FWIS3

Yeah turns out he's not just handsy, there's now a rape accusation against him, from a former staff assistant named Tara Reade.

If you give this a listen, be warned that Reade's account is explicit and harrowing.

https://soundcloud.com/katie-halper/joe ... full-story

Non-audio link here:

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/joe ... -times-up/

First the timing is VERY suspect. Her story has changed and some of the places that would normally support her are staying miles away.

You are not from his generation. It wasn't that long ago that you could put your hands on someone's shoulder, give them a pat on the arm (or egad a hug).

It is ESSENTIAl to put such things in generational context. Also there is the issue of intent. Her quotes of the experience do not sound like him at all

This is tough. On the one hand, I think you should presume women are telling the truth as their claim is investigated. On the other, it is very hard to do much investigating on a decades old case with not much more evidence than her word, and with details that changed over time. It's pretty clear that plenty of powerful men have had similar accusations without much to back them up occur and survived to live another political (or celebrity) day. That said, the time to investigate it is now, when we are still far from the general election.

Also, independent of this case, the cynic in me has thought for some time now that whoever the nominee was going to be this time, there was going to be an accusation like this against them. I'm not saying this is made up, mind, just an observation on how politics works these days.

And on the politics these days note... I think part of being an adult is sometimes doing things you don't want to do, and while I hate to say it, for me that is going to involve voting for Biden in November. Trump is literally killing people with his actions, and accusations against Biden or not Bernie is definitely not going to win by this point, and this isn't going to be enough for the DNC to oust him unless a ton more evidence turns up during an investigation. Does it suck? Of course it does. But unfortunately these are the two choices in leaders we have going forward, we all know sitting it out or going 3rd party is just a vote for Trump, and I'm not naive enough to think one is just as bad as the other or that everyone in the nation has the privilege of surviving another round of a Trump presidency.

This is bullshit. It's Al Franken all over again.

@Rommie

Yeah, if he gets the nomination and then I don't see another choice. But it is bullshit. Complaints about him were circulating since the Obama era, and he is a boring candidate with a weak platform anyway, in a time when we need much more radically progressive platforms. The DNC should never have gotten behind him. Also, Biden's campaign hiring Anita Dunn (who consulted for Harvey Weinstein!) makes me suspicious that they knew what they were getting into, and figured they could work with it.

IDK, the whole thing reeks. It's been four years of an actual fascist administration dismantling our institutions, an archconservative Senate and Supreme Court fucking up everything possible, and studies on global warming making it progressively more clear that we need to unfuck our society quickly or most of us will be dead within 20 years. And yet somehow the DNC is still like: "But maybe we can return to normal! With plastics and investment and Star Trek being optimistic, like in the 90s! And look, another handsy Bill Clinton knockoff to lead us! It can still work!"

That ship didn't sail when Trump was elected. It didn't even sail when Obama was elected. It sailed when George W. Bush was elected. The Clinton years were a political false vacuum, and somehow centrist Dems still aren't getting that the vacuum has decayed. I'll vote for Biden if I have to, but we (collective we) need to do better than this.

</end rant, sorry, I'm just super exasperated>

@Loresinger, @geonuc

IDK how anyone is still surprised by this stuff or thinks it's garbage. Yeah of course it comes out right now - the vitriol is flying, the emotions are high, and people who were abused by our favorite candidates are seeing their snobby faces a dozen times a day. Campaign season was also when Trump's record of abuse got dug up, and sure Trump is uniquely awful but his behavior towards women is not an outlier - we all know it's very common for powerful, unaccountable men to behave that way.

As far as questioning Reade's motives, I mean. I'm never going to go public with the name of the person who groomed and molested me when I was in elementary school, for so fucking many reasons. But if it turned out he was running for political office? And was the frontrunner? And a bunch of other candidates got behind him after dropping out? And he was known for being creepy towards tons of other people too, but nothing actually criminal? Damn straight I'd consider going public. It would open me up to all kinds of harassment, as it has done for Reade, but with a public official there's that much extra reason the public needs to know that shit.

(Edit: and no, I'm never going to be in that situation myself, because in the case of my abuser that's simply not going to happen - he was not the kind of person who is ever going to hold public office, or probably even a steady job TBH. But, point remains.)

The DNC should never have gotten behind him.

Can I ask you to parse this a little more in what you mean? I'm seeing a lot of people complaining right now about how the DNC rigged it, perhaps because it's the refrain from last year, and I'm busy wondering if we watched the same primary or not. I cannot imagine in a million years that the DNC really wanted two dozen candidates where tons of good people canceled each other out, and if you look at the amount of money raised by various people Biden really wasn't doing well at ALL. What he did get is good timing on having Pete and Amy drop out when they did (I still doubt that was the DNC over the Biden campaign making promises for good positions), and a lot of people voting for him despite not a ton of support in many states (like ones where he didn't even really have a field office).

I mean, I guess one can argue the DNC rigged the elections, but I'm not Trumpian enough for that, and instead think it's much more likely that the average voter was desperate to find someone they thought had a good chance to beat Biden, and Bernie was too far left for them. (As I said earlier, I really think Bernie had every chance this time to show he could get a coalition, but that ship has sailed.) I definitely don't agree myself that Biden is the best person, but it's really easy I've noticed to forget in a coastal enclave like Boston that most of the country sees the world quite differently. Oh, and for all the progressive people I hear complaining about how "no one will turn out to vote Biden!", well, they had their chance in the primary, and didn't turn out! So sure doesn't sound like that would change in November! (My own pet peeve.)

I guess my point is, I hear this sentiment a lot, but it just sounds like sour grapes mixed with some Russian dissemination. They want people to get mad that their candidate didn't win and stay at home, and to not trust the system. Republicans will vote regardless.

@Rommie

I don't think the DNC rigged anything. I do think they viewed Biden as their best choice for 2020 since at least 2016, and that's based partly on what I've heard from people with inside contacts - the hype around him has been incredible, and there's a strong belief that only another white man can beat Trump.

Re "coastal enclave like Boston", that's a thing I hear a lot, but I'm pretty convinced that's not the main issue here. Biden won MA (even over Warren!), meanwhile low-income people were more likely to vote for Sanders, and lower middle class people for Warren. I'll see if I can find a chart of this, I know there was a really good one out there - but Sanders was the only candidate who had increasing votes correlated with decreasing income. YMMV but the picture I've been getting for a while is of the working poor and lower middle classes being increasingly disgusted with party politics and lack of support, while the middling wealthy are left going, "Hey what's going on? Why is everything weird now?"

For precedent IMO see the Weimar Republic, with Nazis (including Strasserists) squaring off against Communists while the mainstream floated a weak "normal" candidate (who wound up losing an election to Hitler). Things are going differently here, but the thing where collectivist ideologies suck up votes on both the right and the left during times of economic hardship is not new.

Edit: gentle remind BTW that I'm not a Bernie fanpoodle; I voted for Warren in the primary, and will vote for Biden if it comes to that. (And it probably will, assuming elections are not postponed/canceled.) But I really am not buying this idea that the accusations are bunk. Really.

I was really sad to see Warren not get the traction she needed.

I have had a soft spot for joe biden ever since memorial day 2012. I was in my office and Michael was listening to biden address a group of relatives of people who'd died in the military. biden spoke about the deaths of his first wife and daughter. i got up and joined Michael as the talk continued. we sat there, holding hands and crying as we listened. he spoke from the heart about how hard it was to keep going afterwards. at the end he said that there would come a time when we'd think of the person whose death we were grieving and we'd laugh before we cried. he didn't know when but he promised that it would.

it's true. i miss my guys.