I was drinking a lot) and they kept me there to the end.