Tara Reade Biden allegation megathread

[Ronnie]

Bumping this thread because Reade just filed a criminal complaint to the DC police:

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1248791139383214080

[brucejoel99]

Bumping this thread because Reade just filed a criminal complaint to the DC police:

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1248791139383214080

From the article:

Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed.

What does this even mean? Is she afraid Biden's a part-time axe murderer?

No, it means she's probably being paid by somebody (*cough* Russia *cough*) &/or being promised something to keep doing stupid sh*t at exactly the time that doing so could potentially create maximum disunity within the Democratic Party.

I'd bet $100 real f**king dollars that she'll come up with new sh*t right before &/or right after the convention too.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Bumping this thread because Reade just filed a criminal complaint to the DC police:

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1248791139383214080

From the article:

Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed.

What does this even mean? Is she afraid Biden's a part-time axe murderer?

She is afraid that uncle Joe will sent the Black Panthers and they will make her disappear like Jimmy Hoffa.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

lol, what a joke
I could construct a new Pyramid of Giza all by myself and take 70,000 years and this story STILL would lack any credibility.

[Bidenworth2020]

Bumping this thread because Reade just filed a criminal complaint to the DC police:

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1248791139383214080

From the article:

Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed.

What does this even mean? Is she afraid Biden's a part-time axe murderer?

No, it means she's probably being paid by somebody (*cough* Russia *cough*) &/or promised something to keep doing stupid sh*t at exactly the time that doing so could potentially create maximum disunity within the Democratic Party.

I'd bet $100 real f**king dollars that she'll comes up with new sh*t right before &/or right after the convention too.

This... this woman is delusional.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Bumping this thread because Reade just filed a criminal complaint to the DC police:

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1248791139383214080

From the article:

Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed.

What does this even mean? Is she afraid Biden's a part-time axe murderer?

No, it means she's probably being paid by somebody (*cough* Russia *cough*) &/or being promised something to keep doing stupid sh*t at exactly the time that doing so could potentially create maximum disunity within the Democratic Party.

I'd bet $100 real f**king dollars that she'll come up with new sh*t right before &/or right after the convention too.

In a unexpected twist he actually sends cornpop after her

[Bidenworth2020]

Also just noticed this falsehood, which deserves to be called out:

Amanda Marcotte from Salon made two simple phone calls (one to Reade herself, the other to Times Up) and that was all it took to demonstrate that the thrust of the story was false.

This is not an accurate description of Marcotte's actual conclusion, which is as harsh on people in General MacArthur's corner of the alt-media (like the Krassensteins) as it is on the lefties who insist that we instantly condemn Biden as a rapist:

Organizations like Time's Up and mainstream journalists take great care with politically sensitive accusations like Reade's. That isn't because they're cowards. It's because they fear situations just like this, where piecemeal reporting and the perception of slanted coverage create a political food fight that ends up pushing what is supposed to be the central concern — resisting sexual harassment and violence — to the sidelines.

[...]

Reade's story is credible and compelling in some important ways, and also comes with a number of troubling red flags. For a variety of reasons it has not been taken seriously on a national level, but those reasons do not include a mainstream media conspiracy to protect Joe Biden. Rather than becoming the subject of serious investigation, this has instead become an occasion for die-hard supporters on both the Sanders and Biden sides to score points on one another online. Actual facts have been supplanted by reckless conspiracy theories spun by enthusiasts of both candidates. Whatever the facts of this case may be, the #MeToo movement deserves better than to be dragged into the sleaze like this.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but there is evidence to suggest that mainstream outlets have done their own research, found this story to be highly suspicious or even an outright lie, and did not report on it as a result.

[Figueira]

Also just noticed this falsehood, which deserves to be called out:

Amanda Marcotte from Salon made two simple phone calls (one to Reade herself, the other to Times Up) and that was all it took to demonstrate that the thrust of the story was false.

This is not an accurate description of Marcotte's actual conclusion, which is as harsh on people in General MacArthur's corner of the alt-media (like the Krassensteins) as it is on the lefties who insist that we instantly condemn Biden as a rapist:

Organizations like Time's Up and mainstream journalists take great care with politically sensitive accusations like Reade's. That isn't because they're cowards. It's because they fear situations just like this, where piecemeal reporting and the perception of slanted coverage create a political food fight that ends up pushing what is supposed to be the central concern — resisting sexual harassment and violence — to the sidelines.

[...]

Reade's story is credible and compelling in some important ways, and also comes with a number of troubling red flags. For a variety of reasons it has not been taken seriously on a national level, but those reasons do not include a mainstream media conspiracy to protect Joe Biden. Rather than becoming the subject of serious investigation, this has instead become an occasion for die-hard supporters on both the Sanders and Biden sides to score points on one another online. Actual facts have been supplanted by reckless conspiracy theories spun by enthusiasts of both candidates. Whatever the facts of this case may be, the #MeToo movement deserves better than to be dragged into the sleaze like this.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but there is evidence to suggest that mainstream outlets have done their own research, found this story to be highly suspicious or even an outright lie, and did not report on it as a result.

What evidence is there for that?

[Bidenworth2020]

Also just noticed this falsehood, which deserves to be called out:

Amanda Marcotte from Salon made two simple phone calls (one to Reade herself, the other to Times Up) and that was all it took to demonstrate that the thrust of the story was false.

This is not an accurate description of Marcotte's actual conclusion, which is as harsh on people in General MacArthur's corner of the alt-media (like the Krassensteins) as it is on the lefties who insist that we instantly condemn Biden as a rapist:

Organizations like Time's Up and mainstream journalists take great care with politically sensitive accusations like Reade's. That isn't because they're cowards. It's because they fear situations just like this, where piecemeal reporting and the perception of slanted coverage create a political food fight that ends up pushing what is supposed to be the central concern — resisting sexual harassment and violence — to the sidelines.

[...]

Reade's story is credible and compelling in some important ways, and also comes with a number of troubling red flags. For a variety of reasons it has not been taken seriously on a national level, but those reasons do not include a mainstream media conspiracy to protect Joe Biden. Rather than becoming the subject of serious investigation, this has instead become an occasion for die-hard supporters on both the Sanders and Biden sides to score points on one another online. Actual facts have been supplanted by reckless conspiracy theories spun by enthusiasts of both candidates. Whatever the facts of this case may be, the #MeToo movement deserves better than to be dragged into the sleaze like this.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but there is evidence to suggest that mainstream outlets have done their own research, found this story to be highly suspicious or even an outright lie, and did not report on it as a result.

What evidence is there for that?

While not a mainstream outlet, there is strong evidence based on her Twitter responses to Ronan Farrow that she contacted him and he refused to take her story. Furthermore, she suggested she did try to contact other media outlets, and the procedure for said outlets when allegations of this degree are received is to do some independent investigation to see whether it is reputable or not. Obviously, none of those outlets ended up reporting on it or coming up with any compelling evidence to suggest that she is telling the truth (and perhaps did come across evidence that proved the opposite).

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Averroes, it's really disappointing that you would give this bogus story any thought. No mainstream news organization is taking this seriously because they know it's a bunch of crud. The intercept published it to hurt Bidene chances plain and simple.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Alright, let me stop you right there Averroes.

First of all, this quote:

Also just noticed this falsehood, which deserves to be called out:

Amanda Marcotte from Salon made two simple phone calls (one to Reade herself, the other to Times Up) and that was all it took to demonstrate that the thrust of the story was false.

This is not an accurate description of Marcotte's actual conclusion, which is as harsh on people in General MacArthur's corner of the alt-media (like the Krassensteins) as it is on the lefties who insist that we instantly condemn Biden as a rapist

Thanks for leaving out half of the context of my original quote, to make it look like I was claiming Marcotte said the entire story was a lie.  Here's my actual quote, with the part you cut out in bold:

Amanda Marcotte from Salon made two simple phone calls (one to Reade herself, the other to Times Up) and that was all it took to demonstrate that the thrust of the story was false.  Tara didn't contact Times Up to report rape.  She contacted them ask them to defend her from meanies on Twitter.  Ryan Grim lied.

So we're talking here about the Ryan Grim story.  Is it true or false that A) this is what Amanda Marcotte discovered, and B) Marcotte's conclusion was that this makes the Ryan Grim story false?  Let's look at the original article.

It's important to understand here that Time's Up Legal Defense Fund only provides support beyond these referrals — such as PR assistance — if a client obtains a lawyer and moves to take legal action on workplace harassment. But Reade told Salon she wasn't interested in suing Biden. Instead, she was angry "about the smears about being a Russian agent" from Biden supporters and was hoping a lawyer could find a way to stop them.

One law firm Reade spoke with confirmed that they would not take a case with the ambiguous goal of trying to shut down people on social media who were speculating about an accuser being a "Russian agent."

Carrie Goldberg runs a firm dedicated to defending women against sexual abuse. Time's Up helped Reade set up a meeting with her. Goldberg told Salon that she would not "comment on who reaches out to our firm for help" but said that "our firm never hesitates to take on powerful adversaries." She said her firm is not, however, in the business of threatening "to sue conspiracy theorists for potentially protected speech."

There we go, three separate instances of Marcotte documenting that Tara Reade's legal outreach was to protect her from people on social media accusing her of being a Russian agent.

But I went a step further and said this proved Ryan Grim's story, which started this whole thing, was a lie.  Once again, let's look at the article:

At the same time, Ryan Grim of The Intercept — a publication which has been strongly supportive of Sanders and critical of Biden — published a story insinuating that the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund had rejected Reade's case out of political loyalty to Biden.

...

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

...

But considering the reasons that Time's Up had to decline to fund Reade's media assistance before involving the PR firm — she hadn't secured legal representation, and even if she did, the whole story could potentially be interpreted as electioneering — there's no reason to believe that Dunn ran interference to quell Reade's story.

There you have it.  Marcotte doesn't directly write the words "Grim is lying" (that wouldn't be very classy), but she writes "Grim claimed X.  Is X true?  Almost certainly not.  There is no reason to believe X is true."

Therefore I stand by the assertion I made in my actual quote, that the Marcotte piece proved the Ryan Grim angle was false and that Tara Reade went to Time's Up looking for social media help, not legal help for rape.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Second, let's look at this comment:

• Instead of a highly-respected academic, Ford is a crazy cat lady using a fake name who has $500,000 in debt

This is exactly the sentiment that made Me Too necessary and quite possibly the most cringeworthy comment made by anyone in thirteen pages of discussion, regardless of the truth of Reade's claims.

Want to explain what's cringeworthy about this comment or just lob bombs from the peanut gallery?

Of course Reade's loony, deranged behavior on social media matters.  Of course her racking up $500,000 in debt matters.  It directly impacts her credibility by showing a long pattern of irrational behavior.

If she were someone like Blasey Ford, with a long track record of high-integrity behavior and rational thinking, then launching a false rape allegation against a major public figure would be very out of character.  It would be a complete 180 to do something so irrational and wild.

But instead of that, she has a long track record of dishonest, low-integrity behavior.  Her social media feed is full of wild stories, contradictions, and flat out lies.  She's a conspiracy theories who believes all sorts of crazy stuff about Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.  She's been relentlessly self-promoting this story in bizarre responses to year-old celebrity tweets and obviously changed the story over time.  She's been very clear about her desire to promote Bernie Sanders' candidacy with this story.  Her efforts to promote it betray a complete lack of seriousness or interest in actually pursuing justice.  Racking up $500,000 in debt as an unemployed Russian fan-fiction writer implies even more history of poor decision-making, irrational behavior, and most likely dishonesty (how did she get these loans in the first place).

Let me put it this way.  If YE were to make a post on this board claiming without any evidence to have been assaulted by Joe Biden, most of us would believe him.  Why?  Because he has a long history of high-integrity behavior and telling such an incredible lie would be totally out of character.  On the other hand, if banned poster SN2903 made the same post, we'd probably be a lot more skeptical, because the guy has a history of low-integrity behavior.

[GeneralMacArthur]

McArthur, only an idiot would take Reade's claims at face value, but what you are doing in this thread is very wrong. I stand by the claim that you are misrepresenting the Slate article. In fact, you don't even seem to understand what you're lying about.

The Salon article adds two new pieces to the puzzle:

1) Tara Reade didn't go to Time's Up seeking legal aid in a rape case against Joe Biden.  She was seeking a lawyer to protect her from mean people calling her a Russian agent on Twitter.

2) Ryan Grim lied in his original Intercept piece to make it appear that Time's Up was running a cover-up operation to protect Joe Biden.

This is all I am claiming about the Salon article.  Any other claims you've attributed to me are false.

My inferences, based on this new information, once added to the trove of other information I've dug up, were as follows:

1) Reade going to Time's Up to ask for lawyers to help her push back at mean people on Twitter, when she never got any Twitter engagement anyway, fits in with her consistent pattern of totally bizarre behavior and only gives further evidence that the Biden accusation is the latest step in a long trail of bizarre, irrational political behavior.

2) Reade's obsession with the "Russian agent" smear, to the extent that she wanted lawyers to sue people saying it, fits in with what I saw on her social media, which was over a year of posts attacking the Biden campaign for calling her a "Russian agent" (which they never even did!) and getting more and more hateful of the Biden campaign over this imagined slight that she just obsessed over.  It gives further evidence to the idea that the reason she hates Biden isn't because he raped her, it's because she's furious about this whole Russian agent thing, which she pins on Biden.

3) Grim lying in his The Intercept piece is evidence that this entire thing was a hit job.  If this was a real story, Grim wouldn't have to lie.  If Grim was an objective journalist, he wouldn't lie.  But neither are true.  Grim, like most folks at The Intercept, is an extremist hack who wants to destroy Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.  And he is using poor, crazy Tara Reade as a weapon to accomplish that goal.  That's what this is about.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Not only she contacted a number of mainstream media outlets, Reade also contacted a couple of Biden's rival campaigns (Warren, Klobuchar, IIRC)  and AOC, the most prominent Sanders endorser. If her story was legit then these people would be all over it to undermine their main rival for the nomination. The fact that they totally ignored her is clear evidence to me that Reade's story is a bunch of BS and that she has no credibility whatsoever.

[wbrocks67]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

[Landslide Lyndon]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

It's only logical for the media to be cautious after the sh**t these conservatives jokers tried to pull with Chuck Schumer and Robert Mueller.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

It's only logical for the media to be cautious after the sh**t these conservatives jokers tried to pull with Chuck Schumer and Robert Mueller.

Don't forget about the time they tried to accuse Elizabeth Warren of abusing a veteran in a BDSM session.

[GeneralMacArthur]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

It's only logical for the media to be cautious after the sh**t these conservatives jokers tried to pull with Chuck Schumer and Robert Mueller.

Don't forget about the time they tried to accuse Elizabeth Warren of abusing a veteran in a BDSM session.

And the fake Roy Moore allegation.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

It's only logical for the media to be cautious after the sh**t these conservatives jokers tried to pull with Chuck Schumer and Robert Mueller.

Don't forget about the time they tried to accuse Elizabeth Warren of abusing a veteran in a BDSM session.

And the fake Roy Moore allegation.

What?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

My first instinct was to dismiss this story based on the people purveying it. The alt-media-sphere has made plenty of dumb attacks on Joe Biden over the past year. Their agenda was easy to see, and, frankly, the intended audience wasn't all that smart.

However, the prominence of the Russia angle in the push-back against Reade made me pause. That detail has nothing to do with Reade's allegations. Her unstable personal history and esoteric political beliefs are emphasized purely to discredit her, and would be equally effective whether her allegations were actually true or false.

This Salon piece, written by Amanda Marcotte of all people, is somehow more on the mark than anything else that I've read on the subject: (1) We don't know very much about Reade's accusations at this point; (2) Most of what has been published on them is speculative garbage; and (3) the best response is neither to dismiss the claims nor to amplify them, but instead to demand sober investigative journalism from mainstream sources.

In the meantime, please don't use this as a political cudgel against either Joe Biden or Me Too.

I agree with this entirely, and I haven't followed this story at all because there's been such a dearth of quality investigation.

The problem with waiting for this to ride out in an investigation is the people who are most invested in seeing the allegations proven true (Trump supporters and, apparently, Sanders supporters) are the people who are most likely to dismiss a serious investigation which is exonerating. Both of these campaigns are centered around distrust of authority and ultimately dismiss anything a qualified person would put out that contradicts their views as evidence of media/elite corruption. I am sure once a serious investigation is done (fingers crossed), if these allegations are not credible, it will just be used as confirmation that person/organization X is covering up for Biden.

It's a fascinating example of a general dynamic that's been animating the last ten years of politics on the right and the last five years of politics on the far left.

[GeneralMacArthur]

the bottom line is that everyone credible ignored the allegation ultimately, assumably because they looked into it and realized it was likely false. so that should be the end of this.

It's only logical for the media to be cautious after the sh**t these conservatives jokers tried to pull with Chuck Schumer and Robert Mueller.

Don't forget about the time they tried to accuse Elizabeth Warren of abusing a veteran in a BDSM session.

And the fake Roy Moore allegation.

What?

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/27/16707410/conservative-group-fake-roy-moore-allegation-washington-post

[Bidenworth2020]

Even though these allegations are questionable at best, the Biden campaign really needs to do more to get out in front of this. I wouldn't put it past Trump to draw attention to it, thus forcing the media to cover it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

My first instinct was to dismiss this story based on the people purveying it. The alt-media-sphere has made plenty of dumb attacks on Joe Biden over the past year. Their agenda was easy to see, and, frankly, the intended audience wasn't all that smart.

However, the prominence of the Russia angle in the push-back against Reade made me pause. That detail has nothing to do with Reade's allegations. Her unstable personal history and esoteric political beliefs are emphasized purely to discredit her, and would be equally effective whether her allegations were actually true or false.

This Salon piece, written by Amanda Marcotte of all people, is somehow more on the mark than anything else that I've read on the subject: (1) We don't know very much about Reade's accusations at this point; (2) Most of what has been published on them is speculative garbage; and (3) the best response is neither to dismiss the claims nor to amplify them, but instead to demand sober investigative journalism from mainstream sources.

In the meantime, please don't use this as a political cudgel against either Joe Biden or Me Too.

I agree with this entirely, and I haven't followed this story at all because there's been such a dearth of quality investigation.

The problem with waiting for this to ride out in an investigation is the people who are most invested in seeing the allegations proven true (Trump supporters and, apparently, Sanders supporters) are the people who are most likely to dismiss a serious investigation which is exonerating. Both of these campaigns are centered around distrust of authority and ultimately dismiss anything a qualified person would put out that contradicts their views as evidence of media/elite corruption. I am sure once a serious investigation is done (fingers crossed), if these allegations are not credible, it will just be used as confirmation that person/organization X is covering up for Biden.

It's a fascinating example of a general dynamic that's been animating the last ten years of politics on the right and the last five years of politics on the far left.

The thing is that there isn't going to be an investigation.  This story is about as credible as if General MacArthur on Atlas forum said that Donald Trump molested me.  What's there to investigate?  I have zero evidence supporting my claim.  You can go try and build the case that it's false by doxxing me and finding out that I'm a crazy person who lives in a van by the river with "DEATH TO TRUMP" graffitied on it, but if every journalist put in the effort to pursue every inflammatory claim made by random people on social media, we'd never get any real journalism done.

In the year since the original "Biden touched my shoulder" piece, Tara Reade tweeted about Biden hundreds of times and most of those tweets got zero engagement.  She was just a nobody on social media.  The only reason this has gotten as far as it has is that Katie Halper, Ryan Grim and Krystal Ball saw an opportunity to launch a random person into the spotlight as a last-ditch anti-Biden effort.  Their story (about a Time's Up cover-up) was a lie, but the damage was done.  Other than the malicious willpower of Halper/Grim/Ball, there's nothing that makes this story, on its own, any more credible or newsworthy than if one of us were to make a similar claim.

Of course, this story isn't just a random person on Twitter, because it has gotten a lot of traction in far-left circles, and the usual suspects have made a lot of memes about Joe Biden being a rapist.  Does that in and of itself make the story newsworthy and worth pursuing?  I would argue no.  Serious journalistic outlets can't be held captive to the whims and wishes of extremists on social media.  If they turn around tomorrow and start propagating a story about Joe Biden running a pizza parlor pedophile ring, is that story then newsworthy purely by virtue of its getting traction with extremists?  Should NYT go investigate the pizza parlor?  No.  If it's covered seriously at all, it should only be from the angle of "here's what those lying sociopaths are saying now."

[Landslide Lyndon]

Even though these allegations are questionable at best, the Biden campaign really needs to do more to get out in front of this. I wouldn't put it past Trump to draw attention to it, thus forcing the media to cover it.

If Trump wants to make an issue out of which candidate is a sexual predator, let him do it.
In the meantime there is no reason for mainstream media and progressives to do his dirty work.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Even though these allegations are questionable at best, the Biden campaign really needs to do more to get out in front of this. I wouldn't put it past Trump to draw attention to it, thus forcing the media to cover it.

If Trump wants to make an issue out of which candidate is a sexual predator, let him do it.

That's not how this works. Nobody whose mind isn't already made up is going to ask themselves which is more of a predator; if there's plausible reason to think either is a predator then to the average voter they're more or less equivalent on this front.

Trump won by muddying the waters on Clinton, getting people to ignore his obvious corruption by putting enough hot air about how corrupt she was. Did it matter the difference in magnitude or veracity? Not to a person who wasn't paying close attention or who already had an extremely cynical view of politics, which many voters do.

If you let Trump dominate the narrative on this then he will make a field day out of it, especially if it undercuts Biden's campaign centerpiece of a return to decency.