Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Oh god I didn't expand the thread before cntl-Fing. Mea culpa.

I’m sure the sixth time someone posts that fucking Putin thing it won’t seem like an irrelevant attempt to undermine a sexual assault claim

Xpost ffs

Anyway fuck Joe Biden

I for one can’t believe that a woman facing mountains of media scrutiny AND death threats hired a lawyer.

ew no

xpost

Bazinga!

wtf @ some posts here

That McGann piece in Vox was good.

yeah, i thought so too

ok that's it, i'm out of this thread

i guess i’m late on this but i was pretty surprised reade chose to have her interview conducted by megyn kelly of all... ghouls. this whole thing blows

the Vox piece was illuminating but really only through a journalist's lens. Reporting absolutely demands that level of rigor and it's good to see a journalist actually grappling with these contradictory pieces of the puzzle in an honest way, but I don't think the rest of us should feel so obligated. I am inclined to believe Reade's account(s) until it/they are flatly shown to be false, mainly because I have zero authority to comment on how trauma can affect a person's recollection or characterization of events and also because it seems like the instances of a person willingly putting themselves through this much public scrutiny just to disseminate a false accusation, while they do exist, are proportionally extremely small.

it seems like the instances of a person willingly putting themselves through this much public scrutiny just to disseminate a false accusation, while they do exist, are proportionally extremely small

Politics and celebrity break people's brains.

Oh, okay.

Politics and celebrity break people's brains.

Yeah, they make some of you start cosplaying Brock Turner's lawyers.

"celebrity"

fuck outta here

i genuinely feel like this is always coming from the same person

it's always other people's brains that are broken isn't it

i don't know why i'm back, i guess i just hate myself, but i just wanted to add some information regarding unperson's misleading "data point" upthread

Wigdor is well known for his work on prominent cases related to sexual harassment and assault. He represented six women who accused Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, of sexual misconduct. He has also represented a number of Fox News employees in cases alleging gender and racial discrimination at the network, including Juliette Huddy, one of the women who accused Bill O’Reilly of pursuing a sexual relationship with her and retaliating when she refused. In 2018, he spoke out in the media defending Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Wigdor has been a supporter of Trump and provided about $55,000 in campaign contributions in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records. He has also given tens of thousands of dollars to state and local Democratic politicians in New York, including New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and New York Attorney General Letitia James. He has not donated to either Trump’s or Biden’s 2020 campaign.

https://apnews.com/10d2842623b2c299e2c673bf5a9e23ff

it's also because i'm a lawyer and it pisses me off when people go "OOOOH SHE GOT A LAWYER" as if it means anything other than they needed a fucking lawyer

This is a horrid thread and nobody should post to it anymore, it’s just an octagon at this point

Women otm but jesus fuck we have to beat trump

Twin Peaks - Deleted Black Lodge Scene (1991) pic.twitter.com/BjIp6YXt3l

— Florian 🥁 (@BetaODork) May 8, 2020

idk a few weeks back it was WAY worse b4 a certain shit stirrer was asked to leave

"women otm BUT"

engrave it on my headstone

its interesting that online spaces (threads, etc) where women are consistently otm with uncomfortable truths are always called shitshows. like "everyone should stop posting on this" -- a variant of that has been said in every comment thread i've ever been in on any forum when folks start talking about sexual assault

Sounds like end-to-end bollocks to me:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/05/joe-biden-presidential-plans.html?

"everyone should stop speaking", the minute there are no possible responses left, too embarrassing to defend. Not just you should stop speaking, but we all should stop speaking and maybe it will go away without having to sign your name to it

Bleak:

https://newrepublic.com/amp/article/157685/joe-biden-election-2020-mission?

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/05/12/donald-trump-haters-joe-biden-clinton-244629

^^ read that story this afternoon -- fascinating

NEW this morning: Biden and Sanders roll out the members of the 6 Unity Task Forces that will offer recommendations to the DNC platform cmte and to Biden. Includes @johnkerry, @EricHolder, @vivek_murthy, @aoc, @RepJayapal, @rweingarten, @econjared, @StephanieKelton. pic.twitter.com/fGHHFJcUVE

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 13, 2020

Man can’t we just have a Unity Task Force instead of a president

https://i2.wp.com/www.actionfigurepics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Legion-of-Doom-group.jpg?fit=700%2C466&ssl=1

i think it is good bernie is working with biden

Team America: Unity Task Force

i mean, this is the type of thing biden should have been doing. he has to 1.) break through, get his voice out there and 2.) demonstrate that he would be more competent in handling the crisis than trump

how can he "break through" other than by giving all those chats and Zoom town halls or whatever? I actually thought he gave a solid (for him) response last night (I paraphrase): "I'm following the rules, Trump isn't, that's why so many in the WH are sick."

He and his staff are running a Harding or McKinley let-the-incumbent-fuck-up campaign, which for a while is the only thing he can do.

I imagine part of the problem is that people have short memories, so doing a lot of stuff now may be detrimental if it means there are fewer opportunities to show good leadership closer to November.

i just don't think that's enough.

i am not sure how he breaks through, that is something for his comms team to figure out, but it's urgent. he needs to seem like a real alternative not a sleepy old guy.

Is it urgent though? It's May.

maybe not. and people do have short memories. like, trump was impeached less than 6 months ago and no one even mentions it.

I don't think it's urgent now. Trump is hanging himself.

treeship, it's May. I have no idea if we'll be dead.

Biden has run a very non-traditional campaign this entire time based on keeping a much lower profile than your average candidate. Part of it is running on the memory of Biden from 10 years ago, rather than the current reality, part is getting out of the way of opponents and letting them hang themselves. It's worked remarkably well so far. I have no idea if it will continue to work, but it seems like this is the strategy they are running with. All the calls for him to put himself out there more just haven't been correct so far.

A Sanders supporting buddy conceded last week that had Sanders been the nominee he'd likely run a similar campaign at this point, with Trump still tearing himself apart.

Right, I'm honestly not sure what more Biden can do given the practical limitations of running a campaign in the middle of a global pandemic and also the fact that Trump's daily fuck-ups suck up all the oxygen.

It's worked remarkably well so far

it has? He's running 4 points ahead of the guy who has basically abdicated his position and can be personally (if indirectly) responsible for tens of thousands of deaths