Democratic Candidate 2020

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Grumble » Sat May 09, 2020 7:59 am

lpm wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 4:29 pm
Why can't just say "I believe her" when it comes to US politics:

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/woman- ... er-to-lie/
Steinbeck wrote about having to have a travelling companion solely in order to prevent women coming into his hotel room, pulling half their clothes off and shouting rape. I think this was after he wrote the Grapes of Wrath and he was a target for right wing slurs. American politics has been like this for a long time.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 11:03 am

Reade's story corroborated by a court document from 1996:
Dronen and Reade met while they both worked as Senate staffers for different members of the upper chamber. In the filing dated March 25, 1996, Dronen said that Reade told him she “eventually struck a deal with the chief of staff of the Senator’s office and left her position.”

“It was obvious that this event had a very traumatic effect on (Reade), and that she is still sensitive and effected (sic) by it today,” Dronen added.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... assment-in
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 11:40 am

The Attacks on Tara Reade are Unbelievable b.llsh.t: No, you’re not “asking questions,” you’re using rape apologist arguments writes Lyta Gold in Current Affairs.
Tara Reade has witnesses—multiple people she told, contemporaneously, about her experiences of being sexually harassed and assaulted by Joe Biden in 1993. As many people have pointed out ad nauseam, Reade has more corroboration than Christine Blasey Ford ever did, when she accused federal appellate judge Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her when they were both teenagers in 1982. (In her testimony before Congress, Blasey Ford said, “I had never told the details to anyone, the specific details, until May 2012 during a Couple’s Counseling session.”)
Everybody already knows that Joe Biden is a notorious creep. It’s a punchline. The Daily Show joked about his gropery in 2015. Former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores has written that Biden planted a “long slow kiss” on her against her will. Female Secret Service agents complained that he swam naked in front of them even though it made them uncomfortable. Many people have known about Biden’s behavior for years, and they don’t care, because this country doesn’t care about women. It pretends to, sometimes, for political convenience, or for the occasional photo op. In photo ops, on multiple occasions, Joe Biden has sniffed the hair of women and little girls. There’s plenty of photographic and video evidence of this. At least seven women beside Tara Reade have accused Biden of inappropriate behavior. The problem isn’t that people aren’t AWARE. Most people are well aware. It’s just not important to them.

Most of the time, there’s no reward for telling the truth. It’s much safer to lie. It’s much easier to equivocate, and tease apart actions until they are entirely free of context, and say “well-why-didn’t-she-just”—as if we all do, at all times, everything that we just should. Incidentally, this is a common thread you may find both in news articles and in arts criticism; a certain distaste for people acting like people, rather than how they should. Many of us do not want people to be people. And in particular, we do not want women to be people. Men in both art and life can be “flawed”—and their flaws are admirable, they make men “complex.” Women do not get to be complex, although our bodies, lives, happiness, careers, and psychological integrity are considered reasonable sacrifices for the maintenance of this supposed masculine “complexity,” which as far as I can tell is something like a machine that turns men into a sheet of behavioral quirks that can be stamped “forgiven.” Biden’s family died. He likes ice cream. He’s Obama’s friend! He’s forgiven.
It's certainly a strange experience seeing so many people who were het up about Kavanaugh's nomination seeking to dismiss Reade's accusations, using exactly the same arguments they decried from Republicans back then.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by lpm » Sat May 09, 2020 12:12 pm

It's simply false to state Reade has more corroboration than Ford.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 12:40 pm

No it isn't.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Sat May 09, 2020 12:43 pm

lpm wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:12 pm
It's simply false to state Reade has more corroboration than Ford.
You are missing the underlying argument; Biden isn't Sanders, and therefore everything bad about him must be true.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 1:09 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:43 pm
lpm wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:12 pm
It's simply false to state Reade has more corroboration than Ford.
You are missing the underlying argument; Biden isn't Sanders, and therefore everything bad about him must be true.
f.ck off with that.

There are well-documented instances of Biden being creepy and touching women unwelcomely. Multiple women are on record saying that this made them feel uncomfortable. One woman is currently claiming she was assaulted, and seems to have been making claims of harassment at least as far back as 1996.

There are plenty of non-Sanders candidates about whom the same cannot be said. All of them, in fact, except Joe Biden.

This dismissal of inconvenient accusations is hugely disturbing. Next time a Republican is accused of sexual harassment, the GOP can say "well it was ok when Biden did it to multiple women over decades", because apparently it's not actually considered disqualifying - only when politicians on the "other team" do it, which is gross and ugly.

All I'm asking for is consistency. People were arguing that Sanders was an inappropriate choice because he makes women uncomfortable by shouting too much. So why is it ok for Biden to make women uncomfortable by touching them inappropriately? Is the message of contemporary liberalism that civility is more important than sexual harassment, or that partisanship is more important than a safe working environment, or that "socialism" is worse than non-consensual touching?

I promise you that if the same accusations were made against Sanders I would not be dismissing them the way that you are here.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 1:16 pm

To be clear, I'm not sure what to make of Reade's recent accusation of assault, which is stronger than her historical accusations of harassment (which do seem to be corroborated, by contemporary witnesses, many other women saying similar things, and video footage you can find if you want to watch Biden doing it with your own eyes).

I think the pattern of touchiness and making women uncomfortable is actually bad enough to be disqualifying, and said as much on the old forum long before Biden seemed to have a credible hope of the nomination.

Whether or not Reade is currently accurately describing what happened 27 years ago, I don't know. She could be malicious, or mistaken. But I don't find it so easy to discount her story as some would like.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 1:17 pm

And, should it need repeating, Biden is still less bad than Trump and I'd still prefer him to win the election in November. Big f.cking whoop.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Sat May 09, 2020 1:17 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 1:10 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:43 pm
lpm wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:12 pm
It's simply false to state Reade has more corroboration than Ford.
You are missing the underlying argument; Biden isn't Sanders, and therefore everything bad about him must be true.
You are an actual idiot.
Touched a nerve, didn't I. You're as transparent as glass.

We've had two accusations, one of them's changed quite a lot and comes from someone with a Sputnik propagandist and a Trump donor for lawyers, the other was corroborated by other people...except it occured at an event Biden wasn't at...or maybe it was the year before...oh wait, he wasn't at that one, either.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 1:20 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 1:17 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 1:10 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:43 pm


You are missing the underlying argument; Biden isn't Sanders, and therefore everything bad about him must be true.
You are an actual idiot.
Touched a nerve, didn't I. You're as transparent as glass.

We've had two accusations, one of them's changed quite a lot and comes from someone with a Sputnik propagandist and a Trump donor for lawyers, the other was corroborated by other people...except it occured at an event Biden wasn't at...or maybe it was the year before...oh wait, he wasn't at that one, either.
Do you think Reade was lying back in 1996 when she told her ex-husband about being harassed while working in Biden's office?
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Sat May 09, 2020 1:45 pm

I certainly think it is possible, yes. Possible she's telling the truth, too, but given the way her story has changed, I'm inclined to give Biden the benefit of the doubt.

Do you think Eva Murry was lying when she told people about Biden harassing her at the 2008 gridiron dinner?

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 2:10 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 1:45 pm
Do you think Eva Murry was lying when she told people about Biden harassing her at the 2008 gridiron dinner?
It seems quite clear that it couldn't have happened at the 2007 or 2008 gridiron dinner as Biden wasn't there. But I'm much more comfortable passing judgement on the incident than the accuser.

Whether she (and the others who claim she mentioned it at the time) is lying, or mistaken, I wouldn't like to say. It's also possible that a 13-14 year old could misidentify an old white man at a (probably intimidating and/or boring) political dinner with their mum, especially while shocked.

There's also the fact that nobody else seems to have accused Biden of making overtly sexual comments, only creepy touching, so it has less support from other accounts.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Sat May 09, 2020 2:33 pm

The key point there is that it is possible for an account to be "corroborated" by others reporting they were told of it at the time, and for it to be impossible to have happened as described. And you are right, it doesn't actually require any deliberate dishonesty on the part of the accuser for that to happen either.

As for Reade, she keeps giving different versions of events, and not just re: an alleged assault by Biden, but, it seems, a lot of things.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat May 09, 2020 3:23 pm

I think the core of Reade's story is pretty consistent - that she felt sexually harassed while working for Biden, made a complaint and left. The details of that harassment/assault, the nature of the complaint and the circumstances of her departure do indeed all contain inconsistencies, but I don't think that's sufficient to dismiss her as a liar or fantasist as many are doing.

People will forget things from 25 years ago, including details from traumatic events. Fishnut's provided some good evidence that forgetting details is actually quite common with genuine abuse survivors. Work complaints procedures for things like this are not always enormously transparent (and certainly weren't in the 90s). We've since benefited from a long (and ongoing) public conversation about workplace sexual harassment and assault, and I wouldn't find it that surprising if somebody who'd experienced what Reade claims would have characterised it as harassment rather than assault. And whether somebody leaves voluntarily or is pushed out is also not entirely clearcut.

I do agree that Reade's journalism and online behaviour is a bit strange, and quite suspicious. That's the only part of what's been dug up over the last 6 weeks that gives me cause for concern - but it seems to post-date the establishment of the key points.

And, again, many other women have complained about Biden lacking respect for their boundaries, which is troubling, and doesn't go away even if Reade can be fully discredited.

At the very least, it seems likely that Biden's behaviour made Reade uncomfortable, that she complained to someone in a position of authority and mentioned it to others. The more recent precise details of the assault may or may not be one or more of misremembered, embellished or fabricated.

But it's concerning to me that so many people are so keen to overlook all of this, because it will definitely have a silencing effect on genuine victims of abuse in the future. Biden supporters are currently strengthening the narrative that wagons will circle, abusers will be protected, that women can't be trusted and will be harassed and abused for speaking out.

Biden's behaviour around women has been excused for years after people started calling it out, and I have little doubt that it will continue to be. There's probably not enough certainty in Reade's account to demand he step aside. But it's enormously disappointing to see this kind of behaviour from people who make a big song and dance about their own decency and respectfulness and listening and reaching out to their opponents etcetera etcetera, when in fact they behave identically to Republicans when it's their candidate accused.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by lpm » Sat May 09, 2020 4:17 pm

BoaF, I'm amazed you say Reade's story is pretty consistent. She is consistently inconsistent.

For starters, when did the alleged assault take place and when did she subsequently leave? What are the six different reasons she has given for why she left? Was she encouraged after the alleged assault or blacklisted?
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat May 09, 2020 8:10 pm

Two posts which only contained personal abuse have been moved to The Pit.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat May 09, 2020 8:27 pm

I don't find it implausible that almost 30 years ago someone might decide to keep quiet about a sexual assault by a powerful individual like Joe Biden. Recall what had happened to Anita Hill a few years before. When times changed they might to go public.

However, according to this article in Vox in during the spring and summer of 2019 Reade and a friend of hers actively asserted that Biden hadn't sexually assaulted her.
Reade told me that she wanted me to think of this story as being about abuse of power, “but not sexual misconduct.” Her emphasis was on how she was treated in Biden’s office by Senate aides, who she said retaliated against her for complaining about how Biden touched her in meetings. “I don’t know if [Biden] knew why I left,” she said. “He barely knew us by name.”

She sent me an email that evening with an essay she’d written. Her local paper in California, the Union, published a similar version a few weeks later with a line she’d sent to me, too: “This is not a story about sexual misconduct; it is a story about abuse of power. It is a story about when a member of Congress allows staff to threaten or belittle or bully on their behalf unchecked to maintain power rather than modify the behavior.”

Last year, Reade encouraged me to speak with a friend of hers who counseled her through her time in Biden’s office in 1992 and 1993. The friend was clear about what had happened, and what hadn’t.

“On the scale of other things we heard, and I feel ashamed, but it wasn’t that bad. [Biden] never tried to kiss her directly. He never went for one of those touches. It was one of those, ‘sorry you took it that way.’ I know that is very hard to explain,” the friend told me. She went on: “What was creepy was that it was always in front of people.”
Which is different to just keeping quiet about it.

I still don't know what to think about the case though.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun May 10, 2020 1:50 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 8:27 pm
I still don't know what to think about the case though.
It's about events a long time ago, and people's memories are suprisingingly fallible even with perfectly honest attempts to be accurate. Unless some contemporaneous notes turn up, we'll never really know what happened. The whole thing is an excellent distraction, however, from the fact that Trump makes a lot more women a lot more uncomfortable by being president that any man could with just one pair of wandering hands.

It also seems rather unfortunate that the issue is only becoming significant at such a late stage in the candidate selection process. It would have been much better for it to have been taken into consideration from the beginning as that would have allowed a fair choice from the remaining candidates if Biden was thought to be unsuitable.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Squeak » Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 8:27 pm
I don't find it implausible that almost 30 years ago someone might decide to keep quiet about a sexual assault by a powerful individual like Joe Biden. Recall what had happened to Anita Hill a few years before. When times changed they might to go public.

However, according to this article in Vox in during the spring and summer of 2019 Reade and a friend of hers actively asserted that Biden hadn't sexually assaulted her.
Reade told me that she wanted me to think of this story as being about abuse of power, “but not sexual misconduct.” Her emphasis was on how she was treated in Biden’s office by Senate aides, who she said retaliated against her for complaining about how Biden touched her in meetings. “I don’t know if [Biden] knew why I left,” she said. “He barely knew us by name.”

She sent me an email that evening with an essay she’d written. Her local paper in California, the Union, published a similar version a few weeks later with a line she’d sent to me, too: “This is not a story about sexual misconduct; it is a story about abuse of power. It is a story about when a member of Congress allows staff to threaten or belittle or bully on their behalf unchecked to maintain power rather than modify the behavior.”

Last year, Reade encouraged me to speak with a friend of hers who counseled her through her time in Biden’s office in 1992 and 1993. The friend was clear about what had happened, and what hadn’t.

“On the scale of other things we heard, and I feel ashamed, but it wasn’t that bad. [Biden] never tried to kiss her directly. He never went for one of those touches. It was one of those, ‘sorry you took it that way.’ I know that is very hard to explain,” the friend told me. She went on: “What was creepy was that it was always in front of people.”
Which is different to just keeping quiet about it.

I still don't know what to think about the case though.
I just wandered in here to post a link to that exact story. I think it sums up the uncertainty quite clearly. Lots of people have spent a lot of time and genuine effort trying to find a way to balance the conflicting stories with what limited evidence there might be of a 30-year-old sexual assault. There have also been bad-faith efforts on both sides trying to muddy the waters further, which don't help.

As fishnut said above, it's common for assault survivors to have fragmentary memories of assaults. Certainly, I would struggle to provide any kind of evidence for an assault that happened to me twenty years ago and my memory of the relevant events is pretty fragmentary and I would be a very imperfect witness for that event. So gaps and errors in testimony aren't any kind of slam-dunk disproof of her claims. But the refreshing of friends' memories and asking them to conceal parts of their story in 2019 (if she really did tell them about an assault) or to add to previous testimony in 2020 (if she did not) makes her a more than usually imperfect witness. And as LPM said above, a political system that is incapable of constraining Jacob Wohl is one in which claims of sexual misbehaviour can responsibly be believed without some investigation and evidence.

Looking in this thread and more broadly at media coverage, Tara Reade's claims seem to be a near perfect Rorschach test for people's political opinions and likely to stay that way.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Gentleman Jim » Mon May 11, 2020 10:22 am

lpm wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 4:29 pm
Why can't just say "I believe her" when it comes to US politics:

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/woman- ... er-to-lie/
Diane Andrade? Is she an indicator of future right wing plots?
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Mon May 11, 2020 10:38 am

Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
As fishnut said above, it's common for assault survivors to have fragmentary memories of assaults. Certainly, I would struggle to provide any kind of evidence for an assault that happened to me twenty years ago and my memory of the relevant events is pretty fragmentary and I would be a very imperfect witness for that event. So gaps and errors in testimony aren't any kind of slam-dunk disproof of her claims.
I agree, it seems pointless to make too much out of inconsistencies which are found from things like assumed motives from retweets etc. People aren't going to have a perfect recollection of events that occurred decades ago.
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
But the refreshing of friends' memories and asking them to conceal parts of their story in 2019 (if she really did tell them about an assault) or to add to previous testimony in 2020 (if she did not) makes her a more than usually imperfect witness.
I agree as well. Its one thing not to remember exactly what happened. Its another to tell two completely narratives within a few months.
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
And as LPM said above, a political system that is incapable of constraining Jacob Wohl is one in which claims of sexual misbehaviour can responsibly be believed without some investigation and evidence.
I assume you mean can't be believed without some investigation. I agree as well. We can usually assume that an allegation is unlikely to be fabricated. But that doesn't seem apply to prominent politicians in the US.
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
Looking in this thread and more broadly at media coverage, Tara Reade's claims seem to be a near perfect Rorschach test for people's political opinions and likely to stay that way.
I agree as well. Lots of people appear to be arguing from whether they support or oppose Biden.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Squeak » Mon May 11, 2020 12:09 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 10:38 am
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
And as LPM said above, a political system that is incapable of constraining Jacob Wohl is one in which claims of sexual misbehaviour can responsibly be believed without some investigation and evidence.
I assume you mean can't be believed without some investigation. I agree as well. We can usually assume that an allegation is unlikely to be fabricated. But that doesn't seem apply to prominent politicians in the US.
Yes. Thank you for interpreting my overly complex sentence.

While my default presumption is to believe women complaining of sexual assault, American politics is now so toxic that is poisoned what should be an easy presumption to make.

Whoever the democratic nominee was, they were going to have some nasty claims made against them by the right, regardless of whether those claims had any substance, which I think breeds an unhealthy cynicism among politicians and voters. That cynicism is likely to somewhat protect Biden, even as the accusation blunts the character distinction that he's trying to draw with Trump.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Mon May 11, 2020 12:42 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 10:38 am
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
As fishnut said above, it's common for assault survivors to have fragmentary memories of assaults. Certainly, I would struggle to provide any kind of evidence for an assault that happened to me twenty years ago and my memory of the relevant events is pretty fragmentary and I would be a very imperfect witness for that event. So gaps and errors in testimony aren't any kind of slam-dunk disproof of her claims.
I agree, it seems pointless to make too much out of inconsistencies which are found from things like assumed motives from retweets etc. People aren't going to have a perfect recollection of events that occurred decades ago.
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
But the refreshing of friends' memories and asking them to conceal parts of their story in 2019 (if she really did tell them about an assault) or to add to previous testimony in 2020 (if she did not) makes her a more than usually imperfect witness.
I agree as well. Its one thing not to remember exactly what happened. Its another to tell two completely narratives within a few months.
I think another issue people have with Reade is coming up with multiple different things about much more recent events, ie within the space of a few years going from 1) posting criticisms of Putins awful stance on domestic violence to 2) praising Putin, including specifically his attitude to women, then 3) telling Vox she didn't like Putin after learning more about domestic violence in Russia (see 1 for the inconsistency here).
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
And as LPM said above, a political system that is incapable of constraining Jacob Wohl is one in which claims of sexual misbehaviour can responsibly be believed without some investigation and evidence.
One of the things I found interesting during the various allegations against the loathsome Roy Moore was that there was a false one among them. It was cooked up by James O'Keefe with the aim that they could then pretend the rest were false too. However, the scheme did not work, as the Washington Post, the target of the sting, did the basic legwork required and found notable red flags in the story, followed by links between the accuser and O'Keefe. The end result was that the real allegations ended up looking a lot stronger, because it was clear they had been subject to the same vetting. Proper scrutiny can strengthen a case, as well as undermine it.
I assume you mean can't be believed without some investigation. I agree as well. We can usually assume that an allegation is unlikely to be fabricated. But that doesn't seem apply to prominent politicians in the US.
Squeak wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 2:51 am
Looking in this thread and more broadly at media coverage, Tara Reade's claims seem to be a near perfect Rorschach test for people's political opinions and likely to stay that way.
I agree as well. Lots of people appear to be arguing from whether they support or oppose Biden.
There needs to be more of a willingness for people to accept that they don't know.

The default position should always be to refrain from actions with significant ramifications (eg jail, expulsion from university, blocking presidential candidacy) without some evidence to support that. I don't think Reade's testimony, with all its inconsistencies and with the conflict of interest present, is close to enough evidence to demand Biden step down. But that doesn't mean I'm going to decide Reade is lying and dismiss what she says before I've heard it, either; I'm not willing to say Biden is innocent, just that I have not seen anything to convince me he is guilty. That could change, and it's important to be open to new evidence, should it transpire.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Fishnut » Mon May 11, 2020 1:31 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 12:42 pm
One of the things I found interesting during the various allegations against the loathsome Roy Moore was that there was a false one among them. It was cooked up by James O'Keefe with the aim that they could then pretend the rest were false too. However, the scheme did not work, as the Washington Post, the target of the sting, did the basic legwork required and found notable red flags in the story, followed by links between the accuser and O'Keefe. The end result was that the real allegations ended up looking a lot stronger, because it was clear they had been subject to the same vetting. Proper scrutiny can strengthen a case, as well as undermine it.
I think this is an important point. Many prominent people face accusations and while the cases may not be worth legal prosecution that doesn't mean they can't provide valuable information about them. But we do get false accusations and it's important to not jump to conclusions. I keep thinking about the toupees problem, where only bad toupees are noticeable which makes people think all toupees are bad, rather than realising that good toupees aren't easy to spot. We have seen cases of accusations which have been pretty easily (or at least quickly) found to be fake. But does that mean that all fake accusations will be easy to spot or just the hastily-planned ones?

I must admit that while I still believe that Reade experienced inappropriate contact from Biden I am starting to doubt her claims of sexual assault. There has been sufficient corroborating evidence that Biden was inappropriate to make me feel comfortable in that - her neighbours and the tape of her mother on the Larry King show are good enough for me (but maybe not for everyone) to believe that something happened roughly as she described last year. When that accusation was made there were other people making similar claims which is a pattern we've seen with other people - it's very rare that they only target a single person. What's starting to concern me, more than the inconsistencies, is that no-one else has come forward to say that Biden also assaulted them too. It could well be that Reade was his first and only victim but if that's the case it would be highly unusual. It could also be that his other victims have decided not to come forward, maybe out of fear of the media intrusion into their lives, or because they don't want to hurt Biden's chances any more than has already happened because whatever his flaws he's still better than Trump. But the lack of people coming out of the woodwork is becoming much more noticeable in its absence.
it's okay to say "I don't know"

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