What do you make of Tara Reade's accusation against Biden?

“Democrats have touted themselves as the party of “believe all women””

They have since rejected #MeToo and “believe women”.

The corporate media also played along, keeping silent on this until Sanders suspended his campaign.

Apparently it won’t hurt Biden because Democrats only believe women who accuse Republicans.

Democrats only believe women who accuse Republicans

That’s my impression as well. The #metoo movement can’t escape the political agenda involved in the way accusations are treated. But I’ve always been critical of “believe all women”. I will listen to women, but I won’t have blind faith without evidence. Not all accusations are created equal.

I’m wondering when she’ll collect her $130K???

Her story is credible. I wasn’t there, but I’m inclined to believe her.

The Democrats are not the of “believe all women”. They are selective about who they believe and even more selective about what actions they call for against the guy (or gal). The fact that the right wing media covered this story months ago and are only starting to hit the liberal media should bear that claim out. When you look at the claims against various public figures and how the Democrats react also bears it out. When someone made a claim against Roy Moore, they were ready to hang him without really any evidence of truth. They used the claim to smear him. Forget if he was guilty or innocent…smear him regardless. Brett Kavanaugh was the same case. Yet when Keith Ellison is accused of beating his girlfriend and there is a video and her son testifying it is true, the Dems (and their propagandist media) were basically silent on the matter. When several women came forward against Bill Clinton, not only do they not address those claims, but Hillary actively threatened them to shut them up…and no one on the left said a word.
Will these claims hurt Biden? I guess it depends on how much air time it gets. My guess is that NPR and CNN will stop talking about it now that they mentioned it and will hope it fades into obscurity. And in the end, if forced to address it, they will claim it is unsubstantiated, that Biden was never charged, and that Biden should be considered innocent until an investigation is done and proof is established of his guilt. All of these are true statements, but as usual, they run against the idea that women should be believed regardless, which is their stance when the accused is a Republican rival. Of course they will try to whitewash the investigation (or will actively fight against it) and will try to dig up dirt on Ms Reade as well.

I don’t know is she is telling the truth, but I am leaning toward believing her.
Does this mean I will oppose Biden? No.
If you believe everything she said, he behaved badly. He was trying to woo her, and she wasn’t receptive. When she said no, he stopped. It wasn’t rape.

”...didn’t appear in the mainstream left wing media until today” Actually, it has been in the main stream press for over a month now, about he same time it hit Fluther.

And, it is still pretty much unsubstantiated.

@zenvelo Which sources? A search on NPR yields nothing but an article posted today. CNN has an article from April 17th, MSNBC has nothing, New York Times five days ago…none of them have stories about it older than a few days ago. I can find older articles on less mainstream sources, but not from any of the big names.

Democrats only care when it helps them.

There is no “left-wing media.” Amerika is a de facto one-party police state and is on its way to making it de jure. What Amerikans regard as “left-wing” is actually still right of centre, just to the relative left of the fascist hatemongers who make up what’s considered “right-wing” in Amerika as the Overton window has been dragged steadily rightward.

@SmashTheState I actually see the Overton window slowly being pulled to the left. It is to the point where the Dems were fighting about whether or not to have an avowed Socialist as their candidate. Their policies have moved to the point they border on Communism. And it is viewed as normal. Even 20 years ago, that would have been ludicrous to even consider. And even some of the major players have reversed their opinions on major topics in that 20 year period from left-center to uber-left. It has gotten to the point that even moderates and Centrists are considered radical right wingers by many in the media and in the DNC.

@seawulf575 You’re delusional. That’s not an insult, I’m diagnosing you with psychotic detachment from reality. And I don’t even know how to address it without spending more time than I care to give you explaining very basic political science which I suspect you wouldn’t understand. I value my time more than that.

@SmashTheState Yes, I’m sure anyone that disagrees with you bears those same considerations from you. I notice you didn’t actually debate anything I stated because it is 100% fact. So who has the psychotic detachment from reality? So yes, please don’t waste any of your time…or mine…trying to make me understand your psychosis.

@seawulf575 What was Bernie’s top marginal tax rate proposal? What was Reagan’s after his first cut? What was it under Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford?

@gorillapaws Not sure what you are asking here or why. Reagan’s first tax cut dropped the top end from 70% tax down to 50% and his second dropped it to 38.5%. He also pushed the capital gains up from 20% to 28% on the second one. Bernie was looking at bumping it up to 52%. But here’s a couple things with that analogy. First, the tax cuts from Reagan were coming down. Bernie’s are going up. So while the numbers seem to be similar, they are going in opposite directions. The other issue is that Reagan, Ike, Nixon, and Ford have all been in office and have taken actions that we can look back and critique. Bernie has not and his plans are untried. He puts out a plan, but when asked about the cost (CBS evening news, interview with Nora O’Donnell, Jan 24 2020) he admits he doesn’t know how much his plans will cost. He has no idea. So if he has no idea what his plans cost, can we give his tax estimates credibility? Add that to his answer during one of the DNC debates if his plans would raise taxes on the middle class, he danced around that one for a while and then was brought back to the question and he admitted it would raise the taxes on everyone that pays taxes. But his published tax plan doesn’t reflect that reality. So what you seem to be asking is can I compare known, historical acts with their associated results to a plan that seems extremely dishonest in its basic proposal.

@seawulf575 – We’ve had this conversation many times here before. You’re proposing that large corporations (media) are attempting to push communist ideology. Think about what you’re saying…again. You’re saying that global capital is working to destroy itself.

My stance is the same as always – hear her out, if the evidence warrants an investigation then let the proper authorities investigate, if the investigation bears it out then let him be put on trial. What I am not willing to do is to condemn someone simply because someone else said so. And any Democrat ought to know better after what happened to Al Franken.

It’s been in the Washington Post for a while.
I’ve also seen it on Facebook.
So, it’s been pretty broadly reported.

@hmmmmmm Yep, you nailed it. Except…well…every time a person or group seeks control and power, don’t they try to control the information going out to the people? It’s called propaganda and it is a way to control the masses. And the ones in charge of spreading the information that is desired for the people to have (or not have) always have great power.

^ Didn’t quite understand what I said. Again.

^Understood perfectly and responded to it. I just explained why those “large corporations” would push a communist ideology. It isn’t to defeat itself, it is to gain more power. Just because you can’t understand my answers doesn’t mean I didn’t understand yours.

^ Fantastic institutional analysis. Corporations push anti-capitalist ideology to gain… more power? Capitalism is anti-capitalist now? Sounds like another character here that argues that to stop engaging in imperialist aggressions is imperialist.

@hmmmmmm It’s part of the alt-right playbook, who apparently thought 1984 was a book of instructions. Anti-fascists are fascists. Anti-racism is racism. Feminism is sexism. Big government is small government. And I guess capitalism is now anti-capitalist.

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.

Okay, how ‘bout this one. Corporations control the liberal media. They like money. Think manipulating the population might make things go in a direction that would help you make money? Ever wonder why Time Warner was one of Hillary’s top campaign contributors from 99–16? Or here’s one for you to try answering. Why do stations like CNN or MSNBC or even NYT and WaPo lean so far to the left? Why do they always favor the left? While you are trying to down play my statements (which I notice you bring no proof for) why don’t you try addressing questions like these? Why do liberal stations ALWAYS avoid fair reporting? So while you bask in your pomposity, you might want to take a moment and look at reality…if that is possible with your psychological issues.

^ Corporate media is not “left-leaning”. Christ. Corporate media take a liberal or conservative angle within a very narrow spectrum of thought. But liberal and conservative thought are not economic-spectrum descriptions. All corporate media presents a view of the world that is pro-capitalist, and therefore pro-militaristic/imperialist, anti-worker, anti-democracy, and provides such a narrow context-free view of the world that it’s really not controversial to describe this garbage as corporate propaganda.

I’ve been here for years, and we’ve had these discussions so many times. We’ve attempted to disabuse you of your confusion regarding what “left” and “right” means.

You don’t need to figure out what interest corporate media have if you understand that they are corporations. A somewhat-dated but accessible read on how the media function is “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

Keep in mind that you would expect corporate media to present as “liberal” and “conservative” in order to maintain an acceptable spectrum of political thought that obfuscates the true nature of power and the ideology that they all share. The Democratic-friendly media and Republican-friendly media mirror the false divide that the two corporate parties do. They are both right-wing parties. Having liberal and conservative parties and their corresponding corporate media wings provides the illusion of a spectrum of political thought that is quite embarrassing.

This conversation has drifted far from the original question re: Tara Reade. If you are able to formulate a separate question that addresses what you see as anti-capitalist activity that corporations are engaging in, start a new threat – or call your doctor.

“So far to the left” = just a couple of steps to the right of Nixon.

@hmmmmmm You are right about one thing…we have drifted off the original topic. Other than that, you entirely dodged every question I just posed to you.

@seawulf575 Let me put it this way, we’re both in agreement that the corporate media generally leans towards favoring the democratic establishment on many occasions, Tara Reade being a good example. What we disagree on is how far “left” the Democratic establishment really is. There is essentially 0 representation in the corporate media from the likes of Bernie Sanders (nearly ever question ever posed to him or his surrogates was framed from a right-wing perspective), and there are plenty of people much further to the left of Sanders (who is actually fairly moderate in his views, relatively speaking). If they gave ACTUAL communists the same amount of air time as radical right wingers, Bernie’s platform would look quite tame in comparison.