American Politics: A Brand New Day

Demon Rin

That's the part that bothers me. This odd mentality that Biden would be just as bad or worse than Trump. Obviously this isn't taking into account the Allegations against him, the things he's promising on his campaign website would completely and definitively be better than what Trump wants to do.

He's promised to undo the locking up of kids and reunite families (I know. "Who built the cages?!". That doesn't matter. What matters is what he's promising to do NOW)
He's promised to protect LGBT rights
He's promised to Actually take steps to combat Climate Change (Vs. y'know, undoing regulations and actively HURTING efforts to combat it)
He promised to try to codify Roe v. Wade
He's promised to expand the ACA including a Public Option.

Some of these things like his Healthcare plans aren't nearly as comprehensive and good as Bernie's for sure. This isn't debatable.
But ALL of these things and more are VASTLY better than what we currently have under Trump. Even him just doing the bare minimum he has to in order to say he tried to keep his promises in these areas would be immeasurably better than Trump and IMO it's the moral thing to do in most cases.

The ACA wasn't perfect but it led to 20 MILLION extra people being covered who weren't already. Trump has been stripping things from it meaning those 20 Million people are at risk of losing theirs. I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. I have a chronic case of Girl which is considered a "Preexisting condition" and before ACA I couldn't get health insurance.

His plan isn't M4A but 20 Million people isn't NOTHING. Why do some people consider letting Trump continue to tear that apart the more Moral position over letting Biden try to expand the ACA?

This is the shitty icky position I now find myself in.

Biden is clearly and unambiguously the better option and now that the Primary is effectively over, the ONLY option other than Trump and I'm stuck defending him on a policy level while he's got credible sexual assault allegations against him.

What's more moral? Opposing him on principle because of those allegations, then watching as Roe v. Wade is overturned, the ACA is dismantled further and fewer and fewer people get covered? Watch as the kids in cages continue? Watch as Fascism and white nationalism continue to take hold?
I'm a consequentialist and a pragmatist.

Ideals and symbolic gestures can sometimes be important. The idea of "Supporting" a rapist makes my skin crawl, but ultimately I have to ask myself "What will actually HAPPEN if Biden loses?" and the answer to that question is: "The bad things Trump was doing will continue and probably get worse since he'll be emboldened after beating Impeachment AND Reelection" and in this scenario I can't help but prefer the situation where that DOESN'T happen.

It's a shitty situation to be in and I hate that Biden has put me in it, but here we are.

Satsuki

@Demon:

It's a shitty situation to be in and I hate that Biden has put me in it, but here we are.

I think that's what a lot of us not-alt-right people are right now. I would like to have the allegations against Biden taken seriously as any should be, but if we did we risk being put in a situation that is FAR WORSE. That and there's accusation of Tara having too many ties to Putin.

The D.

@Demon:

That's the part that bothers me. This odd mentality that Biden would be just as bad or worse than Trump. Obviously this isn't taking into account the Allegations against him, the things he's promising on his campaign website would completely and definitively be better than what Trump wants to do.

He's promised to undo the locking up of kids and reunite families (I know. "Who built the cages?!". That doesn't matter. What matters is what he's promising to do NOW)
He's promised to protect LGBT rights
He's promised to Actually take steps to combat Climate Change (Vs. y'know, undoing regulations and actively HURTING efforts to combat it)
He promised to try to codify Roe v. Wade
He's promised to expand the ACA including a Public Option.

Some of these things like his Healthcare plans aren't nearly as comprehensive and good as Bernie's for sure. This isn't debatable.
But ALL of these things and more are VASTLY better than what we currently have under Trump. Even him just doing the bare minimum he has to in order to say he tried to keep his promises in these areas would be immeasurably better than Trump and IMO it's the moral thing to do in most cases.

The ACA wasn't perfect but it led to 20 MILLION extra people being covered who weren't already. Trump has been stripping things from it meaning those 20 Million people are at risk of losing theirs. I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. I have a chronic case of Girl which is considered a "Preexisting condition" and before ACA I couldn't get health insurance.

His plan isn't M4A but 20 Million people isn't NOTHING. Why do some people consider letting Trump continue to tear that apart the more Moral position over letting Biden try to expand the ACA?

This is the shitty icky position I now find myself in.

Biden is clearly and unambiguously the better option and now that the Primary is effectively over, the ONLY option other than Trump and I'm stuck defending him on a policy level while he's got credible sexual assault allegations against him.

What's more moral? Opposing him on principle because of those allegations, then watching as Roe v. Wade is overturned, the ACA is dismantled further and fewer and fewer people get covered? Watch as the kids in cages continue? Watch as Fascism and white nationalism continue to take hold?
I'm a consequentialist and a pragmatist.

Ideals and symbolic gestures can sometimes be important. The idea of "Supporting" a rapist makes my skin crawl, but ultimately I have to ask myself "What will actually HAPPEN if Biden loses?" and the answer to that question is: "The bad things Trump was doing will continue and probably get worse since he'll be emboldened after beating Impeachment AND Reelection" and in this scenario I can't help but prefer the situation where that DOESN'T happen.

It's a shitty situation to be in and I hate that Biden has put me in it, but here we are.

I think you misunderstand me, Rin. I'm voting for biden because yes, he is demonstrably better than trumpy. He might not be good, but he's good enough for the moment. It's just a shit sandwich I'll have to take a bite out of in order to keep from being drowned in orange sewage. Of course this only matters if you believe biden can defeat trumpy in November. Which I don't for the record.

pariston_hill

The DNC oligarchy was a jab of how a perceive the electoral college democracy. Joe is not a stellar candidate imo, but he is faaaaaaar better than Trump.

Ubiq

The Tara Read allegations could also not be receiving coverage because there are massive contradictions in her story to the point that not even conservative media wants to run with it.

RoboBlue

@Satsuki:

I think that's what a lot of us not-alt-right people are right now. I would like to have the allegations against Biden taken seriously as any should be, but if we did we risk being put in a situation that is FAR WORSE. That and there's accusation of Tara having too many ties to Putin.

As far as I know the accusation is that in the past she was a weird fan of Russia, not that she has any actual connections to Putin.

The problem with the DNC and the media trying to squash the story is that if it had come out in January when Tara was first seeking legal aid, they could have spun it in Biden's favor or forced him to drop out and picked a better candidate.
Now, because the story's been suppressed for weeks, right-wing media outlets have been given ample time to paint the Democrats as sexist liars and hypocrites who really only care about women when it's politically convenient for them.
None of the left-leaning outlets that would normally be out there defending Biden have any credibility on the issue any more.

If there isn't some way for Biden to conclusively prove his innocence, Trump is going to end up becoming the one who tells the story to the general public, and he's going to hold it up as absolute proof of media corruption and Democratic hypocrisy.

That said… it's still better for CNN and MSNBC to break the news than Trump. They need to get on this now.

Demon Rin

They could be banking on the idea that Trump's approval rating has never been 50% or higher and that people won't just uncritically believe Trump outside of his base that was never going to vote Blue regardless.

If they bring it up first, it's a real thing that people should be taking seriously.

If Trump brings it up first, they can spin it as another one of his lies.

Not my own position on it mind you, just trying to rationalize why they might not think getting out in front of it is a good idea.

Is Ubiq correct? Is Conservative media ALSO hesitant to run with this? I mean, it makes sense that they SHOULD be running with this as hard as they can. If even they are being hesitant, then it's not as simple as "The MSM is covering for Biden"

Kaiolino

The New York Times and Washington Post literally had entire teams working to uncover Bill Clinton's sexcapades for a DECADE. They took Paula Jones seriously, for gods sake. But now these same papers are trying to protect Biden and slander his accusers? Despite ALSO reporting on his various fondling allegations and what not a year ago?

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@The:

Yeah, sexual assault accusations should only be taken seriously if they're against republicans! Get that fake news out of here, blue!

lol you can back to the politics thread in 2017 and see my posts where I immediately said Al Franken needed to resign once those creepy pictures came out. You can also see my 2018-2019 posts where I was one of the most fiercely opposed people to Joe Biden, regularly brought up his… indiscretions and his brainfarts.

But he's the nominee now because his strongest opponent ran a shit-tier campaign and Biden is still a billion times better than Trump.

Anyway, I was talking about the "DNC oligarchy" thing. Voters have autonomy and Democratic voters don't have a single news source who they duly listen to like Republicans have Fox News.

RoboBlue

@Ubiq:

The Tara Read allegations could also not be receiving coverage because there are massive contradictions in her story to the point that not even conservative media wants to run with it.

What contradictions?

I saw a whole bunch of coverage from conservative outlets back in March when the story was new.

Ubiq

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/31/a-woman-accuses-joe-biden-of-sexual-assault-and-all-hell-breaks-loose-online-heres-what-we-know/

Robby

Biden is a creeper, no question. I'm not a fan and I won't defend him if there's anything credible to go by and I really wish he wasn't the one that got the nod.

There's PLENTY of video of hi getting up in girl's private spaces and making them clearly uncomfortable and not respecting boundaries…. so it's obvious he's got issues there.

BUT.

The question then becomes, is he just an old fart 70 year old who treats people that way because that's the culture he came up in... or is he a RAPIST? That drugs/forces/knocks out women and completely has his way with them and then forces them to be silent?

The NYT article gets mocked for making that distinction poorly. They're both bad things, and unsolicited hugs and kisses etc. is a bad bad look. Its really clear he has no respect for boundaries, and I'd easily believe he was a rapist given that.

but can we agree that there IS a degree of difference between those two things?

Right now he only has one accuser and she's not very credible. You always have to give the victim some benefit of the doubt... but you also need a grain of salt with it when its a famous or public figure or there or agendas to be had.

No rapist with power and money just does it once. If he has an actual history of it, there should be more coming forward. There's obviously lots of evidence of uncomfortable spacing. But while its just one woman claiming rape? Some sense of doubt.

(Trump IS known to have raped underage girls and paid hush money, so...)

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@Kaiolino:

But he's the nominee now because his strongest opponent ran a shit-tier campaign

To be fair, at this point I think its safe to place some of the blame on this on the citizens. People LIKE old and normal and after four years of Trump don't want major change right now. They want familiar and comfortable, rather than forward thinking.

Bernie did NOT capture the vote. Some of that is campaign, and some of that has to be the actual candidate and their policies. I was all for him, I wanted him to be the guy, now and in 2016 (though I wuld have liked Warren or Beto more) but he clearly doesn't quite grab the general populace, especially not minority or older voters. He's good with the young crowd… who for a variety of reasons, just don't vote. He didn't come close to Clinton, and he didn't come close to Biden either.

The wide swatch of america wants boring person who they know and have heard of, not scary socialist give up your money for others guy. If anything Bernie was a known quantity this time and an actual name, he should have done better but he overall did worse basically everywhere than he did 4 years ago. At some point its fair I think to say he did as well as he did last time because a lot of people just didn't like Hillary.

Ubiq

It's pretty obvious that the entire campaign strategy for Bernie was centered around people being too selfish to bow out and the winner thus being able to clinch the nomination with plurality wins and superdelegates.

Envy

Yup, I really feared from the beginning the thought of having to choose between two candidates who are predatory. I have done nothing but point out the utter hypocrisy of "moral" Republicans for raising up Trump as some kind of messiah despite him being a complete monster who bragged about sexual assault on a tape and was proud of it. The same group that claims that transgender women should not be allowed to use women's facilities for the safety of cis women and children. They don't care about the safety of women and children. Period.

Now there's a Democrat who isn't too different and here we are… In that worst case scenario.

The sad thing is when both candidates are like that, then it becomes a literal situation of the lesser evil. Biden is the lesser evil. The one who will do the least damage to our nation and rights. However, it feels incredibly dirty to think of voting for him nevertheless. I can only doing so knowing I really have no other choice and that the alternative (Trump) is evil in both morality and policy.

Again, I didn't want to have to say this stuff... America you are really messed up. So many great Democratic candidates, including Warren and Sanders, and this is what we get.

Kaiolino

@Ubiq:

It's pretty obvious that the entire campaign strategy for Bernie was centered around people being too selfish to bow out and the winner thus being able to clinch the nomination with plurality wins and superdelegates.

I think there's actually an article from 2019 where they outright state the strategy was to hold on to their 2016 numbers and let the rest be spread out amongst the other candidates.

Which is why it's very weird that his online surrogates were very clearly aiming for a Biden vs. Bernie match-up by unloading their ammo on every Democratic candidate whose turn it was to rise in the polls except Biden.

Green_vs_Red

@The:

The dnc rigging narrative is stupid, but so is blaming Bernie and his supporters for the establishment candidate losing.

Except the problem is that is what they did, that's what they've said they'll do this time around so blame goes where it needs to go.

@The:

Blue has shown that there's some shady shit going on with the msm protecting biden. You can't deny that.

I mean if you ignore the fact that most of the media has been covering the Pandemic and these allegations happen to come out a bad time…...

@Ubiq:

The Tara Read allegations could also not be receiving coverage because there are massive contradictions in her story to the point that not even conservative media wants to run with it.

So like that one Bill Clinton accuser?

The D.

Right. I forgot we're not allowed to blame hillary for her loss, or biden for his inevitable loss in November. It's Bernie and his supporters fault for not lying down on the altar of centrism and giving themselves up in blood sacrifice to the perfect establishment. Couldn't be that hillary was seen as a shady liar, and biden's brain is melting before our very eyes. Nope it's the guy who just wants to give you free healthcare and college. And his supporters who didn't even get out to vote for HIM.

RoboBlue

@Ubiq:

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/31/a-woman-accuses-joe-biden-of-sexual-assault-and-all-hell-breaks-loose-online-heres-what-we-know/

I'm not really seeing anything massive in that article, and the first claim (that media outlets aren't reporting on the accusation because they like to carefully research each and every rape or sexual assault claim) is demonstrably false.

There's a Fox News clip from last week on Youtube, and there's no evidence they did any significant research into the story.

1. Is the mainstream media burying Reade's story out of loyalty to Biden and/or hatred of Sanders? That's unlikely. Here's why.

Coincidentally the left-aligned mainstream outlets that have reported on the story almost all waited until Bernie dropped out to publish their articles.
Also the New York Times admitted that they censored their article at the Biden campaign's request.

She told Salon she rejected this request and complained directly to supervisors Marianne Baker and Dennis Toner.

No proof of that was offered, and unless I'm mistaken she didn't claim to have made a formal complaint in any of her interviews.

Reade's April 2019 account of why she left Biden's office also conflicts with earlier things she has written. In a December 2018 Mediumpost she's since deleted, Reade wrote that she quit working for Biden to pursue a vocation in the arts and because she loves "Russia with all my heart" and rejected "the reckless imperialism of America" and what she saw as an anti-Russian view on Capitol Hill.

After doing "more research," she told Salon she now feels differently about Putin, although if that's true her change of heart seems to be quite recent. In February 2020,
"not to repeat xenophobic propaganda against Russia" and lamented that "Putin in 2006 was Hollywood A listers darling now he is the evil master mind."

The Russia stuff is weird and the John Cusack tweet does seem to imply that she's lying about her views, but that doesn't disprove her rape allegation. She did work for Biden at the time and if her claim is true it would not be surprising at all that she spent thirty years lying to people about what happened.

2. Did Time's Up refuse to help Reade as a political favor to Biden? Almost certainly not.

This section makes a lot of claims about statements made to Salon that aren't publicly available. They just expect us to take their word for it, and Salon was never a very reputable outlet.

Green_vs_Red

@The:

Right. I forgot we're not allowed to blame hillary for her loss, or biden for his inevitable loss in November. It's Bernie and his supporters fault for not lying down on the altar of centrism and giving themselves up in blood sacrifice to the perfect establishment. Couldn't be that hillary was seen as a shady liar, and biden's brain is melting before our very eyes. Nope it's the guy who just wants to give you free healthcare and college. And his supporters who didn't even get out to vote for HIM.

No one said she wasn't at fault but Bernie supporters either opted not to vote or voted for Trump like dummies on top of all the other bullshit that was at play.

RoboBlue

@Green_vs_Red:

Except the problem is that is what they did, that's what they've said they'll do this time around so blame goes where it needs to go.

That's a great reason for half the internet to spend four years completely shitting on the 90% of Bernie supporters who voted for Hillary in 2016.

Let's hope all that abuse convinced them to vote Biden in 2020 because otherwise we might have to confront the fact that Hillary shattered any dream of party unity and doomed us to a second Trump term when she spent a million dollars hiring paid trolls to harass Sanders supporters and then had the balls to repeatedly complain about them being mean to her online.

The D.

@Green_vs_Red:

No one said she wasn't at fault but Bernie supporters either opted not to vote or voted for Trump like dummies on top of all the other bullshit that was at play.

Do you have figures to back these accusations up? And no, some mean tweets don't count. If someone can provide evidence for Bernie's supporters voting for trumpy or not voting at all I would genuinely like to see it.

RoboBlue

@Green_vs_Red:

No one said she wasn't at fault but Bernie supporters either opted not to vote or voted for Trump like dummies on top of all the other bullshit that was at play.

I guess it's fair to blame Hillary supporters as a group for the 30% of them who didn't vote for Obama in 2008.

Green_vs_Red

@RoboBlue:

That's a great reason for half the internet to spend four years completely shitting on the 90% of Bernie supporters who voted for Hillary in 2016.

Let's hope all that abuse convinced them to vote Biden in 2020 because otherwise we might have to confront the fact that Hillary shattered any dream of party unity and doomed us to a second Trump term when she spent a million dollars hiring paid trolls to harass Sanders supporters and then had the balls to repeatedly complain about them being mean to her online.

…....Your source is wikipedia? like even if the information is true I wouldn't try to argue that Wikipedia is place one goes to get factual and in depth information on anything especially when people can edit information on wikipedia.

@The:

Do you have figures to back these accusations up? And no, some mean tweets don't count. If someone can provide evidence for Bernie's supporters voting for trumpy or not voting at all I would genuinely like to see it.

information has been out there for some time if you can't find or don't want to I'm not walking down that rabbit hole.

@RoboBlue:

I guess it's fair to blame Hillary supporters as a group for the 30% of them who didn't vote for Obama in 2008.

…......Obama won though it was stupid but we didn't get McCain's old ass as the 44th thanks to a combination of things like W. fucking shit up massively for the Republicans (though they fucked up badly too) and McCain making one of the same mistakes Hillary made in 2016 by picking the wrong running mate.

The D.

That's a no then, gotcha.

RoboBlue

@The:

Do you have figures to back these accusations up? And no, some mean tweets don't count. If someone can provide evidence for Bernie's supporters voting for trumpy or not voting at all I would genuinely like to see it.

About 12% of Bernie supporters ended up voting for Trump. According to Vox about 35% of Bernie supporters in 2016 identified as conservative, so really the "12 percent betrayed the Democratic Party" narrative is extremely misleading. Bernie brought in conservative voters and some of them went back to the right after he failed to win the nomination.

The D.

@RoboBlue:

About 12% of Bernie supporters ended up voting for Trump. According to Vox about 35% of Bernie supporters in 2016 identified as conservative, so really the "12 percent betrayed the Democratic Party" narrative is extremely misleading. Bernie brought in conservative voters and some of them went back to the right after he failed to win the nomination.

Thank you. This is all I was asking for. And now I can say fuck that 12 percent. Fuck 'em hard.

RoboBlue

@Green_vs_Red:

…....Your source is wikipedia? like even if the information is true I wouldn't try to argue that Wikipedia is place one goes to get factual and in depth information on anything especially when people can edit information on wikipedia.

I got a little lazy there.
I learned about it in 2016 when she bragged about it on her campaign site, but that's not around any more and the Archive.org version is hard to navigate.

Here's a Daily Beast article on it and the Archive.org backup of the Correct The Record site.

Ubiq

@Green_vs_Red:

So like that one Bill Clinton accuser?

The fact that not even Kenneth Starr considered her account credible speaks volumes.

@RoboBlue:

I'm not really seeing anything massive in that article, and the first claim (that media outlets aren't reporting on the accusation because they like to carefully research each and every rape or sexual assault claim) is demonstrably false.

There's a Fox News clip from last week on Youtube, and there's no evidence they did any significant research into the story.

That article was written before then so things that have happened since can't be held against it.

Coincidentally the left-aligned mainstream outlets that have reported on the story almost all waited until Bernie dropped out to publish their articles.

The suggestion that there's an anti-Bernie conspiracy behind the lack of coverage for this story doesn't do a whole lot for its credibility. Nor does the fact that it only seemed to have gotten traction online after the accusations of Biden being mentally enfeebled fell apart either and largely from the exact same group of people.

Also the New York Times admitted that they censored their article at the Biden campaign's request.

Because it was written in a way that buried the lede and never should have gotten past the editor in the first place; as is, that second sentence completely changes the tone of that paragraph.

No proof of that was offered, and unless I'm mistaken she didn't claim to have made a formal complaint in any of her interviews.

Another article mentions that she claims to have filed a formal complaint with the Senate personnel office that the Senate has no record of.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/tara-reade-joe-biden-democrats/

If she didn't say that, why does it come up?

The Russia stuff is weird and the John Cusack tweet does seem to imply that she's lying about her views, but that doesn't disprove her rape allegation. She did work for Biden at the time and if her claim is true it would not be surprising at all that she spent thirty years lying to people about what happened.

No, it doesn't disprove her allegation. On the other hand, there's a lot here that simply doesn't add up and raises questions as to why none of this ever came up elsewhere prior to her support of Bernie. Especially when he was vetted for the VP position by the Obama team in 2008.

This section makes a lot of claims about statements made to Salon that aren't publicly available. They just expect us to take their word for it, and Salon was never a very reputable outlet.

And the Intercept is?

Cyan D. Funk

Isn't the Intercept too busy being mad about Nancy Pelosi's ice cream collection right now than the deeply insane Tara Reade story?

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@Ubiq:

It's pretty obvious that the entire campaign strategy for Bernie was centered around people being too selfish to bow out and the winner thus being able to clinch the nomination with plurality wins and superdelegates.

The moment the news about Bernie's 30% strategy came out, it should've murdered the "GLORIOUS MOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE" horseshit then and there.

Ubiq

@Cyan:

Isn't the Intercept too busy being mad about Nancy Pelosi's ice cream collection right now than the deeply insane Tara Reade story?

"Rich person has high-end appliances and fills them with a common food they like that keeps a really long time" is a really weird thing to be worrying about. If it was being stocked with aged chiru steaks or dolphin fins or some random thing like that, I could kinda see it, but ice cream?

The moment the news about Bernie's 30% strategy came out, it should've murdered the "GLORIOUS MOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE" horseshit then and there.

When you think about, their argument basically came down to ignoring everything they said and did in 2016 after Super Tuesday:

"How you win without a broader coalition of Democratic voters?"
"We just need a smaller number that shows up every time just for us; the rest of the vote will be too split up to really pose a threat."
"But that means you won't have a majority."
"It'll still be the most votes and states which is the only thing that matters."

RoboBlue

@Ubiq:

That article was written before then so things that have happened since can't be held against it.

Yes, but a whole slew of articles came out around the same time from conservative outlets comparing the Biden allegation to the Kavanaugh allegation. The idea that most mainstream news outlets care about victims and turn down stories to protect them is silly, they're just news fodder to fill the time and sometimes push an agenda.

@Ubiq:

The suggestion that there's an anti-Bernie conspiracy behind the lack of coverage for this story doesn't do a whole lot for its credibility. Nor does the fact that it only seemed to have gotten traction online after the accusations of Biden being mentally enfeebled fell apart either

Since when have the accusations of Biden being mentally enfeebled fallen apart? They're still true and relevant.

@Ubiq:

and largely from the exact same group of people.

.
A few weeks back it was in one of his campaign ads.

@Ubiq:

Because it was written in a way that buried the lede and never should have gotten past the editor in the first place; as is, that second sentence completely changes the tone of that paragraph.

Yes but the fact that the Biden campaign is able to secretly act as a postpartum editor of the New York Times shows a pretty damning level of collusion. It's common sense that you don't let the subject of a rape allegation suggest edits to articles about the accuser, and the fact that it was a stealth edit tells us the NYT knew that and did it anyway.
It's better to have a poorly written article than an article that undermines its own credibility and the integrity of the entire news outlet.

@Ubiq:

Another article mentions that she claims to have filed a formal complaint with the Senate personnel office that the Senate has no record of.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/tara-reade-joe-biden-democrats/

If she didn't say that, why does it come up?

Reade now says she made claims of sexual harassment, but not assault, to her supervisors in Biden’s office; they vehemently deny hearing any such complaint. She says she was told to find a new job by a supervisor, but she has also changed her recollection of which supervisor it was when speaking to reporters in recent weeks (all of the people she named deny it). The AP contacted 21 former Biden staffers, none of whom remember any Reade complaint against their boss. Reade also claims she complained to the Senate personnel office; there is no record of it.

That's… odd.
In the filmed interviews she's repeatedly made the claim that she never filed a formal report because she chickened out and didn't tell her supervisor, and several of those predate both of the articles you linked.

It's possible that her memory of the incident is warped by time and PTSD, but it's uncomfortably convenient that she's telling the media a different set of facts that happen to be easily disprovable in private while calling them untrustworthy in public.

Someone needs to record her saying those things.

@Ubiq:

No, it doesn't disprove her allegation. On the other hand, there's a lot here that simply doesn't add up and raises questions as to why none of this ever came up elsewhere prior to her support of Bernie. Especially when he was vetted for the VP position by the Obama team in 2008.

Well she's already given an explanation for that, and it makes sense.
She was an Obama supporter in 2008 and she was nervous about how the news coverage and possible backlash would affect her children.
They're adults now apparently.

@Ubiq:

And the Intercept is?

Eh, they did break the Kavanaugh story.
It was the same reporter actually, weird coincidence.

@Cyan:

Isn't the Intercept too busy being mad about Nancy Pelosi's ice cream collection right now than the deeply insane Tara Reade story?

To be fair it might have been insensitive of her to post the ice cream clip on her twitter in a time when people are literally starving.

As a sidenote I'd like to take the rest of this post to ask Trump why the hell the National Guard isn't delivering food to people in COVID19 hot spots.

Green_vs_Red

All the governors are already backing off of the Ebola quarantines. Bad decision that will lead to more mayhem.

What a difference 6-7 years make.

Cyan D. Funk

@RoboBlue:

Since when have the accusations of Biden being mentally enfeebled fallen apart? They're still true and relevant.

He has a stutter and his speech training taught him to quickly replace words if he couldn't get them out in time, that's what's actually going on in ever selectively cut down 6 second clip of Biden supposedly having holes in his brain.

The people claiming Biden has dementia have no fucking idea what dementia looks like and are dumb as hell if they really think that Trump will slay Biden with his clever wit and silver tongue.

It's better to have a poorly written article than an article that undermines its own credibility and the integrity of the entire news outlet.

We're talking about the NYT, right?

To be fair it might have been insensitive of her to post the ice cream clip on her twitter in a time when people are literally starving.

No one who is not an Extremely Online dipshit gives a single fuck about what Nancy Pelosi has in her freezer. No one.

For the love of god, stop treating every attack against the Democrats as being in good faith.

RoboBlue

For some reason the error picture on Joe Biden's site is him eating an ice cream cone with a spoon.

!

Demon Rin

I'm gonna refer to this moment in politics as "Icecreamgate".

Nancy Pelosi has a lot of Ice Cream in her big Freezer and Biden has a silly image of him eating Ice Cream with a spoon as the error page on his website.

Truly they are monsters.

Zeorn

@Demon:

I'm gonna refer to this moment in politics as "Icecreamgate".

Nancy Pelosi has a lot of Ice Cream in her big Freezer and Biden has a silly image of him eating Ice Cream with a spoon as the error page on his website.

Truly they are monsters.

Wait, I love ice cream…I've been a monster the whole time. NOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!1111

Cyan D. Funk

It is deeply inconceivable that a person with nine grandchildren would have a lot of ice cream in their freezer.

Shiebs

Nancy Pelosi eats ice cream?! That Monster!! Quick we have to ruin her career

Kaiolino

Pelosi: I have a lot of ice cream
McConnell: I'd rather states go bankrupt than send more federal aid
Non-partisan Journalists: Nancy Pelosi has a messaging problem and doesn't understand millions of Americans are in dire financial straits

Cyan D. Funk

@Kaiolino:

Pelosi: I have a lot of ice cream
McConnell: I'd rather states go bankrupt than send more federal aid
Non-partisan Journalists: Nancy Pelosi has a messaging problem and doesn't understand millions of Americans are in dire financial straits

Extremely Online Harvard law school grad who lives in a heavily gentrified area of Brooklyn: Nancy Pelosi having ice cream in her freezer is simply another example of the disconnect between Democrat Elites and True Poor People like myself. Also she reminds me of my mom and I have intense parental issues that need therapy, see also my barely-hidden admiration of Trump.

Ubiq

We need less Ivory Tower rich people like Nancy Pelosi and her appalling dairy fetish and more down-to-Earth types like Donald, Jr. and his Regular Joe endangered species safaris.

RoboBlue

I didn't realize the ice cream issue was such a raw nerve.

Why is this eclipsing the discussion while people ignore the part of my post where I complained about how Donald Trump is literally letting people starve to death?

SmokerSan

@RoboBlue:

I didn't realize the ice cream issue was such a raw nerve.

Why is this eclipsing the discussion while people ignore the part of my post where I complained about how Donald Trump is literally letting people starve to death?

Because, you are only allowed to report that. The other issues with the democrats are off-limit.

Kaiolino

If you want to complain about Pelosi, complain that she is putting a crook on the corona oversight committee.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

This is also a good thing to rag on Pelosi for: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/pelosi-house-proxy-voting-200861

Demon Rin

@SmokerSan:

Because, you are only allowed to report that. The other issues with the democrats are off-limit.

Great Strawman there.

See Kaiolino's Above post for why that's not the case.

The point is that the "Ice Cream" criticism of both Pelosi and Biden are inconsequential and stupid.

Pointing out that Trump eats his steak well done covered in ketchup is funny but pointless. It does not count as substantive criticism and doesn't say anything about his character despite what the jokes and memes would have you believe.

Same deal about Pelosi having a big fridge with Ice Cream in it, or Biden having a photo of him having a Spoon with his Ice Cream Cone.

Holding these things up as major substantive criticism right next to Trump's woeful mishandling of this virus screams "BOTH SIDES BAD!" when really, the Ice Cream shit should just be dropped as, AT BEST, it's a minor criticism that's completely irrelevant right now.

RoboBlue

@Demon:

The point is that the "Ice Cream" criticism of both Pelosi and Biden are inconsequential and stupid.

People actually thought "Biden uses a pic of him eating ice cream weird on his campaign site" was serious political criticism?

I thought you were laughing along with me.

It's extra funny when you realize that they went out of their way to format the website in such a way that it just barely crops the spoon out of the photo.

@Kaiolino:

If you want to complain about Pelosi, complain that she is putting a crook on the corona oversight committee.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

This is also a good thing to rag on Pelosi for: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/pelosi-house-proxy-voting-200861

Well yeah, Pelosi's done much worse things than stupidly tweeting out a video of her ice cream collection after a news person led her into a potential gaffe.

I was just saying that it's a bit insensitive to the people she's not currently doing much to help. But no, it's not really important in any way.

The media really should be calling more attention to the fact that Trump is letting people starve though, especially after the national guard successfully distributed food to quarantined people in Westchester, proving that the system can work (if only for rich people).

The D.

I also eat my steak well done, and with ketchup. Why do people like their steaks only partially cooked?

Satsuki

Elizabeth Warren's eldest brother died from COVID-19:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/don-reed-death-elizabeth-warren-brother-coronavirus-covid-19-vietnam-war-a9480421.html?fbclid=IwAR2DiQIQsgXuGB7tKx7m45LXIYMr7VbSrOUcjyYGqIWf_8UFTIiYsaRPbHM

She is NOT going to take this lightly, you can be sure of that.

RoboBlue

@The:

I also eat my steak well done, and with ketchup. Why do people like their steaks only partially cooked?

Beef is tastier rare.

When it's overcooked it gets dried out.

Of course, our beef supply has been contaminated with a virus that causes breast cancer in cattle, and eating rare beef has been proven to increase the risk of breast cancer in women, so it's a good idea to take that into consideration.

The D.

@RoboBlue:

Beef is tastier rare.

When it's overcooked it gets dried out.

Of course, our beef supply has been contaminated with a virus that causes breast cancer in cattle, and eating rare beef has been proven to increase the risk of breast cancer in women, so it's a good idea to take that into consideration.

I think you guys just haven't had a well done steak that was done well. Most chefs seem to think "well done" just means burn it to a crisp. That is not the case at all, my friend. A nice, homemade well done steak will always be tender and juicy. At least that's been the case when I cook steak at home.

RoboBlue

@The:

I think you guys just haven't had a well done steak that was done well. Most chefs seem to think "well done" just means burn it to a crisp. That is not the case at all, my friend. A nice, homemade well done steak will always be tender and juicy. At least that's been the case when I cook steak at home.

That's probably true. I don't eat a lot of steak.