Jaime Franchi, a journalist, met Joe Biden at a political event on Long Island, New York. He touched her. He touched almost everyone in the room, either with a handshake, a pat on the back, a hug, or a story. She was not at all offended.
She compares her warm experience in meeting Joe Biden with what she saw of Trump on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, where he talked about grabbing women, swallowing a Tic-Tac in case he felt like grabbing a quick tongue-kiss, and then stepped off the bus to humiliate the woman he was talking about.
In the Access Hollywood tape heard across the world, where President Trump gleefully described how wealth and fame gives access to sexual assault, the part that disturbed me wasn’t the “pussy grabbing” comment.
No, it was the moment he exited the bus and hugged MaryAnn, the publicist in the purple dress that Trump and Billy Bush had been talking about just moments before. He popped some Tic Tacs just in case he started kissing her, he’d said. Billy urged them to hug, and she obliged.
I recognized that moment.
You don’t quite know what’s going on, what the joke is, but you play along to be a good sport. It what we’ve been conditioned to do.
That touch was meant to be not only sexual, but mean-spiritedly so. MaryAnn couldn’t know the vile things they’d just said about her. She couldn’t know the joke she was the butt of. It was a way to humiliate her for their locker-room amusement.
While Joe Biden held my hand for a much longer span of time than that quick hug between President Trump and MaryAnn, it could never — not even by the most power-hungry, moral outrage-addicted person — be confused with attempting to humiliate or sexually bully.
Biden will adjust his habits, she predicts. But she knows from her own experience that his actions were never meant to humiliate, that he is a genuinely warm person who cares about others.
For the past two or three years, we have almost forgotten that such people exist.
MAGA man, Moscow’s Agent Governing America, has lowered the bar, or raised it depending on an individual’s perspective (all criminals that love to wallow in corruption now have a green light to become much more despicable and deplorable by a factor of 1,000 or more), on being a racist, a liar, a fraud, a con-man, and an abusive sexist.
Oh FFS, this is Republican territory. How is this any different than the list of women who thought Brett K. was a swell guy (one of said women being the now-infamous Renate Dolphin who just might regret putting her name on that list)? Just because some people have just fine interactions with someone says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about anyone else’s interactions with that person. It’s like saying, “Well, Ted Bundy didn’t murder me, so he must not have murdered all those other women.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/biden-metoo-kavanaugh-harassment/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%2004082019&utm_term=daily
So what are the sexual assaults, Biden is accused of?
Just because he kicked the krap out of Anita Hill on behalf of Clarence Thomas does not make him guilty of sexual assault, unless you look at it in terms of what it did the the nation.
How is this any different than the Republican women who didn’t believe Brett K. was such a bad guy because, after all, he wasn’t so bad to them? Just because one person might have fine interactions with someone doesn’t discount other people’s negative interactions with that person. Stop trying to dismiss women- that’s Republican territory!
The Nation has an article today addressing this very point which I recommend highly. I’ve posted it, but the title has the K word, so it’s going to moderation.
Was Joe Biden accused of trapping a woman in a room and throwing her on a bed attempting to gang rape her? Perhaps we can start there…
Lucy Flores: Not suggesting that ‘I felt sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. I felt invaded.’
Amy Lappos:“It wasn’t sexual, but he did grab me by the head,”
D.J. Hill.: Biden rested his hand on her shoulder, and then started to move it down her back, which left her feeling “very uncomfortable.”
Caitlyn Caruso: claimed that after sharing the story of her sexual assault at a University of Nevada event in 2016, Biden hugged her “just a little bit too long”
Ally Coll:
Biden squeezed her shoulders, complimented her smile, and held her “for a beat too long.”
Sofie Karasek: In 2016, Sofie Karasek was photographed holding hands and touching foreheads with Biden at the Oscars, where she stood alongside 50 other sexual-assault survivors during Lady Gaga’s performance.
Now the women are entitled to their personal space
If it is not a sexual assault and not sexual harassment. Then it does not pass the stink test. It is simply human interaction and I would bet there have been 1000s of women and men who he interacted with in a similar manner who did not feel violated at all. The thought that there was anything inappropriate never even crossing their minds.
Millions of interactions every day that fall into the same category and have zero sexuality attached to it. The overwhelming majority of which are never even noticed by the participants. We all have different definitions of personal space.
Get over it.
Gee, I must have missed it, dienne77.
Did an anonymous woman or women come forward and accuse Biden on Fox News of drugging them and then attempting to rape them like so many of Brett K’s accusers did when they were at the same wild alcohol drenched college frat parties? Poor man being accused of such deplorable behavior by more than one woman.
“Former students of Georgetown Prep have described a pervasive culture of heavy underaged drinking. In his senior-year yearbook entry, Kavanaugh referenced drinking multiple times, according to the Post. In those mentions, he said that he was a member of the “Beach Week Ralph Club” and “Keg City Club.” …
‘The New Yorker also pointed out that during the Supreme Court nominee’s time at Yale, “Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society, Truth and Courage, which was popularly known by the nickname ‘Tit and Clit.’” He was also a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, which was known at the time for its “wild and, in the view of some critics, misogynistic parties,” according to student accounts given to the New Yorker.’
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/22/17886814/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-deborah-ramirez
Oh, I remember now, Joe Biden has been accused of holding hands too long and touching a shoulder now and then and/or being a hugger. How deplorable! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Lock him up without a trial!
I do not think, the logic behind presenting positive testimonials to the accused character is dismissing the accuser. These are testimonies to the character, and if there are none which are supportive of the accused, that’s a big problem.
I love the Nation, but I think they are trying to be way too black and white here. They are always quite partial, and it feels good for me to read them, but this is a poorly conceived and executed article, imo, which took 5 minutes to write.
Máté Wierdl: “…I think they are trying to be way too black and white here.”
I already stated that Biden put his arm around me while standing on my R side a few years back. I NEVER thought a thing about it until this CR*P recently started.
There is a HUGE difference between attacking someone and what Biden does. The Orange Moron is a sexual predator. So are Judge K and Judge Thomas predators. None of them should be in the positions of power that they now have.
You did a great job of starting that video about Biden at the right place. I’m impressed with your tech ability. He made mistakes in the past. I’m not condoning that. Biden is way too moderate for my taste. I’m in the camp of Bernie and Warren. AOC is my type of lady. She doesn’t squirm when attacked by the GOP’ers.
Who is VOC? AOC? Yeah, we’ll have her in 8 years, till then, perhaps let Bernie or Warren clear the way. 🙂
For your reading pleasure: https://www.thenation.com/article/biden-metoo-kavanaugh-harassment/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%2004082019&utm_term=daily
I’m sure this is much more important than a discussion of the 94 crime bill.
Indeed, Arts….
Time to look at Biden’s record (including support of Obama’s education policy).
(see ‘Ed’, below)
Don’t forget Diamond Joe’s deep involvement with the Bankruptcy bill, which made it impossible to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy court. If given the chance, Trump will (hypocritically) make cat food out of him.
Then there’s the minor detail that he’s the Senator from Banking and Tax Evasion, which is the major industry in Delaware, on par with places like Bermuda, Panama, Turk and Caicos, et. al.
I guess since (former) Saint Santa Claus Mueller disappointed those who thought Trump would magically disappear as a result of Russiagate propaganda, this is our current distraction. Anything, absolutely anything, to keep from offering universal material benefits, focused on the needs of working people.
The dirty secret is that many people in the McResistance and Clinton/Obama wings of the Democratic Party prefer Trump’s reelection to Bernie Sanders receiving the Democratic nomination. Under Trump, fundraising, clicks and advertising stay high, while they retain control of the Party apparatus; if Bernie gets the nomination, they’re on the way out.
See these:
Joe Biden Isn’t the Answer
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55808-joe-biden-isnt-the-answer
Joe Biden Is a Link to the Past—and Not In a Good Way
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/01/joe-biden-link-past-and-not-good-way
When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/55782-when-joe-biden-voted-to-let-states-overturn-roe-v-wade
Biden and Beto’s Aid to GOP Candidates Is Disqualifying
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/2020-primary-biden-and-betos-aid-to-gop-candidates-in-2018-is-disqualifying.html
Joe Biden Has a History of Racist Comments
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/55404-joe-biden-has-a-history-of-racist-comments
No Joe! Joe Biden’s Disastrous Legislative Legacy
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55221-no-joe-joe-bidens-disastrous-legislative-legacy
Has Biden hailed Trump’s attack on Venezuela yet? Back in the 80’s he backed the Contras, saying he wouldn’t stand by as the Sandinista “tyrants imposed their will” on Nicaragua, which prompted Alexander Cockburn to call Biden “another Cold War Democrat trying to prove he’s got hair on his chest and sawdust in his brain.”
QuickLink: Biden Took $200K Speaking Fee to Help Re-elect a Republican Candidate | OpEdNews
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Biden-Took-200K-Speaking-by-Stephen-Fox-David-Leonhardt_Michigan_Presidential-Campaign_Presidential-Campaign-Democratic-190124-681.html
Joe Biden, Crime Fighter from Hell
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/16/joe-biden-crime-fighter-from-hell/
January, 2019 quote from Biden:Joe Biden: “I read in the New York Times that one of the problems I’d have if I ran for president is I like Republicans. Bless me father for I have sinned.”
So, learning NOTHING from the eight years the two Obama-Biden administrations spent struggling against intransigent Congressional ideologues in the RethugliKKKan Party led by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and filled with crazies such as Steve King, Louie Gohmert, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and others, Joe Biden still thinks he can work with a political party which is racist, misogynistic, white-supremacist, extremely right wing, and hates government when it does things to help the common people (of course, they LOVE IT when the government helps corporations, the rich, and the Military-Media-Intelligence-Corporate-Congressional Complex).
They are ALL part of the same corrupt corporate club, isolated from the real-life everyday concerns of most Americans, not giving a damn about what we want and need.
The Other Reason Biden Shouldn’t Run – Progressive.orghttps://progressive.org/dispatches/the-other-reason-biden-shouldnt-run-Zunes-190402/?utm_source=THE+PROGRESSIVE+UPDATED+LIST&utm_campaign=b373506e11-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_21_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_194f0c7083-b373506e11-186688709&mc_cid=b373506e11&mc_eid=6530ae83a5
Good to know as we head into the 2020 elections.
Will Joe Biden run on his record or from it?
Joe Biden:
1919: Attacked Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
1994: Wrote the disastrous Clinton Crime Bill
1995: Voted against gay marriage
1996: Voted to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act
2001: Voted for the Patriot Act
2002: Voted for the disastrous, illegal Iraq War
2005: Voted to end bankruptcy protections for students
2018: Presented George W. Bush with the Liberty Medal
Joe Biden: Another Disastrous Democrat.
Reader Supported News was rated “Left Biased” by Media Bias/Fact Check. The next notch on that scale moves to the Extreme Left.
I wonder what this site means by LEFT vs Right. Left could be neo-liberals or Koch brothers libertarians. Right could mean neoconservatives, Koch brothers libertarians, and/or fundamentalist evangelical Trump supporting FAKE Christians.
Common Dreams also was rated Left and a tad closer to the extreme.
If you want to refer to sources, look for those that are rated “Least Biased”. Even Left-Center or Right-Center is preferable to any so-called media source that is labeled too close to extreme.
“I wonder what this site means by LEFT vs Right. Left could be neo-liberals or Koch brothers libertarians. Right could mean neoconservatives, Koch brothers libertarians, ”
So I think we must conclude that the political spectrum is not a straight line but a circle and this is why far “left” and far “right” may be close to each other.
E pur si muove.
The Political Spectrum
The Spectrum’s a whine
In bottle of Klein
The fruit of a vine
With Möbius twine
Now, that is twisted, SDP:
The truth is not necessarily in the center.
Sometimes it’s actually an outlier.
With apologies to Robert Frost:
We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret (sometimes) sits on the outside, and knows.
Ed
Those are legitimate points and a different question than the one that was asked.
What’s the Question?
If Biden’s the answer
Then what is the query?
Taking a chance here
That Trump will be merry?
Biden came to a very wealthy subdivision in NW Indiana. I managed to get close to him and had a friend take a photo. Yes, he put his arm around me. He was standing on my R side. I don’t consider it a big deal.
Now if the Orange P**y-Grabber-in-Chief started grabbing ‘you know where’, I’d have been outraged. That would never happen because I’m not one of the beautiful women he lusts after. Thank goodness!! Ewwww.
Speaking of Biden . . . . the notion that Biden improperly “attacked” Anita Hill during the Thomas hearings is approaching conventional-wisdom status. (See, e.g., Ed’s post above.)
Recently I tried skimming through the hearing footage on YouTube to remind myself what specifically happened, but all I could find was Biden questioning Hill about her allegations in a not-at-all hostile manner. Can anyone point me to a moment in the hearing where Biden attacked Hill? Again, I believe this footage is all on YouTube.
I think the attack against Hill never happened. It was more about what he could have done, but didn’t do.
The essence is at 8m59s, and I tried to create the link to jump immediately there
Biden refused to allow testimony from colleagues of Anita Hill that would have supported her allegations against Thomas.
Of course, the big problem with this overpushing of what is considered acceptable physical contact is that it’ll trickle down to schools, and first-grade teachers will give a Kleenex box to a crying child instead of hugging them.
The Hugabot
The WeeToo trend
Will mark the end
Of teacher touch
And such and such
The Hugabot
Is what is sought
It’s touch is tame
And naught to shame
There will be a Hugabot placed in every classroom (it’s only $999,999 per bot), and if a child’s crying is measured to be hug-worthy (by the Laser equipped Hugometer, hanging off the middle of the ceiling), then Hugabot moves to the child, and the child can hug the bot for at most 3 seconds, after which the bot’s huggable area collapses. The bot doesn’t hug back, to avoid placing its arms at inappropriate places on the child. In some places, like in Bible belt schools, the bot can come without any arms, in order to avoid inducing uncomfortable feelings in the parents about thinking what those arms might do their innocent child.
The Hugometer and Hugobot can come in a bundle, and the total cost is only $1,999,999 plus tax.
In some areas, classes will have Spankabot equipped with muscular, extremely fury arms moved by a titanium covered stainless steel structure, first tested at coal mines. This bot moves very swiftly, can employ a belt made of thick bison butt leather. The bot has a very versatile vocabulary of threatening phrases, like “you better drop your pants, you little criminal, by the time I get there, or you’ll never be able to sit on your butt again, you dirty little sinner.”
The threefold bundle of the two bots and Hugometer is only $4,999,999 +tax on Amazon, and qualifies for a $999 shipping cost, provided the customer has a Prime membership.
The Federal Education and Disciplinary Department now gives $10 billion to every state that is willing to adopt the Spankabot, since Mrs DeVos firmly believes, it is the key tool in every school turnaround effort.
Máté Wierdl: Do these bots protect teachers and students from bears?
Thanks for asking this important question, dear Malaysian Carol.
The Bearabots are already in phase 3 of testing with excellent results. The effectiveness so far is 100% with only 15% false positives when too heavy or hairy kids were mistaken for bears by the bots extremely sophisticated and sensitive scanning system. Other than those unfortunate cases, the builtin Praying System in the bots never had to be activated to send soothing Christian prayers, via texts and email, to the affected parents.
The Nuclear Bearabots otherwise work so well, making their targets evaporate without trace, that instead of changing the bots’ scanning system, state laws have been drawn up by ALEC which make it illegal for heavy or hairy kids to enter any traditional school property, and instead, a separate Fat and Hairy School System will be created for these children. The Fat&Hairy schools won’t need Bearabots, since these kids should be able to defend themselves against bears. At least this is what our research team concluded after a full hour of Internet source research, conducted in our impossibly high-tech Google lab.
The deployment of Bearabots will be mandatory in every public school in the United States of America, starting in the coming 2019-20 school year. Separate Military Units will enforce this law that was created and accepted last night, due to the extreme urgency of the matter.
Máté Wierdl: THANK YOU! I now feel much more reassured about our future. [I’m also laughing my head off.] Fortunately, neither my daughter nor myself would have fit into the hairy kids school. I know of a few men who should be thankful that they already graduated. OH dear. I have a grandson in the 8th grade.
We could rename the Fat&Heavy system to the Bear Boys Branch, which makes it more attractive to said kids and PC too. We are here to help and we are flexible.
When Hugabot
Hugs Bearabot
The Bearbot rules supreme
Cuz Hugabot
Is simply not
The best at bearhug meme
The Bearbot crush
Can simply mush
A Hugabot, or teams
It isn’t mean
But simply keen
On stopping Griz, it seems
Every year, on April 10, the HugaBot and the BearBot in each class will have a friendly competition in which the bots fight to the death. Each kind of Bot is equipped with special software to make this possible. This software is automatically activated on said date.
Before the competition begins, the kids in the class can place small bets on their favorite bot. The maximal size of the bet is determined by the neighborhood the school is in, and cannot exceed the average salary in that neighborhood. The minimal mandatory bet is $1000, and it must be in cash. The collected bet in its entirety will go to a special charity set up to benefit the Board of the winning bot, so parents will be delighted to know that their money goes to a good, wholesome cause.
Once the competition begins, the kids can root for their bot using their inner voice and proper. SpankBots are standing by to discipline those kids who break the rules. The extent and force of disciplining on this day is programmed to be especially severe, and each disciplining will be executed in the schoolyard so that the whole school can see what happens to violators on this beautiful spring day.
The friendly competition has three rounds, each lasting 1 hour, with 10-minute breakes in between where kids can increase the size of their bets by no more than 100% and no less than 50%.
At the end of the competition, the remains of the loser bot will be cleaned up. The classes will then experience spring renewal by purchasing a replacement bot at half price on Amazon Prime.
The whole event will bring the kids in the class together, because they witness fierce fighting, death and renewal starting at age 4, and this will harden their soul for the time when they necessarily start working for a corporation.
Máté Wierdl: “…because they witness fierce fighting, death and renewal starting at age 4, and this will harden their soul for the time when they necessarily start working for a corporation.”
Sounds like what Trump would promote.
The whole school reform movement is about getting kids ready for working: they must be college-ready and then job-ready. The purpose of education at any stage is getting kids ready for something.
Biden’s “physicality” was done in front of an audience and on a film/tape/digital recording in most cases. All that being said, if the 2020 election came down to Biden v. Trump, Biden gets my vote. I wish he wouldn’t run because we don’t need any more corporate centrist Democrats, we have enough of those already.
While the tempest rages in this particular teapot, what is really happening in the world we should be discussing?
Well, Roy, Spring is here, as you no doubt have been notified by millions of tiny little birds in our state, and this fact eliminates any heavy discussions of what old and boring men might be trying to do to our country. We just sing along with the birds, ignore those who cannot appreciate blue skies, cool breeze, light-green buds, and it’ll all turn good by the end of the month. Believe me, I know.
Spring is indeed here. You may enjoy it along the levees that hold back the Mississippi this time of year as the Dicksissels crowd these mounds of soil clear up to Reelfoot. Theflyway you live on is particularly inviting to those of us who love to watch birds. Problematic, of course, is he defunding of a lot of the regulatory functions of government that take care of National Wildlife Refuges and general ignoring of the environment. Enjoy the flyway, I am always too busy to make the trip this time of year.