US Politics: The Killing Hoax

[ThinkerX]

dredging u[ allegations from two dozen years ago?  Really?  Really ridiculous.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

dredging up allegations a presidential candidate from two dozen years ago?  Really?  Really ridiculous.

Ftfy

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

dredging u[ allegations from two dozen years ago?  Really?  Really ridiculous.

 

If you've decided that there's not enough on the allegations to condemn him, or that if it's between Biden and Trump you hafta grit your teeth and vote for Biden, that's another argument but the insinuation that a victim doesn't matter coz it was a long time ago can FUCK RIGHT OFF.

[Fury Resurrected]

So, I feel like I should add a few things here because there’s some perspective missing here.

In Minnesota, we are fine with Tina Smith, who took over after Franken in the Senate. We’ve moved on and that was not Franken’s seat anyway- that is and always will be Paul Wellstone’s seat. Al didn’t live up to that legacy, he’s gone, it’s fine.

I think the discussion here is really really blind to the fact that a large portion of voters Democrats are going to need in November are survivors of rape and sexual assault. The majority of those survivors never came forward themselves, of those, most would probably consider doing it now, even decades later, if the perpetrator had a 50/50ish chance of becoming their president. Coming forward about a normal person with no power, outside of the media is shitty and guaranteed to bring consequences for the victim and unlikely to bring consequences to the perpetrator. Everything about the accuser’s behavior that is deemed suspect is something a survivor would understand. A LOT of victims will minimize their story to just enough to warn of impropriety and explain their discomfort, because the only proof that can exist I most of these types of crime is their own testimony. They know the odds are against anything but a bad outcome for them. As someone who has come forward with something like this about someone who had no power or influence, where I had multiple eyewitnesses- I would absolutely not do it again in that situation, much less Tara Reade’s. I would probably do exactly as she has done at every step if it was my first rodeo of this kind- but knowing what I know from hard experience, it’s just not worth it. Dealing with the consequences of speaking out was every bit as bad to go through as the crime itself. You know people who have faced these choices, even if you think you do not. Its a lot more than you think.

A large portion of these victims have PTSD. Now imagine being a person living with deep trauma and PTSD from rape or sexual assault, and having people angrily lecturing you that if you don’t vote for a person who you might think did to someone the things that were done to you, that you are childish (that’s the EXACT word used by a poster on this board on fb on the topic, who ignored my comment asking if he thinks it is childish for sufferers of ptsd from sexual assault to not be able to vote for someone who may be a perpetrator) or selfish or whatever callous insult they wanna throw out about it- if you cannot bring yourself to vote for Joe Biden over this. 
 

I honestly don’t know what I will do. But I do know that if I do not vote for Joe Biden, it will be because I just can’t because of these experiences. 
 

If we all know more than one person this has happened to- that’s a big big problem for the DNC, not just for the general election, but for downticket races as well because if you’re no voting for these reasons, you’re probably not showing up to vote at all. These allegations have been largely ignored by the DNC and the Biden campaign and by other democrats running for office. To a survivor, this says loud and clear the party cares about us only when the perpetrator is someone they didn’t like anyway, and we are only a weapon to be used against an enemy, not real people. 
 

And now is the time to talk about it, before the convention. I know it could go a long way to steeling my resolve to vote for someone I believe in my heart to be a predator if he could at least be forced to accept Medicare for all (and to include mental health services in there, which are often inaccessible to victims of sexual assault). At least in that case I would know that he wouldn’t actively block a policy that would allow victims of spousal abuse to leave their spouse without losing healthcare and would guarantee access to mental health services to victims of abuse. That’s how it should be addressed, by shifting to policies that would benefit victims of assault. And don’t come at me with the violence against women act. It didn’t help keep the perpetrators of what happened to me off the street for a single day. We need more than that. We need healthcare, we need mental health, and we need consequences for law enforcement holding untested rape kits.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

12 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

No, I'm not naive. I'm just pointing out they're showing their true colors, and progressive supporters should remember that when Democrats speak with their forked tongues.

Unlike the Republicans, who will do wonderful, beautiful things for those districts. Believe me.

10 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

Yeah, and remember when Hitler killed millions of Jews, and the Stalin regime murdered millions of people? By those standards, Trump's totally fine, right? This argument that "well Trump did bad stuff" when people rightly are upset and sickened by the way Tara Reade is being gaslit and ignored is ridiculous. Trump never pretended to represent me or other members of the Democratic party. Biden does though, and Biden has a huge issue on his hands. The defense I've seen? Well, if she was sexually assaulted, why did her mom only mention that she was harassed on live TV? And why did Blasey-Ford's story differ so much from Kavanaugh's calendar? 

I didn't know Hitler and Stalin were running this year. Maybe I should pay more attention to third party candidates. Personally I am sick and tired of the lemming brigade of political purity, who will say Hillary, pardon, Biden is as bad as Trump, and get political outraged over Pelosi's fucking freezer full of ice cream. I mean I find it rich, that is now a conservative poster basically saying, well, her mum called in on Larry fucking King, that's all the evidence I need to believe her. Somebody should'Ve told Prof. Hill, or Balsey-Ford, to tell their mothers to call Larry King, and basically not say much other than she had a problem with a seanator, without going into details.

By all means, you can of course choke on your own d***, and sit out the GE, because that worked out so beautifully last time out. But if you then happen to run into Susan Sarandon during a protest, could you tell her to drop dead. Would you do that for me?

10 hours ago, DMC said:

On the Biden accusations, I'm wondering - what exactly would you like Democrats to do right now?  Force Biden to withdraw?  Because that's gonna help the Democrats retake the White House?  And if they don't, what happens to all those downtrodden constituencies the Democratic party is "selling out"?

I understand being aggravated politicians are loathsome creatures.  But unless we nominate a Georgian evangelical or a biracial paragon, fact is usually these guys are at least about as rapey as Biden for, like, all of American history.  

So you want Mike Pence as President?

[DMC]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So you want Mike Pence as President?

Hey.  I'll be there for him when he needs dinner guests.

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

If we all know more than one person this has happened to- that’s a big big problem for the DNC, not just for the general election, but for downticket races as well because if you’re no voting for these reasons, you’re probably not showing up to vote at all. These allegations have been largely ignored by the DNC and the Biden campaign and by other democrats running for office. To a survivor, this says loud and clear the party cares about us only when the perpetrator is someone they didn’t like anyway, and we are only a weapon to be used against an enemy, not real people.

I don't really have anything to add that you haven't already said, but I agree with you on how fucking disappointing and disillusioning it is to see how clearly a bunch of people have made the bolded part. Basically just straight up saying it themselves, not even leaving it to their actions to make clear.

When you're asking people to vote for the idea of working together to make a better world for us all you need to sell that you're actually committed and trustworthy to stick at it, otherwise there's no reason not to go for a cynical and selfish worldview. Yeah, the DNC can't just get rid of Biden, but there could have been a far more real and compassionate response to this accusation than treating it much like the GOP treated Ford.

[Larry of the Lawn]

For everyone out there who thinks it's political suicide to push for a fracking ban, it's probabaly actual suicide to keep fracking:

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/methane-permian-basin-oil-gas-climate-change/?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Bael's Bastard]

I understand sexual assault survivors giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who might have experienced such terrible things. And I certainly understand the reluctance to tell anyone or come forward. I have close family that was drugged and raped by someone she went to school with when she was a teenager. She told people, she came forward, and the police and court let the piece of shit get away with it, and it has destroyed her on a daily basis for fifteen years. She never has and never would say a good word about the guy. If anything, she now avoids the guy's name, because so many peers are still friends with him, and continued to treat him as their friend and innocent. Different people react differently to trauma. But this lady continuing to praise Biden, including his work against sexual violence against women, up until 2017 before she went from slamming Russia for interference to praising Putin and Russia, rubs her and all of us who went through the aftermath with her the wrong way. It's completely at odds with anything she or any other survivors we know would say about their assaulter. The silence for thirty years we can understand, but not the praise for his work against the same stuff she is now accusing him of. It should definitely be investigated. But automatically just starting to call Biden a rapist is bullshit.

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

I understand sexual assault survivors giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who might have experienced such terrible things. And I certainly understand the reluctance to tell anyone or come forward. I have close family that was drugged and raped by someone she went to school with when she was a teenager. She told people, she came forward, and the police and court let the piece of shit get away with it, and it has destroyed her on a daily basis for fifteen years. She never has and never would say a good word about the guy. If anything, she now avoids the guy's name, because so many peers are still friends with him, and continued to treat him as their friend and innocent. Different people react differently to trauma. But this lady continuing to praise Biden, including his work against sexual violence against women, up until 2017 before she went from slamming Russia for interference to praising Putin and Russia, rubs her and all of us who went through the aftermath with her the wrong way. It's completely at odds with anything she or any other survivors we know would say about their assaulter. The silence for thirty years we can understand, but not the praise for his work against the same stuff she is now accusing him of. It should definitely be investigated. But automatically just starting to call Biden a rapist is bullshit.

Oh come on. 

It's not at odds with how victims of sexual assault deal with their attackers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/24/i-believe-tara-reade-for-the-reasons-you-dont/

Tons of people make tough decisions all the time on shit like this.  Maybe she thought that the work he was doing outweighed her history with him.  She's said before that she thought maybe he's changed.  All that stuff in the first part of your post is just a smokescreen for dismissing this stuff out of hand.  

And any time the Russia stuff comes up it just makes it sound like she shouldn't be believed based on her opinions.  

Did you apply this same level of scrutiny to Dr. Ford's claims against Kavanaugh?  

Or perhaps a better comparison would be Carroll's allegations against Trump.  None of the mainstream media had such reservations about reporting those allegations when the story broke.  So what's really the difference here?  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 hours ago, ants said:

Ironically Simon has condemned the DMC because in his view they put a finger on the scales, now you both want them to throw the leading candidate out?

Funny slip up. @DMC, you just became a pro wrestler. 

I think your finishing move should be throwing a textbook at someone's head, Dr Mundo style. 

[DMC]

Ethics were mentioned earlier and now seem to be the theme.  Because I'm going insane in my apartment, been thinking about this way too much.  Most of my adult life, I've hung out with bar workers.  The vast majority of the females I know in that line have been sexually assaulted.  Like any son with a guilting mother, of course over the past half of my life when I find out about this I react by trying to be as accommodating as possible.  But, abiding by their political preferences or vote choices quickly becomes an impossibility because people make different determinations about politics.  If you do not find it ethical to vote for Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump because of past experiences, good for you. 

But don't insinuate I'm ethically inferior for still supporting a candidate that I almost entirely least preferred in the primary anyway.  It's rather ironic that there's this type of absolutist shaming that is usually and predictably employed by the religious right.  Conflating sexual assault charges with whether Biden should adopt or advocate certain policies is an unsettling ethical position for many.  Let alone whether or not to vote for him.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

So, I feel like I should add a few things here because there’s some perspective missing here.

In Minnesota, we are fine with Tina Smith, who took over after Franken in the Senate. We’ve moved on and that was not Franken’s seat anyway- that is and always will be Paul Wellstone’s seat. Al didn’t live up to that legacy, he’s gone, it’s fine.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I worked with Al, and my father was friends with Paul. Al ultimately had his personal failings, but I think he lived up to Paul just fine. He would have been the perfect VP pick if Harris had won. But life is what happens when we're busy making other plans.

Quote

If we all know more than one person this has happened to- that’s a big big problem for the DNC, not just for the general election, but for downticket races as well because if you’re no voting for these reasons, you’re probably not showing up to vote at all. These allegations have been largely ignored by the DNC and the Biden campaign and by other democrats running for office. To a survivor, this says loud and clear the party cares about us only when the perpetrator is someone they didn’t like anyway, and we are only a weapon to be used against an enemy, not real people. 

So to keep in in MN, what did you make of Keith's situation? I never worked for him, but I've worked out of his office, if that makes sense. Because I can totally believe he was innocent, guilty, or existing in a grey area. With Biden I do think the accusations exist in a grey area and they took place over two decades ago, when times were different, and I'm not sure how to take that in to account. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Meant to put this link in last post, helps explain Reade's behavior for those who think it doesn't make sense:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/07/inconvenient-truth-rape?amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

[Bael's Bastard]

6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Oh come on. 

It's not at odds with how victims of sexual assault deal with their attackers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/24/i-believe-tara-reade-for-the-reasons-you-dont/

Tons of people make tough decisions all the time on shit like this.  Maybe she thought that the work he was doing outweighed her history with him.  She's said before that she thought maybe he's changed.  All that stuff in the first part of your post is just a smokescreen for dismissing this stuff out of hand.  

And any time the Russia stuff comes up it just makes it sound like she shouldn't be believed based on her opinions.  

Did you apply this same level of scrutiny to Dr. Ford's claims against Kavanaugh?  

Or perhaps a better comparison would be Carroll's allegations against Trump.  None of the mainstream media had such reservations about reporting those allegations when the story broke.  So what's really the difference here?  

Thats a load of bullshit. And the issue with the Russia stuff is that she suddenly flipped to a position completely antithetical to the one she had passionately displayed right up until that moment, and her flip on Biden from highlighting him as a champion of women over the course of years to her rapist, didn't come until after she started posting unhinged praise of Putin during this administration. It's shady as fuck. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be investigated, but it sure as fuck means sinking Biden without an investigation is bullshit.

[Inkdaub]

41 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

I understand sexual assault survivors giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who might have experienced such terrible things. And I certainly understand the reluctance to tell anyone or come forward. I have close family that was drugged and raped by someone she went to school with when she was a teenager. She told people, she came forward, and the police and court let the piece of shit get away with it, and it has destroyed her on a daily basis for fifteen years. She never has and never would say a good word about the guy. If anything, she now avoids the guy's name, because so many peers are still friends with him, and continued to treat him as their friend and innocent. Different people react differently to trauma. But this lady continuing to praise Biden, including his work against sexual violence against women, up until 2017 before she went from slamming Russia for interference to praising Putin and Russia, rubs her and all of us who went through the aftermath with her the wrong way. It's completely at odds with anything she or any other survivors we know would say about their assaulter. The silence for thirty years we can understand, but not the praise for his work against the same stuff she is now accusing him of. It should definitely be investigated. But automatically just starting to call Biden a rapist is bullshit.

How would we know this?  Who is we?  This has no basis in truth at all.  We shouldn't just decide for ourselves that we understand something we have never experienced.  It's more complicated than simple assumptions based on how something might be in our own imaginations.

[Larry of the Lawn]

21 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Thats a load of bullshit. And the issue with the Russia stuff is that she suddenly flipped to a position completely antithetical to the one she had passionately displayed right up until that moment, and her flip on Biden from highlighting him as a champion of women over the course of years to her rapist, didn't come until after she started posting unhinged praise of Putin during this administration. It's shady as fuck. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be investigated, but it sure as fuck means sinking Biden without an investigation is bullshit.

See the other link I posted.  None of what you're saying should discredit Reade.  And I'm not sure where I said Biden should be sunk without an investigation.  I'm arguing that the media and the Dem establishment have downplayed and dismissed this from the start.  It's easily as credible as the allegations from Carroll against Trump, which no one had any problem presenting on their own without all these caveats and doubts.  And there's nothing 'shady as fuck' about the Putin stuff.  This is more Red Scare nonsense.  

[Ran]

CounterPunch. Really? Boy, been a long time since I've seen it mentioned. Takes me back to the Bush days and their going toe-to-toe with David Horowitz and the neocons.

The reference to it reminded me of the fact that they were used by a Russian troll or disinformation campaign, and only became aware of it when a WaPo reporter asked them about a leak that indicated the writer, "Alice Donovan", was connected to Russian information. They did an admirable piece revealing and exploring it in some detail.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

CounterPunch. Really? Boy, been a long time since I've seen it mentioned. Takes me back to the Bush days and their going toe-to-toe with David Horowitz and the neocons.

The reference to it reminded me of the fact that they were used by a Russian troll or disinformation campaign, and only became aware of it when a WaPo reporter asked them about a leak that indicated the writer, "Alice Donovan", was connected to Russian information. They did an admirable piece revealing and exploring it in some detail.

 

I was looking for the other article I linked:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/07/inconvenient-truth-rape?amp&__twitter_impression=true

searched for it and the counterpunch one came up and I copied it thinking it was the commondreams.org one.

Any thoughts on that one?  

[Zorral]

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm

Quote

 

Military & Diplomatic Mail (APO/FPO/DPO) Service Disruptions

On April 8, 2020, the Department of State notified the Postal Service that effective April 9, 2020 through May 8, 2020 diplomatic mail (DPO) is temporarily suspended to the ZIP Codes™ listed here. We ask customers to refrain from entering items addressed to these destinations, until further notice.

Customers: please refrain from mailing items addressed to the following countries, until further notice.

 

That list is very extensive.  So are the lists above that one.