Tara Reade’s allegation discussed w dozens of Biden staffers back to 1972
1. Spatial description is implausible
2. Biden had great rep RE treatment of women
3. The few who remembered her said she was a bad worker who dressed inappropriatelyhttps://t.co/2IiaFGtLjY
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 15, 2020
Quite the Friday doc dump — PBS and Politico, with a duet!
Tara Reade has been credibly accused of…wow, that's quite a bit. https://t.co/hfGli9Npf0
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) May 15, 2020
This looks at the recent life of the nat’l-caliber athlete/model/Juilliard-accepted actress/Congressional staffer/entrepreneur/attorney/non-profit exec/counselor/bureaucrat/expert witness/novelist, &—shockingly!—concludes she a fabulist & con artist https://t.co/1EkvjPMArr
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 15, 2020
…& if hearing that purported bio doesn’t make you instantly suspicious you’re an easy mark.
Plus, the fact that she went through Katie Halper & her story was boosted by Ryan Grim should have been enough to tell you it’s a malicious scam.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 15, 2020
ryan grim plucks the paw from robinson's hand, and, grinning, gently strokes the item before saying "i want the media to vigorously investigate biden's office."
another finger draws back.https://t.co/HzseXQ74Ys
— golikehellmachine (@golikehellmachi) May 15, 2020
i'm not particularly gleeful about this, by the way. i think all of this has been unambiguously bad, for everyone. it's been fun to tell gallows jokes about the monkey's paw, but it is, at heart, a pretty grim tale about being careful what you wish for — as has this story.
— golikehellmachine (@golikehellmachi) May 15, 2020
Yep.
HumboldtBlue
Be careful about your reporting, Willamette Weekly.
Margot Black takes umbrage with the paper’s endorsement in the best fucking way possible.
zhena gogolia
I’d like to see apologies from Chris Hayes, Ari Melber, Rebecca Traister, Mika Brzezinski, the NYT, the WaPo, etc., etc.
I won’t hold my breath.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
NYT: “Biden is innocent. So why did he act so guilty.”
schrodingers_cat
PBS Newshour now do the current occupant of the WH
Another Scott
Donnie wished to be president, but not really. He really wanted to crush JEB! and come in second to Hillary to be the leader of the “rich”, cool kids who snipe from the sidelines from his TrumpTV empire. But, then the Comey decided he should win! So Donnie “won” and didn’t get his TrumpTV empire, and instead will go down in history as the Worst President for Ever and Ever.
The end.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Add Judy Concern Troll’s Snooze Hour to the list.
NotMax
BLECH.
Jeffro
Way to rope-a-dope, Team Biden!
Ok then. Let’s now move on to how Uncle Joe set up the Clinton Foundation, used to smoke the wacky weed with OBL, and knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.
HumboldtBlue
Trump thinks angry truckers are the backbone of his inauguration day crowd.
(and for the Jeanne Moos haters, I’ve always liked her)
*you’re
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
It was all that time he spent in Palin’s shadow.
schrodingers_cat
Only one party deserves scrutiny according to our media and the other one deserves non stop fluffing.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Right on. But don’t hold your breath.
smintheus
I’m gobsmacked that anybody was ever taken in even for a moment. Every one of the details in her sexual assault narrative (and there weren’t many actual details so you had to think about it for only a few moments) sounded bogus. You don’t have to know Reade or Biden, you just have to know how Senate staffers work. There are no hidden alcoves where she claimed – the corridors are wide because they carry many people. There are no empty corridors in the middle of the day. Senators don’t stand around in corridors twiddling their thumbs, ever, if only because they don’t want to be accosted by whomever is passing by. Also, it would make them look foolish just standing there with nothing to do. Staffers are the ones who wait for senators, not the other way around. Senators want things delivered before they need them, usually long before they’ll need them, they don’t accept just-in-time much less ten-minutes-late.
Those were plenty good enough reasons to roll your eyes the first time Reade trotted out this poorly thought out fiction.
Chyron HR
“Why didn’t the Democrats fall for it even though I keep calling them idiots?” – Bernie Sanders, probably
Jeffro
I do plan on being there in the stands when he makes his exit from Washington, surrounded by a vastly bigger crowd than the one that attended the Ill Douche’s inauguration, with a sign that says “LOSER”.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Say what? You mean Hoffa isn’t shacked up with Elvis in Tierra del Fuego?
:)
Baud
@smintheus:
People wanted to believe.
Jeffro
@smintheus: fiction…based on her dad’s own fiction writing, as I understand it. That too.
Great job Team Biden – well-handled, perfectly timed.
Jeffro
@NotMax: It’s like they never run out of chaff. A perpetual chaff machine. A Republican Noise (and also chaff) Machine.
We’re just not like these clowns/slime/Republicans and while I’m honestly glad, it does make progress so. much. slower. when our national snooze media falls for this kind of crap every time.
Ah well. NEXT UP: was Joe Biden the mastermind behind Uranium One, or merely the bag man? These questions and more on Both Sides MediaTM
Another Scott
The Internet is Forever. Unless you backdate it…
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is going to need a lot more server farms… :-/
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro: But Biden is a doddering old fool…. Is it the deep state or the Wall Street neoliberals who are pulling the strings?
The Moar You Know
I am just for one relieved that the staggering incompetence, the bad hires, that surround Trump are still just as bad at their jobs as they always have been.
Biden could have really been hurt by this if they found someone, who, I don’t know, has a credible allegation of having had a criminal record and hadn’t ripped off and fucked over ever person they know, but those seem to be the only kind of people Trumpworld can muster. Now they’re fucked, they didn’t really have much of any other way to come after Biden and they just went for the really big one and failed. GG, GOP.
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes
HumboldtBlue
A younger friend of mine referenced Obama’s appearance in front of the GOP regarding health care, a subject that was part of the comments this week.
Here’s the full video.
(the kids are alright)
smintheus
@Baud: Some of the wishful thinkers were nostalgic for the both-siderifictastic days of yore. Others just were looking to stir up more clicks and harvest more eyeballs with their usual
teachfeed-the-controversy bullshit.Emma from FL
Honest to Christ, those of you playing the sarcasm game, tag your entries. You’re getting too close to the real world to be easily distinguishable.
Baud
@Emma from FL:
Hoffa isn’t really shacked up with Elvis in Tierra del Fuego.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Not to mention both he and his son making that secret trip to Benghazi.
//
Jeffro
Skipped over to Fox News dot com to see how they’re handling these latest revelations about TR…
…LOLOL, I really had y’all there for a moment, didn’t I? I mean, I did go over to FNDC, but yeah, not much there about the TR flame out.
Here’s their top 5 stories right now:
5: Some FBI report on Flynn might have been ‘intentionally’ lost (bonus points for Cavuto-ish marks here, FNDC!)
4: trumpov admin unveils new security measures ahead of 2020 vote (here’s the kicker: the ODNI is generously offering intelligence briefings to BOTH parties in the run-up to the election…you know…like usual?)
3: Chris Christie takes on Joy Behar. Yes really, that is their #3 story in a pandemic-rampant, TR-going-down-in-flames world.
2: Pelosi passes rules for House proxy voting over GOP objections (so, um…GET OUT THERE IN THE STREETS AND PROTEST THIS UM SENSIBLE MEASURE, GOP FOOT SOLDIERS!) I mean, seriously, how did this make it to #2?
and #1
1: “As coronavirus death toll rises, so do voices claiming that death toll is exaggerated”. That’s it. That’s really it. “Some” “voices” “say” that the death toll is exaggerated. That’s their #1 story right now.
Weak sauce!
We are so going to crush them in November!
catclub
@Baud: Everybody knows its Mars
Jeffro
@NotMax: Totes forgot about that!
Why isn’t ol’ Hunter in the dock already for his many, MANY crimes against humanity anyway? I thought trumpov was this big anti-corruption crusader…verily, ’tis a mystery…
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
And that is definitely your right, because this is AMERICA ???, dammit!
HumboldtBlue
Obamagate is sinking faster than Tara “I look like a shady-fake-palm-reader-in-the-current-photo-of-me-making-the-rounds” Reade and the resurrection of the traitor Michael Flynn isn’t going very well either.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Where, then?
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was chuckling the other day during the discussion because I can almost remember the first time I heard her and that was back in the late 80s early 90s?
I took a minute to cotton to her cadence and tone, but I’ve always liked it.
J R in WV
I’m thinking the only way to have any idea how many people die of Coronavirus-19 is the increase in deaths each month year over year from 2019 into 2020. Or even an average of 2015-2019 and the overage in 2020 past those averages.
Because the government being ordered around by Trump isn’t capable of counting anything past 11 — all the fingers and a foot there!…
Much less counting anything that inhibits Trump’s election campaign this fall.
Jeffro
@HumboldtBlue: Well, if TR’s accusations are going down the tubes, and “OBAMAGATE!!1!” is going down the tubes, what’s next?
Biden was skimming off of “Cash for Clunkers”?
He takes too many/not enough vitamins every day?
He’s a Pisces?
Tell us, O great Republican Noise Machine, what will the next blast of chaff be?
NotMax
@Jeffro
“He’s a doody-head!”
/RWNJ noise machine
Mnemosyne
It’s uncommon for adults to lie about having been raped or sexually assaulted, and usually the person who does that is a habitual liar and con artist who thinks they can get something by lying and continually embroiders the lie based on feedback to try and make it sound plausible. Sound familiar?
There’s a reason why MULTIPLE other journalists looked into her story last year and declined to cover it until Katie Halper, Ryan Grim, and Nathan Robinson — not a single one of them an actual professional journalist — decided to wade directly into that shit to try and help their preferred candidate.
LongHairedWeirdo
@HumboldtBlue: Hee! I was thinking of that too. “Oh, yes, bring Obama back! Make sure you have your Fox News talking points, because they’ll *really* stump him, *this* time. Not like last time. You know, where Republicans got *angry* it was *televised* even though they agreed to televise it, because they thought they’d make *him* look bad.”
AliceBlue
TR’s lawyer certainly doesn’t sound like he’s ready to let this go.
Jay
@Jeffro: they are debuting “Biden is Old!!!!” In Floridah!
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: Smaller crowd. The pandemic and all.
Percysowner
@Baud:
Some wanted to believe because “believe Women” is an easy catchphrase and they WANT to believe women wouldn’t make up sexual assault. Now, usually women don’t lie about being assaulted, but there is still a small percentage that does.
Some wanted to believe because “sex sells”. I mean who really cared about the ins and outs of Whitewater. Everyone cared about Monica Lewinsky and blow jobs.
Many just wanted a Biden scandal to bring him down and hoped this would be it.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
It was supposed to be a one-two punch with the accusation by Christine O’Donnell’s then 14-year-old niece following a few days after Reade’s story gained traction, but somebody forgot to check and make sure that Biden had actually attended the event. That turned out to be one of the few years that he missed it — he had sinus surgery a few days earlier and sent a staffer in his place.
Strange as this may seem to Republicans and incels, Biden does seem to be a prominent man who is not actually a rapist or sexual harasser. I guess they thought it was worth playing the odds on the assumption that he must be since so many others have been unmasked.
Jay
@AliceBlue:
the Texas Hair Salon Lady has made $500k and counting in less than two weeks grifting the Flu Klux Klanners on GoFundMe.
like I keep telling the yout’s at work. The “Big Con” in the Movies, the “One Big Score”, is chump change compared to a million marks at $10 a pop.
Mnemosyne
@AliceBlue:
One of her lawyers used to work for the Russian network Sputnik, so we don’t even have to look very hard for the Putin disinformation network connection there.
MisterForkbeard
@AliceBlue: The GOP lawyer? Yeah. big surprise.
sdhays
I missed that moment. All I remember is them getting squeamish about protecting him. This was probably the first point at which people started to realize that as horrible Sessions was, he wasn’t going to engage in the kind of corruption Dump expects and Barr relishes. I don’t think any of the people in the White House gave a shit, or were surprised, that Flynn is a traitor to the country.
It was just part of what made him special.
LongHairedWeirdo
@HumboldtBlue: Hell, the truth is, a general in the armed forces chose to help an adversary in a plot intended to advance Russian interests. If Russia was actually at war with us, that would be treason. Instead, you have people ask why the judge was so harsh, saying he sold out his country.
Duh. He did – he had a chance to protect the US, by doing the right thing, and refused; and, while the FBI was finding out how bad things were (national security wise), he lied to cover it up. Choosing to help an adversary, that seeks to harm your nation, is selling out your nation. And he’s a general – supposedly sworn to protect the US from enemies, foreign and domestic. Oaths used to matter to the GOP. Ah, but the rule of law used to, too.
That we have to hold a discussion like this proves just how *insane* the GOP has become.
Jeffro
@NotMax: My bad, he’s a Scorpio…I can see the headlines already…”Biden apologist fabricates ‘Uncle Joe’s’ astrological sign (and is that all?), misleads voters, also CARAVANS!!1!”
It’s Joe. Biden. JOEBIDEN! What are they going to do? Claim he uses too much butter on his breakfast toast?
The TCNJs don’t know what to do. The cognitive dissonance must be (and here we are speaking relatively; it’s been cognitive dissonance all the way down since 2016) unbelievable: “I’m supposed to get all riled up about opposing Joe Biden?”
They’ll be down near the 27% mark come Election Day.
randy khan
@Jeffro:
What makes you think that he would hang around to watch his successor take over for him?
eemom
Oh for fuck’s sake. Thanks for yet another endless tweet stream on this lying sack of shit.
What, did you run out of #Obamagate tweets to parrot?
Kind of makes me long for the good old days when you plagiarized actual articles.
NotMax
@Jeffro
“Donald is a Gemini. See? It’s got GEM right there.”
//
Villago Delenda Est
@zhena gogolia: The only apology I will entertain is a Captain Needa apology
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Indeed, clearly it’s time to move the goal posts.
debbie
Things should be easing up on Biden soon. This virtual graduation production almost seems designed to explode Trump’s head and divert his attention. Aside from PBO’s speech, the USO will be streaming it to the military, and even Fox will be broadcasting it!
Way to go, LeBron!
NotMax
@debbie
For the record, that’s the Fox division now owned by Disney, no longer by the Murdochs.
debbie
@NotMax:
Close enough in Trump’s eyes!
TS (the original)
@Jeffro:
I will wager the Romney $10K that he does not attend Biden’s inauguration.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
I’m convinced that event was one of the key reasons they tried to float obamagate.
It’s going to be a helluva show and Trump won’t be on any screen.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: I though Hoffa was cabby with JFK in Argentina after they both faked their deaths.
zhena gogolia
@Villago Delenda Est:
Right.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Do you mean like this? Deaths at a 20 year high.
Or this? How to understand the death toll.
Granted, these are UK, figures, but the methodology would be the same for the US, and probably yield similar results.
Gemina13
The BernieBros ran with the Tara Reade story particularly after their attempts to paint Biden as senile flopped worse than a dead cat. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, so I take “Believe Women” pretty seriously. However, when I checked out her story, her connection to Russia, her changing accounts, and the fact that no serious journalist would take up her cause all rang alarm bells.
It’s true that most adults will not lie about sexual abuse. Children will, and for reasons that quite often pertain to their physical or psychological safety; adults, however, are likelier to try to blame themselves for what happened. And had Reade stopped at, “Joe Biden touched me inappropriately and it made me uncomfortable,” she would have had a narrative that could have made Biden’s life difficult.
However, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until recently, when she claimed that Biden fingered her in a corridor of the House – and swiftly changed that to a “basement corridor” when people expressed doubt. First of all, as noted above . . . how many fucking people go through House corridors?? You’ve got staffers, police, Reps and Senators all over the place. And the change had the air of, “Oh, um, I MEANT to say . . .”
Gah. And the BernieBros have been screaming, “Oh, so it’s ‘Believe Women’ until it’s politically expedient?” They don’t get that the investigation came out of #BelieveWomen. Reade’s claim has been investigated and given attention in the press. If they’d been paying attention to how long it took for any of Harvey Weinstein’s victims to have their assaults given press time . . .
HumboldtBlue
House changes its rules during pandemic, allowing remote voting for the first time in its 231-year history:
Gemina13
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s time to move the goal posts
It’s time to scream ‘Fake News’;
It’s time for QAnon
To get Trump to blow a fuse!
SteverinoCT
@Jeffro: hey, hey, hey! Ixnay on the offahay, capisce?
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne: they think that no matter what the accusation is or who it’s about, they can just toss it into the puke funnel/Republican Noise Machine, give it a week or so, and it’ll work.
Jeffro
@randy khan: read carefully…I said I’ll be there when trumpov makes his exit, not that I’d be there at Biden’s inauguration ;)
/pedant, or something
Jeffro
@TS (the original): see also my last post…I kinda agree with you guys but also weaseled myself an ‘out’ there ;)
Jeffro
@SteverinoCT: Oh no worries, I saw “The Irishman” and am just trying to mislead people into thi…er..um. Never mind.
;)
VeniceRiley
@SiubhanDuinne: The Hoffa/Elvis ship would be a hipster fanfic dream ship! Impossibly small “You probably never heard of it.” like the tiniest craft brewery that only makes beer for their block.
oclib
@TS (the original):
along that line, I’m sure he’ll be watching the returns from Mar-afuckin’-lago and if he loses, will never return to DC. He may even decide to resign after the elections and have Dense pardon him if it becomes evident that he can’t pardon himself. Still, the noise will be at a decibel not heard before…..
Brachiator
@oclib:
I will be deliriously happy to see Trump gone.
However, I will bet good money that Trump will milk being a “former president” for all it’s worth. He may even try to run another con and groom one of his vile offspring for a run at public office.
PJ
@AliceBlue: The real question is, who is paying Tara Reade’s lawyer?
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
It does sound really great. The World’s Biggest Yearbook, etc. RWNJs don’t have that kind of imagination at all!
PJ
@Mnemosyne: It really doesn’t matter if it sticks or not, because there are enough people who don’t pay enough attention for whom this will be, “Oh, yeah, Biden, I hear he raped someone.” Some of those people are journalists (like Jon Chait, who just today posted an article about how it was “less likely” that Biden was a rapist, and which betrayed that he was unaware of basic facts about the matter), and some of them are just regular commenters to sites like this, but what they remember is not that the allegation was debunked, but that the allegation was made.
NotMax
@PJ
Including here, where front pagers keep circling it like moths to a flame.
sanjeevs
Reade left Biden’s office days after she was fired for check fraud. No one has reported on this properly (see this story – read the update first because the journalist fucked it up)
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/15/dirty-tricks-against-tara-reade-check-fraud-story-is-based-on-altered-court-emails/
oclib
@Brachiator:
Yes, I agree, I do feel he’ll milk it left and right, especially with a possible cable program. But I’ve also seen where he views being a one-term President as a stigma…..that and being impeached will eat at him like an ulcer…..as far the offspring….pffff….
Frankensteinbeck
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve heard them answer that, actually. They think it’s his wife.
@The Moar You Know:
This one wasn’t a GOP operation. It was shitty-ass, whiny, bad-faith, burn-it-all-down, we’re-only-here-to-destroy-the-Democratic-Party Sanders fans. Who are also incompetent, less for simple stupidity and more because they know what they want to believe and choose only the facts that fit.
@Percysowner:
Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen quite a lot wanted to tear down that catchphrase by discrediting the people who do believe women as hypocrites. There is a strong thread of misogyny in the Sanders fan club, and they’re giddy about the Believe Women aspect.
Anathema Device
The PBS article is at pains to point out, as are the women they spoke to, that their shared good opinion on Biden regarding women has no bearing on Reade’s situation, nor does his absence from a list of creepy men to avoid.
All the same, it would have been a service to survivors not to have even mentioned this stuff because all too many predators are held in high regard by their peers, which in no way affected their ability to carry out sexual assaults, very often over a number of years. Even Trump has had female employees who called him a good boss, like Barbara Res. (At least, to begin with.)
Basically, the abuser who is a pillar of the community is a cliche, and the article would have been stronger if they had just concentrated on things like Reade lying about the cause of her dismissal, her unprofessional work dress, and the contradiction of her story that she was punished for not serving drinks at Biden’s request. All that stuff is genuinely dispositive, and didn’t need the insulting crap about Biden being a good man.
Frankensteinbeck
@PJ:
I think the overall effect will be the opposite. The narrative for the ill informed will be ‘Biden’s enemies make up all kinds of shit about him, so I can ignore it.’ The rapist stuff will only stick with those who already want a reason to hate Biden. Thankfully, Biden already has a public perception as an all-around great guy. This will do him good, on balance.
TaMara (HFG)
@eemom: You are free to go fuck off. I’m not sure why you think it’s okay to abuse Anne Laurie. Take your angry ass and go somewhere else if you don’t like the content here. Hopefully, AL has you pied.
James E Powell
@PJ:
I’m guessing a group of RW billionaires put together a fund like they did for Paula Jones.
dopey-o
@randy khan: Trump will be able to watch Biden’s inauguration on YouTube from his dascha outside Moscow.
Gemina13
@dopey-o: I’d prefer he’d be watching it from a cell, although my SO is more bloodthirsty and is hoping he’s in a vegetative state after suffering the sort of massive stroke that felled Ariel Sharon.
Gemina13
@James E Powell: Where cui bono and “follow the money” collide.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): Hear fucking hear.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
yes, exactly. I don’t claim to have invented that process, or had the idea first, at all. I read it somewhere, saw it was used somewhere else, it made perfectly good sense at the time.
It will make it harder for the Trump apologists to keep the death toll lower artificially. Which at this point is their only goal related to math even distantly.
Don’t test, that will keep the numbers lower!
No, it won’t, it will just make it impossible to control things as they try to open up months too soon. I’ pretty sure these guys all do addition by counting on their fingers and toes.
Sad!
Another Scott
@Anathema Device: +1. Excellent points.
Character is important in evaluating claims, but what matters much more is whether the story is internally consistent with available evidence.
Cheers,
Scott.
Johannes
@Frankensteinbeck:
Dr. Jill as Richelieu?
I’d be ok with that, actually.
Not that I buy it but, …sure. I’m all in.
Ella in New Mexico
@Jay:
So now there’s no excuse: she can afford to sit out the rest of the pandemic and stop spreading disease
Carlo
@smintheus: This felt like a Swiftboating from the outset. Fortunately the media seem a little less willing to be taken in this time.