(05-01-2020, 06:05 PM)bfine32 Wrote: As I said: Calls for violence should not be tolerated

(05-01-2020, 06:01 PM)GMDino Wrote: Trump tweeted that the masked, armed men were good people.  And the governor should meet with them.

(05-01-2020, 07:04 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: America doesn't negotiate with terrorists.

(05-01-2020, 06:50 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Are tax payer funded hugs actually "free"?

(05-01-2020, 08:05 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Biden has asked the secretary of the Senate to look for any and all records related to the allegation.

Consistent with my position on Kavanaugh, I hope there is a thorough investigation. Fortunately, Biden can’t limit the FBI from actually investigating this issue as Trump did with Kavanaugh (not sure who would investigate this).

Quote:AP Exclusive: Harassment, assault absent in Biden complaint

In this April 4, 2019, photo Tara Reade poses for a photo during an interview with The Associated Press in Nevada City, Calif. (AP Photo/Donald Thompson)
[/url]WASHINGTON (AP) — Tara Reade, the [url=https://apnews.com/d922da60baa91121f4529fe51a0fd55a]former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, says she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.



“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”


Reade said she described her issues with Biden but “the main word I used — and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”

Reade described the report after the AP discovered additional transcripts and notes from its interviews with Reade last year in which she says she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office. The AP interviewed Reade in 2019 after she accused Biden of uncomfortable and inappropriate touching. She did not raise allegations of sexual assault against Biden until this year, around the time he became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.


The existence of the Senate report has become a key element of the accusations against Biden, which he has flatly denied. Reade says she doesn’t have a copy of the report, and Biden said Friday that he is not aware that any complaint against him exists. He asked the Senate and the National Archives to search their records to try to locate a complaint from Reade.

But Reade is suggesting that even if the report surfaces, it would not corroborate her assault allegations because she chose not to detail them at the time.


According to a transcript of her 2019 interview with the AP, Reade said: “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.” She made a similar statement in a second interview with AP that same day, according to written notes from the interview.


On Friday, Reade said she was referring to having “chickened out” by not filing full harassment or assault allegations against Biden. In multiple interviews with the AP on Friday, Reade insisted she filed an “intake form” at the Senate personnel office, which included her contact information, the office she worked for and some broad details of her issues with Biden.

Reade was one of eight women who came forward last year with allegations that Biden made them feel uncomfortable with inappropriate displays of affection. Biden acknowledged the complaints and promised to be “more mindful about respecting personal space in the future.”


During one of the April 2019 interviews with the AP, she said Biden rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair. 
She said she was asked by an aide in Biden’s Senate office to dress more conservatively and told “don’t be so sexy.”


She said of Biden: “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.”


The AP reviewed notes of its 2019 interviews with Reade after she came forward in March with allegations of sexual assault against Biden. But reporters discovered an additional transcript and notes from those interviews on Friday.


A recording of one of the interviews was deleted before Reade emerged in 2020 with new allegations against Biden, in keeping with the reporter’s standard practice for disposing of old interviews. A portion of that interview was also recorded on video, but not the part in which she spoke of having “chickened out.”


The AP declined to publish details of the 2019 interviews at the time because reporters were unable to corroborate her allegations, and aspects of her story contradicted other reporting.


In recent weeks, Reade told the AP and other news organizations that Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, groping her and penetrating her with his fingers. She says she was fired from Biden’s office after filing a complaint with the Senate alleging harassment.


The accusation has roiled Biden’s presidential campaign, sparking anxiety among Democrats. Republicans have accused Biden backers of hypocrisy, arguing that they have been quick to believe women who have accused President Donald Trump and other conservatives of assault. Trump has faced multiple accusations of assault and harassment, all of which he denies.


Reade says she was reluctant to share details of the assault during her initial conversations with reporters over a year ago because she was scared of backlash, and was still coming to terms with what happened to her.


Two of Reade’s associates said publicly this past week that Reade had conversations with them that they said corroborated aspects of her allegation. One, a former neighbor, said Reade told her about the alleged assault a few years after Reade said it happened. The other, a former coworker, said Reade told her she had been sexually harassed by her boss during her previous job in Washington.


The AP has also spoken to two additional people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their families’ privacy, who said Reade had told them about aspects of her allegations against Biden years ago.

One friend, who knew Reade in 1993, said Reade told them about the alleged assault when it happened. The second friend met Reade more than a decade after the alleged incident and confirmed that Reade had a conversation with the friend in 2007 or 2008 about experiencing sexual harassment from Biden while working in his Senate office.

(05-02-2020, 05:26 PM)GMDino Wrote: Ms Reade just cancelled a planned interview with Chris Wallace that was to air tonight.

https://apnews.com/aec7beb03e9e0e0e6e3c58111293e0ea

Quote:Trump to take pandemic victory lap in TV 'town hall'



Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump will wrap himself in the mantle of America's arguably greatest president with a television extravaganza Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial meant to leave the coronavirus crisis behind and relaunch his election campaign.

The businessman Republican is doing poorly in most polls ahead of the November presidential contest with his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who remains shuttered in his Delaware home.

Trump faces criticism for his bruising, divisive style during a time of national calamity, and is accused by some of having botched the early response to the COVID-19 virus.

Worse, the previously booming US economy, which was seen as a golden ticket to his second term, is now in dire straits due to the nationwide lockdown.

But with officials saying the viral spread has begun to taper, Trump is itching to declare victory and get back on the campaign trail.

That audacious shift begins Sunday at possibly the most hallowed monument in the country -- the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through civil war, urged reconciliation, and was assassinated in his moment of triumph.

Trump, who calls himself a "wartime president" and the coronavirus an "invisible enemy," will appear there for a two-hour Fox News "town hall," taking questions from the usually friendly network's hosts and from voters appearing by video.

The memorial is only just beyond the White House fences, but in the next few days, Trump will break months of self-quarantine with long-distance trips to the key electoral states of Arizona and Ohio.

It's a play that will emphasize Trump's massive visibility advantage over Biden and, the White House hopes, rewrite the public relations script after gaffes including the president's suggestion that coronavirus patients ingest disinfectant.



- Patriotic sales pitch -

Lincoln took the gamble in 1861 that only war could preserve the United States by ending slavery and restoring the nation's ideals of freedom -- and he won.

Trump often compares himself favorably to the 19th century national hero.

Retweeting a fan's gushing endorsement Sunday of Trump as a great friend of African Americans, the president replied: "So true, although Honest Abe wasn't bad. Thank you!"

Now Trump wants to extend that claim to great leadership by asking voters to put behind them the tragic events of the last months and to focus on his promise of "spectacular" economic recovery.

The virus -- which has killed more than 66,000 Americans -- continues to inflict havoc against a background of mass unemployment, trillions of dollars in emergency government aid, and worries about a second viral wave after the summer.

But Trump, tapping his salesman's optimism, says the nightmare will end soon.

"We built the greatest economy the world has ever seen," the president said last week. "And we're going to do it again. And it's not going to be that long, OK?"

To underline this patriotic self-confidence, he announced a series of flyovers by the military display team, the Blue Angels, including one over Washington, DC, on Saturday.




- Fanning the flames -

Despite Trump's eagerness to get the economy -- and his re-election hopes -- moving, medical experts warn premature reopening could bring a disastrous resurgence.

On the other side, the president is pressured by many ordinary Americans whose livelihoods are under dire threat.

Faced with these conflicting tensions, he has increasingly sided with Republican leaders who advocate re-opening as quickly as possible.

As the decision on whether to reopen becomes ever more politicized, Trump has encouraged street protests against the lockdown.

Tweeting that protesters should "LIBERATE" states and calling demonstrators in Michigan -- who included armed and camouflaged militia members -- "very good people", he is staking out electoral territory.

And while he pushes the patriotic themes inside the country, Trump is also amping up criticism on China, where the virus originated, as a foreign opponent.

Beijing, he told Reuters last week, "will do anything they can" to stop his reelection -- an accusation likely to be repeated often.

(05-02-2020, 07:24 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: She was suppose to film it Friday and canceled soon after the Biden interview aired on MSNBC.

(05-03-2020, 10:28 AM)GMDino Wrote: Essentially Trump will try to sell the snake oil that the virus is winding down and start campaigning again while Biden follows the shutdown rules.

He'll use his office to campaign.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-pandemic-victory-lap-tv-town-hall-084901630.html

(05-03-2020, 11:38 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Clinton endorsing Biden most likely scared her away. You don't f. with the Clintons.

(05-03-2020, 02:29 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Could be, but the likelier reason might be that Biden's insistence on having the secretary of the Senate pull up any and all records related to this was a move she did not anticipate and she wasn't ready to respond to questions related to his interview just yet. Given how often her story is being updated, I imagine she wanted to speak with counsel first to work on the narrative.

(05-03-2020, 02:29 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Could be, but the likelier reason might be that Biden's insistence on having the secretary of the Senate pull up any and all records related to this was a move she did not anticipate and she wasn't ready to respond to questions related to his interview just yet. Given how often her story is being updated, I imagine she wanted to speak with counsel first to work on the narrative.

(05-03-2020, 03:48 PM)samhain Wrote: I'm not sure what to make of her.  The accusation should be taken seriously, but it's a hard one to prove and it was too long ago to make a strong case.  If her intent is to damage Biden's chances in the election, her best bet is to leave the accusation as it is without having her character being brought into question with any kind of real investigation/media coverage.

It's obviously dicey territory, but any deep dive into her history of accusations/reputation is going to go bad for her.  I've seen a lot of suggestions being thrown around that she may not be the most dependable of human beings, conservatively speaking.  I'm thinking that she knows this better than anyone and is pausing for a moment to think about whether or not she wants to go through with whatever she views as her path to bringing her narrative to light.

(05-03-2020, 05:10 PM)bfine32 Wrote: It's known as victim shaming. 

(05-03-2020, 06:15 PM)samhain Wrote: It's fair game in any legal proceeding, as it was with Blasey Ford.  If the accusation moves forward in any significant way, it's a matter of time.  Maybe we can find out she's afraid to fly on airplanes and make fun of her or something.  

Or maybe we could just take the MAGA route, call her fake news, phone in some death threats from the base, then sue her until she's got no choice but to recant or live on the street.

(05-03-2020, 06:15 PM)samhain Wrote: It's fair game in any legal proceeding, as it was with Blasey Ford.  If the accusation moves forward in any significant way, it's a matter of time.  Maybe we can find out she's afraid to fly on airplanes and make fun of her or something.  

Or maybe we could just take the MAGA route, call her fake news, phone in some death threats from the base, then sue her until she's got no choice but to recant or live on the street.