Tara Reade Biden allegation megathread

[Calthrina950]

Remember when the Biden Bros here were saying that she’s just some salty Bernie supporter trying to tear Biden down? Well she must have been Bernie’s biggest fan ever if she was already accusing Biden of sexual assault in 1993.

What's your source for her "accusing Biden of sexual assault in 1993" ?

www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/04/24/tara-reade-biden-video-207670

New evidence surfaces in Tara Reade allegation against Biden

A 1993 video appears to show her mother calling the Larry King Show to discuss a claim against “a prominent senator.”

Not really evidence at all
At no point in the clip is rape or harassment ever brought up
she simply said that Tara Reade was having problems with a senator

In reality this woman could have been talking about anything or anyone. its way too vague for me to look at that as evidence that Biden rapped anbody.


Honestly stuff like this kind of scares me
you mean to tell me if woman goes on TV right now and says that she was having "problems" with me. people will automatically think that means I was trying harass or rape her lol

I guess it is true what they say about today's society "Guilty until proven innocent"

 

Thing is, she didn't even say she was having problems with the Senator... she had problems while working for a senator

-which she didn't want to talk about out of respect for the Senator-

Now if you have problems at work, and you choose not to talk about it out of respect for your boss- the implication is that they had nothing to do with those problems and you don't want to talk about whatever happened because it could potentially impact them negatively

You're looking too much in her wording. This is a regular person,calling into Larry King's Live. She's not an attorney. She didn't offer some binding, razor-sharp statement for the press or for a court proceeding. People say stuff without 100% precision in real-life, especially when it's verbal instead of written.

So she said "problems while working for a prominent Senator" instead of "problems with a Senator"? It's splitting hairs for you to draw so much meaning from it.  The phrase "out of the respect for the senator" similarly doesn't mean as much as you think in ordinary, colloquial language. She wasn't reading a legal brief.


The quote reveals just this:

The daughter had problems when she worked for Biden. She didn't feel comfortable going public with those problems in 1993.

Later, she would claim sexual assault. Many women in 1993 would've hesitated to go public with those allegations.

Of course, this call was made two years after the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy, in which Biden, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time, played a prominent role. But you are certainly right about the changes in attitudes that have occurred since then, especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement in recent years. As for this particular incident, I notice that many of the posters on here are defending Biden, denouncing this woman as a liar, and questioning her motives. The exact same arguments were made by posters on the right during the Kavanaugh affair. I've said before that I would not have voted for Kavanaugh had I been a Senator, given the nature of the allegations. This incident here gives me some more pause about Biden, and I'm still open to going third party. However, unless more women come forward with similar allegations to those of Reade, then I doubt this incident will have much impact on the election, especially given the numerous allegations against Trump.

[Calthrina950]

While I'm not sure what to make of Reade's claims-at least not yet-it still disturbs me how so many people on here, who firmly believed in Christine Blasey Ford, denounced Brett Kavanaugh as a rapist and serial sexual harasser, and who condemned those that did not believe in Ford's claims, are now defending Biden. Wasn't the mantra of the #MeToo movement to "Believe All Women"? I am even more disgusted by how some on here want to destroy this particular accuser, whereas if anyone had dared suggest the same about Ford, they would have been shouted down and called a "horrible" human being. It's unfortunate that partisan lenses (and yes, I'm reverting back to my "fake moderate" persona, if you can call it that), seem to color sexual assault allegations in general.

I'm someone who believes the allegations against Trump, and I'm someone who would not have voted to confirm Kavanaugh had I been in the Senate. I'm also someone who doesn't think that this particular allegation should be swept under the rug.

[Calthrina950]

While I'm not sure what to make of Reade's claims-at least not yet-it still disturbs me how so many people on here, who firmly believed in Christine Blasey Ford, denounced Brett Kavanaugh as a rapist and serial sexual harasser, and who condemned those that did not believe in Ford's claims, are now defending Biden. Wasn't the mantra of the #MeToo movement to "Believe All Women"? I am even more disgusted by how some on here want to destroy this particular accuser, whereas if anyone had dared suggest the same about Ford, they would have been shouted down and called a "horrible" human being. It's unfortunate that partisan lenses (and yes, I'm reverting back to my "fake moderate" persona, if you can call it that), seem to color sexual assault allegations in general.

I'm someone who believes the allegations against Trump, and I'm someone who would not have voted to confirm Kavanaugh had I been in the Senate. I'm also someone who doesn't think that this particular allegation should be swept under the rug.

I believe it was the generic "Believe Women," not "Believe all women" no matter what, regardless of how far fetched their claims are.

Obviously if anyone literally said Believe ALL Women but doesn't believe Reade, yeah that's hypocritical, but who actually did that?

I distinctly remember #MeToo advocates making the claim that women ought to be believed, if they make sexual assault allegations. And the #MeToo movement arose in part, because of an impulse by many women to come out of the shadows, in which many of them had hid for decades, and to share their stories. That is one similarity between Christine Blasey Ford and Tara Reade; both women say these incidents happened decades ago and that they told others about it. And in both instances, we do have at least one piece of evidence that would seem to suggest something did happen (Blasey Ford's therapy notes and the CNN call made by Reade's mother).

[Calthrina950]

Incredible that American voters could really be distracted by one or two women who might or might not have been victims of a sexually motivated attack by Joe Biden, while the village idiot in the White House who's endangering millions of American lives each day (did you drink your daily glass of disinfectant yet ?) gets a free pass ...

I hope American voters are not that retarded.

Most of the people that believe Trump's accusers will never believe a Dem's accuser, and vice versa. It's all partisan at this point.

This post accurately describes the behavior we've seen on this very thread. It's amazing how this forum's Democrats, many of whom were deeply skeptical about Joe Biden just a few months ago, have fallen in line behind him, and are offering a full-throated defense of him against these new allegations. These same people were fully on board with Ford as soon as she came forward. At this point, I think that a literal child molester could be the Democratic nominee, and they would be supported so long as Trump is out. The reverse is true for Republicans-they've bought onto Trump's nonsense hook, line, and sinker, and nothing, not even this coronavirus fiasco, is going to shake their loyalty to him.

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/isaacdovere/status/1256383907114729472?s=21

Cringeworthy.

I'm struggling immensely with the "believe all women" principle. I really don't know what it's like to have someone rape me. I really don't know what it's like to face the threat of others smearing me or gaslighting me for speaking up. I really don't know what it's like to even begin to speak this kind of truth. I want to be able to believe because it's pretty obvious society hasn't taken these kinds of issues seriously enough, but... it's tough. I see sh-t like this from the neighbour and almost roll my eyes.  

For sure, we owe it to women to hear these stories, treat all accusers with respect, and take allegations seriously. But "believe all women" just isn't compatible with reality. All claims of sexual assault need to at least go through some process of scrutiny don't they? I'm just not sure how we balance everything. And I hate it. I hate that I have to be in a position where I'm made to pass judgment on Tara Reade (which is why I usually just shut up about stuff like this). But from my perspective, it's... challenging to believe her. It could very well be because I just don't want to. There it is.

So why is it unreasonable for someone to take your position on Dr. Blasey Ford that you take on Tara Reade?  There is no more evidence to support Dr. Blasey Ford than there is to support Tara Reade.  And there's really no less, either.  They're about at the same level of evidence on behalf of their allegations.
 

I've made a comparison between these two cases previously, and noted how many people on here have tied themselves into a knot to defend Biden, while still legitimizing Blasey Ford, and considering her to be more creditable than Reade. The overall impact of this, however, will be minimal on the election itself, especially given the many accusations that have been made against Trump.

[Calthrina950]

I think it is becoming increasingly clear that Tara should have did that fox news interview if she wanted to keep people interested in this story. over the weekend this story was everywhere and everything was building up to Tara Reade Big interview on Sunday with fox news but than she would make what I now believe was her biggest mistake

She did that AP interview that had people raising questions about her credibility and she canceled her fox new interview on the same day. that was a “1-2 punch” that she has so far not recovered from and by Monday interest in the story rapidly declined.

Now even if Tara decides to do a big interview down the line I don't think many will even care by that point because by the end of the day she failed to strike when the iron was hot.

that fox news interview was her moment to take things to the next level and she let it slip by not choosing not to do it.
 

For all we know, Chris Wallace would have asked her hardball questions, exacerbating her collapse.

As I've said before, Chris Wallace is one of the fairest journalists working at any of the broadcast or cable networks now. He puts many of his colleagues, especially those at Fox News, to shame. I first made note of this when comparing his performance as moderator during the 2016 presidential debates to those of the moderators from NBC, CNN, and ABC.

[Calthrina950]

I think Reade decided not to do Fox because A) Biden's comments about the complaint on MJ and B) she knew Wallace was the one Fox person who WOULDN'T give her a softball interview

Are there any serious journalists left at Fox News besides Chris Wallace?

It was sad to see Shepard Smith leave.

I made note of this above. As I've also said before, Chris Wallace should be at his father's old network of CBS, not Fox.