Posted on 03/27/2020 5:44:24 AM PDT by Renkluaf
When it comes to #MeToo sexual misconduct issues, former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presumptive 2020 presidential nominee, has made it no secret where he stands: automatically believe women. "For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real," said Biden during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced accusations that as a teenager he had assaulted a woman at a party. As vice president, Biden played an important role in the Obama administration's efforts to compel colleges and universities to take sexual violence more seriously—and to adopt policies that limited the due process rights and presumption of innocence for the accused. In recent years, his rhetoric on these issues has been in lockstep with #MeToo activists. Despite his public pronunciations on the subject of never touching women without their explicit verbal consent, Biden has previously faced accusations that he was too handsy with people. But now the former vice president is facing a much more serious accusation of sexual assault, from an alleged former staffer named Tara Reade.
It remains to be seen whether the mainstream media will assign Reade's story as much credibility and importance as that of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh; they certainly have not done so yet. In any case, supporters of Biden—as well as the candidate himself—should take this opportunity to reflect on whether automatic belief is a useful or practical approach for handling decades' old claims of misconduct.
Reade describes herself as a "California-based victim rights advocate and activist" in her interview with the journalist Katie Halper, who has helped bring this accusation to light. Reade says she worked for Biden in the early 1990s and asserts that she was unambiguously assaulted by him in 1993. According to Reade, he began kissing her without her permission, pushed her against a wall, reached under her skirt, and penetrated her with his fingers. "He said 'come on man, I heard you liked me,'" Reade recalled to Halper in the interview. "For me, it was like, everything shattered. I looked up to him, he was like my father's age, he was this champion of women's rights, in my eyes. I couldn't believe it was happening. It was surreal." Reade had already complained to her bosses about sexual harassment in Biden's office—she said a supervisor had once asked her to serve drinks at an event because she had attractive legs—but had shared the more serious accusation against Biden with a few close confidants. She said she once tried to talk to a supervisor about what had happened, but this person shut her down before she could tell the whole story. She also said she filled out an official form detailing her assault, but does not know what became of it. A year ago, Reade—who supported the campaigns of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.)—attempted to come forward with stories of sexual harassment in Biden's offices. As detailed in an Intercept piece, she reached out to Time's Up, a project of the National Women's Law Center that provides support to alleged #MeToo victims. Time's Up declined to assist Reade; the organization's official excuse was that a feud with a national political candidate could jeopardize their status as a 501(c)(3) non-partisan group. But as The Intercept also notes: The public relations firm that works on behalf of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is the top adviser to Biden's presidential campaign. A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment. The SKDK spokesperson assigned to Time's Up referred questions back to the NWLC. The mainstream media has given Reade little attention. She was interviewed on Hill.TV by Krystall Ball and Saagar Enjeti (whose populist impulses often put them at odds with the establishments of both parties), but The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have all declined to cover the story thus far.
Here comes the “Spanish Archer” - El Bow!
LOL!
The “seriousness of the charges” is what matters, isn’t it Joe?
I am sorry to hear about your health problems, and hope you enjoy spending more time with your family.
If Joe ever has to testify, he’ll just say he can’t recall and everyone will believe him.
Interesting how this is gaining traction now...
Yep, the MSM are now getting their marching orders from the DNC to put this out.
“Mr Biden President Obama is on the line. He says its urgent that he speaks to you!”.....Bye Joe.
Seems someone’s job, in the Democrat Party, is to catalog the skeletons so they can pull debilitating info out as needed against their own.
Time and again I’ve seen very old and very damaging information appear within 3 days of Leftists finding a need to derail a Democrat.
That is what Stalin did in the years before he became dictator, he had the goods on everyone.
Here come the feminists...#ibelieveher
Hey gymnasium, Joe. Let’s take it behind the gym. Bring your feeble friend Bernie with you. We’re all about the same age, EXTORTIONIST TOUGHGUY. Say bye to your loved ones before you get there.
I have said for a long time that Biden would not be the Democrat’s nominee.
I think they were saving this ME TOO moment for later but Joe is slipping fast and may not make it to the convention so it is time to toss him under the bus. The good news for Joe is he has become so unaware of what is going on that he will not know he is no longer in the running.
Problems for the Dems is what to do with Bernie. Actually that is not a problem. Like all good communist he will sell his soul for a few bucks and drop out.
Now the real race begins.
In before the “Width=480 is your friend” post...
Yikes...sorry. I generally add that in. Will try to self-delete.
Thanks for the heads up...
The democrats are getting really weird. This is actually a very simple process, yet they throw out “last minute contestants” in a way that, for me, is the very epitome of desperation.
I’m seriously wondering if they were just offering up Joe because they knew Trump could not be beat, but now with all this turmoil they think that maybe he can be, so they are trying to offer up a “serious” candidate.
Just a thought...
Cuomo will be it, no doubt, but seems to me he should have more to do than whine. Imagine a Republican governor, giving two hour daily press briefings, while their state is burning with COVID.
We were wondering HOW they were going to do it. See Nancy’s or Hillary’s hand in this??
Trump should run a commercial with those words and then have all of the easily available videos of creepy Joe with his hands all over women.
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