All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[PaulBullion]

Republicans have found the perfect weapon to use against Democrats, especially male Democrats. All they have to do is find a women willing to go public, saying that they were sexually abused, and suddenly everything falls apart (or might fall apart).

A false claim works just as well as a true one, in fact it works even better since any man could be targeted with it.

The #MeToo movement has now been politicized and weaponized, and Democrats keep falling into this same trap.

Ironic since Trump would be in the same boat as Weinstein and Epstein if he wasn't President.

Nominating Kamala Harris would have been the safer choice considering that.

[PaulBullion]

A QAnon Devotee Packed Her Car With Illegal Knives And Live-Streamed Her Trip to N.Y. to ‘Take Out’ Joe Biden

something something believe women

[TheDarman]

It looks bad. This is a bit like Hillary refusing to make public the speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs.

This is even a bit trickier than that, even if it is the same concept. Is it good optics? No. But the truth of the matter is these are papers that were likely filed or put away thinking that they would have their privacy protected. People say and do things that they wouldn’t in public forums under more private scrutiny. There is little room to discuss tone and inflection or understand the person’s personality with mere transcripts. Candidly, it seems to be an unfair standard to apply that private documents need to be relinquished if those documents have nothing to do with the allegation in question. It looks like Biden’s camp is looking for significant documents to release, however. That’s good.

It is inevitable that the Trump campaign would try to go fishing for stuff that might make for bad headlines, even if there's no substance behind it. Although that may require further discussion about how to make sure no one is rewarded for taking advantage of a campaign's openness to release records by making bad faith arguments.

Sure, but voters refused to punish Trump for being similarly cagey about his financial and public records. He has not complied with any investigation into the allegations against him nor has he been eager to address the elephant in the room with the release of his tax returns. He took Democrats all the way to court to avoid that.

For conservatives, it's more about the double-standard of how the media treated Reade's allegations, compared to how they treated allegations against Republicans.

In all fairness, these last number of years—since 2017 and the new #MeToo campaign—have been years of growth and growing pains. Trump’s allegations certainly seem credible (we have women claiming all they need is a DNA sample to prove it, can name specific timeframes for the assault, Trump has demonstrated an objectification of women, and has even bragged about an event that sounded an awful lot like sexual assault (and, ironically, fairly close to what Biden’s allegations detail)). These allegations against Trump kickstarted the discussion of these kinds of acts that have long flown under the radar. In the years that followed, most #MeToo actions have unveiled and brought down folks like Harvey Weinstein. Unfortunately, some of these allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault have also been proven false, like those against Johnny Depp and, on a smaller level, against Andy Signore. These two aren’t totally innocent in either case, but it’s clear that evidence presented ought to make us doubt our reaction to these things. Destruction of livelihoods are serious consequences. When it is justice for abuse, it can be a price we are willing to pay. In other cases, it probably shouldn’t be.

The media has had to deal with this shift as well. They had to toss out one allegation against Roy Moore, because Project Veritas was trying to prove that the media was out to destroy a politician and were taking any allegations without proper vetting. They caught flak, rightly so, for covering Swetnick’s charges. They have learned to be more cautious and do more verification of these stories. And it is clear that Reade’s story is resting on a shaky foundation of credibility for multiple reasons. Indeed, the only thing that is causing allegations to resurface are the few folks coming out to corroborate that they were told about these allegations. However, as we’ve seen, those are suspect as well. I think the media’s reaction has been fair likewise. After all, Democrats tossed Franken out of office for less severe allegations than those against Trump. It’s more the times that have changed than the partisan attitude of the media or other #MeToo contributors.

The Bernie left are the people going with the smear.

Ted Rall wrote "Democrats who dislike Trump should quit fucking around and tell Biden to drop out due to dementia and the rape charge. There’s still time to choose the candidate now in 2nd place. After this summer it’ll be too late!"
https://twitter.com/TedRall/status/1255839783181594631

Matt Bruenig (in a comment liked by his wife, New York Times columnist Elizabeth Bruenig) applauded a story in the New York Times, saying "Love this story, one of the few that highlights the cowardice of the nonprofit orgs who are supposed to be holding the line on this stuff"
https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/stat...11186902695943

On this, it is quite obvious.

[TheDarman]

Nominating Kamala Harris would have been the safer choice considering that.

Yeah, but Bernie supporters torched her because she was a career prosecutor with a history of even locking up some black men. Their righteous indignation about sexual assault is ironic as a result, because most of the men they can point out ended up in jail as a direct result of her actions were when she was a sex crimes prosecutor.

[PaulBullion]

Yeah, but Bernie supporters torched her because she was a career prosecutor with a history of even locking up some black men. Their righteous indignation about sexual assault is ironic as a result, because most of the men they can point out ended up in jail as a direct result of her actions were when she was a sex crimes prosecutor.

Isn't it interesting how they had all kinds of purity tests except for the 3-homes millionaire who wrote rape fantasy essays, palled around with armed drug producers and voted for the mass-incarceration crime bill?

[4saken1]

There's another reason Biden won't go with Warren. She's 70 years old. With the almost constant questions about Biden's age and health, he needs to pick someone significantly younger than himself.

But then they won't have enough experience! No matter whom he chooses, they will be the 'wrong' choice.

[InformationGeek]

Well this is just psychotic. Armed gunmen have stormed Michigan State House.

Multiple armed gunmen storm Michigan’s State House, State police are protecting @GovWhitmer and blocking the gunmen from gaining access to the house floor.

[Wildling]

Well this is just psychotic. Armed gunmen have stormed Michigan State House.

Responsible people indeed.

[godisawesome]

From a bluntly political perspective here, Reade’s allegations are now fodder for what kind narrative will be the strongest to concoct around them, and barring an influx of significant evidence, from either circumstantial or material, or of corroborating or pattern-favoring testimony, the allegations will likely still have less staying power or drama than Trump’s. Right now, it’s still very much a scandal where “tone of address” probably matters more than anything else for its perception.

A Trump campaigner’s goal would generally be to try and make this as much of a what-about-ism, hypocritical double standard analysis as possible, to try and make it so there is no extra advantage that either Biden in particular or Democrats in general have with the female voting blocs that have been swinging their way since 2016.

A Biden campaigner’s goal would be to defuse the allegation’s believability as much as possible, so that advantage with the voting bloc remains or even increases with Biden’s VP choice, and to try and if possible maneuver the Democratic Party through it so that the trend continues down ballot.

As the allegations remain largely allegations alone, with some corroborative accounts, the expected outcome, barring significant evidence or knowledge, will be that this devolved into some form of the “he said, she said” narrative. That type of narrative can still be manipulated and used for one side or the other to get a “win” over the other in terms of the political narrative, which is why both sides are treating this stage as imperative to their future plans for it; make no mistake, this is still the early days of the allegations’ political impact, while the fall’s timeline will see how well either side has maximized/minimized it’s potential impact.

As of now, Biden still has some major advantages to be utilized in a “he said, she said” narrative that can undercut and possibly even neuter the attempt at what-about-ism, equivalency, double standard talk: his opponent is Donal Trump, and Trump’s set of allegations are much more prolific in number, and have some very sleepy sounding circumstantial evidence and a pre-established pattern of behavior that damages an attempt at an equivalency argument.

If someone accused Newt Gingrich or Anthony Wiener of this kind of assault, their previous infidelities and sexual history make the allegations quite easier to believe. Trump has that very much in his background as well, and it makes it easier to have allegations stick in the political audience’s mind, and to make them seem believable, while also preventing his campaign from succeeding as well if they tried acting righteously angered about the allegations towards Biden. Gingrich kind of shows this; his presidential campaigns kept on having a perception problems, because while his biggest claim to fame in Republican circles was impeaching Clinton, the sexual nature of that scandal didn’t look any better than his own past, particularly once the Clinton scandal solidified into being more about the Lewinsky affair than anything else. On any moral arguments or questions about gender, he was always behind even a white bread guy like Romney, because Romney could act indignant about stuff like that and have it matter, while Gingrich couldn’t.

And the Lewinsky affair brings up the other part of Trump's issue. Bill Clinton was accused of much worse conduct and actions than the Lewinsky affair by itself, but the Lewinsky affair is the one that sticks the most to the public’s mind... because there was material and circumstantial evidence around it, and tied to it, via Clinton’s perjury charge. Trump has to deal with both awkward and hard to dodge questions about the NDAs and “catch and kill” deals” signed with a pornstar and a Playboy bunny, and we all saw how even just that blew those stories up into major political gossip and running gags. And Biden, at treats thus far, has nothing like the “Access Hollywood” tape that Trump spoke on; in that regard, he’s in significantly worse position than most active politicians; soemthing like that usually kills a political career. Trump managed to survive it and become president, but it still haunts any discussion about the morality of his character and his treatment of women, and the GOP felt that in 2018.

Trump and his campaign, barring any major new information or allegations, would be glad for this to just remain a talking point, get taken even moderately seriously by major news networks for a few weeks, and get just a bit more awkwardness injected into the Democratic campaign - that would be a victory for them, given what we’ve got now.

The allegation’s viability as a tool for a campaign right now remains limited and vulnerable. Unless new information emerges, right now the Trump campaigns goal will be to try and exploit as much of it as they can right now for as long as possible, while the Biden campaign will still be trying to defuse it as much as possible. Right now, I think the Biden campaign has a real chance to dismiss and kill this story not so much by actively working against it, but just letting it starve for major new information and salacious detail. You can tell his campaign is weighing whether or not him direly addressing the issues will blow the story up, or put it down; they would be balky if his words could dismiss it, but, well, there’s always that line from LBJ about how he didn’t want his political opponents to be quiet about the outlandish accusation he”d throw at them, since just getting them to acknoweldge the accusation made an attack viable.

[kidfresh512]

Well this is just psychotic. Armed gunmen have stormed Michigan State House.

Are they all "Sons of bitches" that should be fired from their jobs? Should they be "grateful for being in this country" All the things that peaceful kneeling athletes protesting social injustice during a song were labled and lambasted with?

The contrast in behavior here to "protest" is stark indeed. If these were all black people doing this would they be "thugs?"

This is a scary and intimidating scene

AOC Tweet

Think about how harshly #BlackLivesMatter & #AbolishICE activists were debased, called rioters, & treated as a threat to society.

Now watch & examine how this MAGA-armed rushing of a state legislature is treated.

This is for those who still think racial privilege is a fantasy.

[Mister Mets]

Do you have any evidence for that? Because I seriously doubt that is what makes this interesting for Republicans.

This is the standard I'm seeing expressed by conservatives online.

https://twitter.com/Neoavatara/statu...36907483189250

I am being consistent on this. I think neither have met the burden of proof by ANY stretch of the imagination.

So then what? Well, then you stop.

But Biden himself created a different standard. He said EVERYONE should be believed. Once you do that...well, Reade must be heard.

https://twitter.com/JayCaruso/status...15407794061315

Just compare the first three paragraphs of the story the Times wrote about Biden/Reade vs. that of the story about the crazy pants allegation from Julie Swetnick. Notice the difference?

https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/sta...52661494534152

An accuser changing their story repeatedly, not being able to provide basic details on location and time, & having parts of their story contradicted by witnesses should be giant red flags re the accusation. But those things were dismissed as irrelevant when it came to CB Ford.

I remember how much heat many of us took for pointing out the holes in the accusations against Kavanaugh. Now the same people who smeared and attacked anyone who wouldn’t adopt their insane standard back then are insisting that standard is no longer reasonable.

Whenever anyone would point out that Ford’s accusation had serious issues, they would be accused of attacking a sexual assault victim. Yet now it’s apparently alright to try to weigh the evidence in Reade’s case or even simply dismiss the allegation.

Biden deserves a fair hearing, but that also requires the media to do their job and honestly investigate the allegation. However, the people who tried to create an insane guilty unless proven innocent standard for Kavanaugh and others should never live it down.

https://twitter.com/JazzShaw/status/1255620635818168322

I don't even know if Tara Reade's story is 100% true. But I do know she's got one hell of a stronger case than Blasey-Ford. Either way, as I've said before, this story is now much less about Biden and Reade than the media response to it.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...ugh-an-apology

It would be naive to expect Biden to have received the same overtly bad-faith media coverage. But it is especially egregious that the story has received little or no coverage in the press. Biden and his campaign surrogates have repeatedly gone on television without being asked a single question about the accusation.

Reade made her first public allegation of outright assault on a March 25 podcast. The New York Times didn’t so much as publish the name Tara Reade until 19 days later. Asked about why Kavanaugh was treated differently, Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, said, “Kavanaugh was already in a public forum in a large way.” As if a former vice president who served in the Senate for 36 years and who will be the Democratic presidential nominee is somehow a private figure!

Even when the New York Times did cover the allegation, its news report read more like an attempted exoneration.

https://twitter.com/guypbenson/statu...62921332473856

McConnell added that allegations like this ought to be “dealt with symmetrically” by the media, which he believes — inarguably, in my view — has not been the case with Reade/Biden vs. Ford/Kavanaugh.

https://twitter.com/JayCaruso/status...14400582279168

"The evidence claim comparing Biden to Kavanaugh is laughable."

Again, we have no evidence Kavanaugh and Blasey-Ford EVER MET. Reade was a staffer in Biden's office for God's sake.

[Mister Mets]

But then they won't have enough experience! No matter whom he chooses, they will be the 'wrong' choice.

Klobuchar is probably more "experienced" in some ways than Warren.

Warren didn't hold elected office until she was in her mid-60s.

Republicans have found the perfect weapon to use against Democrats, especially male Democrats. All they have to do is find a women willing to go public, saying that they were sexually abused, and suddenly everything falls apart (or might fall apart).

A false claim works just as well as a true one, in fact it works even better since any man could be targeted with it.

The #MeToo movement has now been politicized and weaponized, and Democrats keep falling into this same trap.

Ironic since Trump would be in the same boat as Weinstein and Epstein if he wasn't President.

The #metoo movement might not have occurred, if not for the outrage among liberal women at Trump's election.

They would have less incentive to publicize the problem of sexual harassment allegations with Bill Clinton as First Gentleman.

This is even a bit trickier than that, even if it is the same concept. Is it good optics? No. But the truth of the matter is these are papers that were likely filed or put away thinking that they would have their privacy protected. People say and do things that they wouldn’t in public forums under more private scrutiny. There is little room to discuss tone and inflection or understand the person’s personality with mere transcripts. Candidly, it seems to be an unfair standard to apply that private documents need to be relinquished if those documents have nothing to do with the allegation in question. It looks like Biden’s camp is looking for significant documents to release, however. That’s good.



Sure, but voters refused to punish Trump for being similarly cagey about his financial and public records. He has not complied with any investigation into the allegations against him nor has he been eager to address the elephant in the room with the release of his tax returns. He took Democrats all the way to court to avoid that.



In all fairness, these last number of years—since 2017 and the new #MeToo campaign—have been years of growth and growing pains. Trump’s allegations certainly seem credible (we have women claiming all they need is a DNA sample to prove it, can name specific timeframes for the assault, Trump has demonstrated an objectification of women, and has even bragged about an event that sounded an awful lot like sexual assault (and, ironically, fairly close to what Biden’s allegations detail)). These allegations against Trump kickstarted the discussion of these kinds of acts that have long flown under the radar. In the years that followed, most #MeToo actions have unveiled and brought down folks like Harvey Weinstein. Unfortunately, some of these allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault have also been proven false, like those against Johnny Depp and, on a smaller level, against Andy Signore. These two aren’t totally innocent in either case, but it’s clear that evidence presented ought to make us doubt our reaction to these things. Destruction of livelihoods are serious consequences. When it is justice for abuse, it can be a price we are willing to pay. In other cases, it probably shouldn’t be.

The media has had to deal with this shift as well. They had to toss out one allegation against Roy Moore, because Project Veritas was trying to prove that the media was out to destroy a politician and were taking any allegations without proper vetting. They caught flak, rightly so, for covering Swetnick’s charges. They have learned to be more cautious and do more verification of these stories. And it is clear that Reade’s story is resting on a shaky foundation of credibility for multiple reasons. Indeed, the only thing that is causing allegations to resurface are the few folks coming out to corroborate that they were told about these allegations. However, as we’ve seen, those are suspect as well. I think the media’s reaction has been fair likewise. After all, Democrats tossed Franken out of office for less severe allegations than those against Trump. It’s more the times that have changed than the partisan attitude of the media or other #MeToo contributors.



On this, it is quite obvious.

On releasing documents, it seems like some kind of compromise should be possible, like giving access to people who can be trusted to look for only the relevant documents, and to not hide anything that would incriminate Biden.

Alternatively, someone with Washington experience and a perfect record of honesty could explain why the documents won't be released. But there is no one who has earned this kind of record.

I do think one issue in the 2016 campaign was that the argument that Trump should realize his tax records was muddled by the fact the Democratic nominee had papers she refused to turn over.

The discussions about harassment are complex. Standards are changing, and there isn't a complete agreement about what crosses the line (the piece on Aziz Ansari highlights that.) Even then, one of the major problems is the inconsistency, where the progress and political figures have different standards when it's convenient. After it turned out that some allegations of atrocious behavior at UVA were just not plausible, there were some pieces about how someone could be mistaken about something so serious. And little of that popped up in the discussions about Blasey-Ford's allegations of something she hadn't talked about to anyone for decades.

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/9/7356809/uva-rape-memory

[sammy_hansen]

Are they all "Sons of bitches" that should be fired from their jobs? Should they be "grateful for being in this country" All the things that peaceful kneeling athletes protesting social injustice during a song were labled and lambasted with?

The contrast in behavior here to "protest" is stark indeed. If these were all black people doing this would they be "thugs?"

This is a scary and intimidating scene

AOC Tweet

It is sickening. Absolutely sickening. And you have GOP supporters here arguing against things like affirmative action because obviously everything’s just fine and dandy and we support equality. Lol.

The white hegemony needs to get on board with fixing their racism real soon. But that won’t happen. Why would the powerful ever choose to vote away their power?

Maybe T’Challa’s cuz was right..

[jetengine]

It is sickening. Absolutely sickening. And you have GOP supporters here arguing against things like affirmative action because obviously everything’s just fine and dandy and we support equality. Lol.

The white hegemony needs to get on board with fixing their racism real soon. But that won’t happen. Why would the powerful ever choose to vote away their power?

Maybe T’Challa’s cuz was right..

Nah, he just wanted a race war. If he actually gave a **** he wouldnt have been so hostile to his own people

[TheDarman]

Biden set to respond to Tara Reade allegations against him tomorrow.

This will probably open the floodgates of real investigation. It has been kept on the sideline because of COVID-19 and Biden’s campaign deciding not to give it oxygen. It is clear that certain segments of the population were giving it plenty of oxygen. Biden was going to have to address this. I do wonder, though, if this means Biden’s team found the records they needed to find to at least provide a rebuttal of the timing from March to May of 1993.