Trump, Biden and COVID-19

 A letter to the editor I wrote. 

UPDATE 8/23/24 Was never published.

Editor,

From what I’ve read a big part of the fall in President Biden’s popularity has been the resurgence of Covid-19. Although it made sense in many ways to partly blame former President Trump for how bad the COVID-19 crisis was in 2020, it doesn’t make any sense to blame Biden for how bad it is now.

At the beginning of the pandemic Trump tried to ignore it and at the end of Feb. 2020 he  said it was a “hoax” He didn’t use the Defense Production Act right away to make sure there were enough masks, other PPE, ventilators and testing supplies. To be fair we never ran out of ventilators, but the failure to make enough masks at the beginning I believe contributed to the Trump administration initially DISCOURAGING the use of masks by the general population, there were always shortages of PPE for health care professionals and we didn’t test anywhere near as much as we should have (I believe) because there weren’t enough supplies. He largely discouraged mask-wearing and when he did sort of encourage it it was half-hearted. He kept saying it was almost over which contributed to his supporters not taking it seriously.

Biden has always taken COVID-19 seriously and promoted masks when Trump was making fun of people for wearing them. If it wasn’t for a massive chunk of the population that overlaps heavily with Trump supporters, the vaccine effort in this country would be incredibly successful. Biden’s vaccine mandate policies will help (and they’re ethical- we have for decades mandated vaccines for school kids). His administration is helping Florida school districts defying a Republican ban on mask mandates. The Delta variant isn’t his fault. It’s likely it would have gone nowhere if more Americans had gotten vaccinated earlier, and once again, Trump can be blamed for that.

Don’t blame President Biden for COVID-19. If anyone deserves blame for it here in America, it’s Trump.

Tom Shelley
Boulder

Bi-Partisanship and Respect in American Politics

(UPDATE 3/23/21 I have looked at the multiple definitions in multiple dictionaries and I need to clarify what I mean by "respect." I'm talking not about admiration for someone, but about how we want to be treated. I feel like everyone deserves respect. I'm talking about treating people the way we would want to be treated; about respecting their rights; not having a double standard (like the one Senate Republicans had when it came to confirming Amy Coney Barrett in Oct. 2020 after blocking the confirmation of Merrick Garland in Feb. 2016 (they said Feb. 2016 was too close to a Presidential election and said that the winner of that election should appoint a replacement to the Supreme Court)). I hope that clears it up, but I am definitely not talking about admiring Republicans)

 

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 UPDATE 5/18/24

1. I kind of said this below, but I've been wanting to say SOMEWHERE, something about Mike Pence (of TRUMP/PENCE 2016/2020) that I don't think a lot of people say. If it weren't for Mike Pence, we would be in a civil war right now.

 

 2. You should read an article here. This is far from the first sign that the GOP is dragging this country into a civil war, but it has alarmed me to such a degree that I am almost tempted to retract what I am saying this post.

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President Biden campaigned as the person who could unite the country and work in a bi-partisan way. Our country is in something close to a “cold civil war” and we should worry about it getting worse. Biden might have to pursue some moderate policies because he barely has a majority in the Senate and the Dem majority in the House is small. But he should not be pursuing moderate policies in an effort to be a uniter.

The cold civil war is largely the work of republicans who have become very partisan and have decided that anything goes in politics. They already have an unfair advantage in the Senate and to a lesser degree Presidential elections because of how every state gets two senators and each state get two extra votes in the Electoral College because of the two senate seats (most of the smaller states are conservative). The police forces are largely republican and are not always professional about their job. And yet republicans talk as if they’re the oppressed in this country, instead of people of color, for example. And there’s reason to believe that many of them BELIEVE they are oppressed or are on the brink of being oppressed (see that link above).

Democrats promoting liberal and progressive policies some or most of the time are not the problem (I define liberal as to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and I discuss that more here). Republicans spreading conspiracy theories like QAnon and calling for the death of democratic politicians and invading the US Capitol as they did in Jan. are the problem. QAnon started with the idea that the Democrats and the so-called “Deep State” (bureaucrats hostile to Trump) are a cannibalistic, Satanic elite that sexually abuse children. There is nothing on the Democratic side that’s both A) so widely accepted and B) so wildly slanderous. Democratic members of congress don’t call for the death of their republican opponents but GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene HAS called for the execution of prominent Dems (a great video refuting one of the GOP arguments in her favor is here). Even during the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests last Summer violence was uncommon and it was aimed at targets other than democratic institutions- the Jan. 6th riot was aimed at overturning the results of a democratic election. (How do I know it was a democratic election? All of the dozens of republican lawsuits were either dismissed by a judge or were withdrawn. Even the Supreme Court of the US wouldn’t help Trump, and there are many statements by government officials like then-Attorney General William Barr which contradicted Trump’s claim that there was fraud on a scale large enough to explain Biden’s win)

Those are just a few examples of the many, many ways that republicans have become incredibly partisan. Biden pushing, for example, a massive COVID-19 relief bill as he’s doing now is not the kind of partisanship that’s the problem. When republicans oppose that kind of effort, I don’t see it as a problem unless they’re using the filibuster some large chunk of the time. If Biden wants to be a uniter, he just needs to not do the sort of things I described in the paragraph above and I can’t see him doing anything like that at all. He doesn’t, for example, believe in packing the Supreme Court, something that’s only questionable, not comparable to the things mentioned in that paragraph. He should act like he’s accountable to Congress and avoid the behavior we saw from Trump in his dealings with Congress. He needs to give the GOP (individually and collectively) credit when it’s due (for example, Mike Pence didn’t give in to Trump’s demands about Congress certifying the 2020 election results, or that a large majority of the House GOP voted to keep Liz Cheney in their leadership after she voted to impeach or that two apparently good COVID-19 vaccines were developed on Trump’s watch or that in 2005 the Chair of the RNC admitted that Nixon’s 1968 campaign appealed to segregationists and apologized for it). He needs to abstain from having a double standard and seriously criticize any Democratic politician or official if (and it’s a huge if) they say anything comparable to what Marjorie Taylor Greene said. Although I’m not sure what is involved with the “reconciliation” parliamentary move (it’ll probably be how Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill gets passed in the Senate) it seems like something that Democrats can’t and shouldn’t use often, just like the filibuster shouldn’t be used too often (actually, at this point I think the filibuster has been abused by the GOP and is a bad thing and that it should be gotten rid of independent of which party is in the majority of the Senate).

Biden should treat the GOP with respect, but you can disagree like crazy with someone and still treat them with respect, so he shouldn’t try to be a uniter by pushing moderate policies.

(I believe that there’s a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and that our political system is  closer to the former than the latter, and I did a post here about the different ways America can become more politically democratic (there's a similar post here))

 

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UPDATE 11/13/25

I need to add two more items to this post.

First, a paragraph that I wrote about the danger of a second American civil war, for a separate post    should also be here:

Some times I think it might be becoming increasingly unavoidable, with Trump as President and the division that that means. His supporters simply do not believe the various sources that most of us (liberals and progressives/leftists) do and you cannot believe the things that people around Trump imply we support. That’s part of something that’s a big part of what’s wrong- there is no respect for the facts. I’m not saying that’s brand new or totally avoidable in politics, but it is much worse today than it usually is, and that worsening is 100% one-sided- CNN, for example, spends a HUGE amount of time fact-checking Trump, and spent about 5% as much time fact-checking Biden. I believe that there are some other fact-checkers out there that are also good and might possibly be more acceptable to Republicans (is it better if they’re NOT part of the media?). If it hadn’t just started requiring subscriptions I would, as I have in the past, strongly recommend the BBC News website- it’s WIDELY respected throughout the world, and it’s coverage of Northern Ireland 1997-2005 was close behind the Irish media in accuracy and not far behind how sensitive it was to the Irish perspective (if you know Anglo-Irish history and the early history of Northern Ireland, you’d understand the importance of that in coverage of The Troubles) (I say 1997-2005 because during that time each week I read an average of about 100 articles from Irish news sources (primarily the Irish News and the Irish Times) and about 25 articles from the BBC). GOPers would do a lot worse than getting their news there. I am not going to do an entire essay here on this topic and I think I have said all I have to say here about a possible second American civil war.

Second, I need to explain that I recently did something on the fringe of trying to avoid a civil war. I did a little project where I typed up something that touched on various aspects of the Prisoner of War issue (I imagine I am practically the only person who considers that an issue, but it’s very important to me and I explain why in a blogpost version of the PDF essay I put together here) The thing is, one batch of email addresses I sent it to were the “contact us” email address or the leadership addresses of six veterans organizations- three that lean a bit or a lot to the left (About Face (Iraq vets against the war), Common Defense (for progressives and liberals in the general vet population) and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (liberal, but probably includes a lot of moderates as well)) and three that lean to the right (Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American GI Forum (probably moderate and for Latinos and Latinas)). I focused exclusively on the POW issue but I think it had potential to make some of them more likely to listen to what I have to say on other issues (although I don’t think I got more than 10 page-views of my blog in connection with emailing veterans groups, my effort could have resulted in some of them reading significant parts of my blog). 

Trump's Loss and COVID-19

Below is first what I submitted to CNN when they asked people to respond to Biden's win, and below that is another note about Trump and COVID-19. The first one hasn't been edited by me since I submitted it to CNN.

1. I'm really glad. I had a lot of anxiety about it, which won't completely leave until Trump either concedes or it's clear that he's isolated and alone. But Trump is worse than George W. Bush and Bush was worse than his Dad and most republicans. In addition to everything else, Trump has been a disaster in relation to the pandemic. He would actually make fun of people for wearing masks. We have suffered disproportionate to our numbers as a nation. At the end of May we had lost 100,000 people. At the same time, at that point Israel had lost just 284 people- in America, 30 times bigger, that's 8,520 people. As much as I dislike Netanyahu, if he were our President in the early months of the pandemic, we would have lost 8,520 people instead of 100,000. I'm sure something similar can be said about the time since late May. He predicted a pandemic while Trump was calling it a media hoax, he was putting his foot down about social distancing while Trump was prematurely talking about re-opening. I write at greater length about this at- https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/2020/04/trump-netanyahu-and-covid-19-coronavirus.html     But the main thing is that we had a horrible President when we needed, more than ever, a good one, and now (what will hopefully be) the final months of COVID-19 will be more bearable and less anxiety producing if we have a President who encourages mask-wearing, who doesn't seek political favors in exchange for desperately-needed medical supplies, who doesn't push us too far as far as re-opening, who will allow the scientists and doctors to develop a vaccine that is safe and effective without political interference, etc.

2. Somewhere in my COVID-19 posts I need to put something. I am a very strong believer in masks and I also respect Dr. Fauci. Trump likes to point out that in the very early weeks of COVID-19 Dr. Fauci opposed the idea of encouraging the general public to wear masks. Dr. Fauci's main or only argument was that there weren't enough masks for medical personnel AND the general public. Now, in hindsight and maybe for some people at the time, opposing mask use by the general public was a stupid mistake. There would have been fewer deaths in the Spring if we had all been wearing masks. I understand that medical personnel were a priority, but this is another example of Trump failing to use the Defense Production Act like a sledgehammer. We could have had enough masks in early March if he had. I don't know how Netanyahu did on this question, but Trump failed. Before he started making fun of people for wearing a mask, at one point in April or May he made some half-hearted suggestion that people "might" want to wear a scarf over their mouth and nose. And he seems to think that masks are primarily for the benefit of the wearer, when it's for the people around them. He also doesn't understand that you should wear a mask when no one's around but there's a decent chance someone will come up to you unexpectedly, instead of just when there ARE people around you. We all forget sometimes to wear a mask when we go out, but if you plan on putting one on when you leave the house instead of just when someone unexpectedly comes up to you outside, it’ll work out better.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews J

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

“Making a Rapist” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “When a DNA rape kit is tested 16 years later, the man originally convicted of the crime, Sean Roberts (Henry Thomas), is released from prison. He befriends the victim and her daughter (Alexis Collins), being invited to the daughter's wedding. One month after Roberts' release, the daughter is found raped and murdered with evidence pointing to him. Meanwhile, Fin Tutuola is accused of framing Roberts as payback for tarnishing his arrest record, having been the original arresting officer. Vice President Joe Biden makes a cameo appearance in the cold open.”

Biden’s cameo is worth noting. He’s a pretty good Dem, what I would call a moderate liberal (see this for my thoughts on the word “liberal”). I am going to vote for him in the fairly solid Dem state of Colorado. As I wrote in most of a post here, I think he might be guilty of sexually assaulting Tara Reade. I’m going to vote for him anyway because A) CO is not too far from being a swing state (and I would like him to do well in the popular vote), B) he might be innocent, and C) even if he's guilty, he is still better than Trump in every way, including when it comes to sexual assault, (Trump has been accused of assaulting several women and has even bragged about it).

“Broken Rhymes” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “After a transgender individual (Sabel Gonzales) is assaulted in a public bathroom, SVU questions the CEO of a record label (Wyclef Jean) who may be linked to the assault. The case is initially believed to be a hate crime, but things take a twist when the prime suspect reveals his connection to the victim and several people are found brutally murdered. With the victim's life on the line, things eventually become very intense for both the detectives and the suspects.”

 

My Record On Transphobia

This is about transphobia. It is almost the first time I have touched on that on this blog and I need to get some things off my chest. Until about 5-10 years ago I frequently laughed at the the relatively harmless but still offensive jokes about transgender people that pepper popular culture in this country. In 2001, while helping to lead a coalition of student groups that were helping faculty and staff at the University of Colorado get domestic partner benefits, I didn’t value the importance of getting CU to offer equality to transgender staff and faculty. That was influenced by the fact that we (the coalition) were not steering events- we were formed the day before the Regents started discussing a measure to add sexual orientation to CU’s non-discrimination policy and were scrambling to organize support for that on the CU-Boulder campus. Some of our partners in the student LGBTQ+ community attacked me over this but it was partly a misunderstanding and partly, in hind-sight, that I simply didn’t value that issue very much- a third element is that we probably couldn’t have gotten the Regent who sponsored the measure to add the TQ+ in LGBTQ+ to his measure and if we had, it probably would have failed. To some extent the broad movement for LGBTQ+ equality had to decide if the LGB had to wait for equality until the TQ+ was also going to be included. As embarrassed as I am by my past failure as an ally to reject transphobia, I also don’t think that the LGB should wait. Supporting the measure the Regents were discussing was the right thing to do.

In early 2002 I started to educate myself. I learned that the unemployment rate for transgender people was something like 80%. Sometime around 2010 I learned, from this TV show, more about how much lethal violence there is directed towards transgender people. Around 2010 or 2015 I started to become sensitive to to transphobia in popular culture. In 2003 I included pro-transgender language in a political statement for the group Students for Justice in N. Ireland but I probably did a bad job of it and left out certain words or something. In the last 10 years I have had a few acquaintances who are transgender and once I spoke out against a mildly anti-transgender statement.

“Chasing Theo” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “A six-year-old boy is abducted from his bedroom after his mother (Rachelle Lefevre) throws a wild party with drugs involved. The case brings forward several suspects and the detectives are led to multiple locations and tip-offs. The case becomes distressing for Rollins and Benson, both mothers. As hours go by, the squad becomes desperate to find the boy, which makes the mother and her ex-girlfriend fret. Meanwhile, Benson breaks up with Tucker after several days of thinking, breaking both her and Tucker's hearts.”

The child’s mother is a woman who is a white lesbian dating an Asian-American woman.

“No Surrender” season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “Fin revisits his military roots when a fellow Army Ranger (Sarah Booth) is the victim of sexual assault and does not handle it well. SVU is soon called in to assist and it is revealed that the woman was sexually assaulted after a party she threw. The case becomes difficult when the victim refuses to cooperate and Olivia and Fin become convinced that the rapist is someone against her being a Ranger, but the rapist turns out to be someone unexpected after a secret is revealed.”

 

Women In The Military

This is partly about women in the military. Although I’m not a fan of the US military (I almost always politically object to the missions they’re given and I think there is a casual attitude about civilian death) I also believe that in at least two cases the US military did a good thing (the Civil War and World War II), and that they’re capable of doing the right thing, and that there are a lot of good people in the US military. With that in mind, I am concerned about equality for women in the military. I think that they should have it and that means integrating them fully into all units of the Army and Marines. I don’t know how many women will meet the physical requirements that the men have to in order to be, for example, in the infantry, but those who do should be made to feel welcome.

A Response to Lawyers of Rape Defendants AND MY THOUGHTS ON THE READE/BIDEN ALLEGATIONS

This is a very brief post considering there is no link to an article that I’m commenting on, and it’s not about COVID-19. But I’ve been wanting to get this out there for a while.

Often the lawyer(s) for rape defendants, if the woman is or might be promiscuous, want to (try to, used to (I’m not familiar with the rape shield law)) suggest that that means she must have consented. I guess the bullshit argument is that she is insatiable and never says “no” (or maybe that she must been playing a game when she said “no” (I don’t know)), and/or that she is morally compromised. In any case, it’s ridiculous. In addition to all the other reasons to believe a rape survivor unless you have a REALLY, REALLY good reason not to, when it comes to a woman who is or might be promiscuous there’s this- why would a woman who likes frequent casual sex with men she doesn’t know (or is promiscuous to a lesser degree) falsely accuse a man of raping her? If it were more or less proven that she was lying, she would get a reputation and it would seriously lessen the odds of men propositioning her or agreeing to have sex with her.

Besides the fact that such a defense is offensive and probably coming from a lawyer with a guilty client, it just doesn’t make any sense.

(UPDATE 4/17/20 The more I think about it, even when the rape shield law doesn't work, this might not be an appropriate argument to make in court, but in arguments outside court, I still think this can be effective when some people don't believe a survivor who is or might be promiscuous.

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UPDATE 4/23/20 ALLEGATIONS AGAINST BIDEN

(UPDATE 5/25/20 A few weeks ago Biden did deny it personally. See this)

You should read this. It's about an allegation that Biden sexually assaulted a woman. An update with new evidence is here. More evidence is mentioned here.

**UPDATE 5/32/20 A lot of Biden supporters have been saying things that they normally wouldn't say about women who claim they were assaulted. These Biden supporters think that they can limit those comments to the Reade/Biden situation. But there are immature and/or just sexist men hearing and reading these comments, and they are influenced by them, and the next time they're asked to believe a survivor, they won't believe her **

I posted the following comment:

I don't know if this has already been said. I read the article but not the comments. We need to believe women who make these allegations and Dem politicians should not be seen as innocent because of how bad their oppoents are. I'm terrified of Trump winning- he is a fascist, as i explain at- https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/…/trump-doesnt-un… . But the way to defeat him isn't to throw sexual assault survivors under the bus. Metoo and others should launch a MAJOR campaign focusing on TRUMP assaulting women, and the other ways that Trump is a sexist and a campaign on how even though it's very likely Biden did something very bad (I need a good reason to not believe a woman who makes these allegations), he is in a lot of ways, a feminist to one degree or another.

WE CAN DEFEAT TRUMP WITHOUT THROWING SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS UNDER THE BUS!

(One thing I didn't address is the thorny issue of how this should be resolved. I simply refuse to throw this woman under the bus- if she's telling truth, he didn't [do something like] just touch her breast, he PENETRATED her. Maybe she and Biden can agree that if he admits it and apologizes, she won't press charges. I mean, she seems like a liberal-progressive dem, she must want Trump defeated as much as the rest of us)

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UPDATE 4/26/20

If Biden is no longer a viable candidate, he should step aside for Warren.

1. If Bernie gets the nomination in a bizarre way, a LOT of Biden supporters will not do anything more than vote for him and many won't do that. He is too radical to get their support unless he had earned the nomination by winning primaries.
2. Many women will probably feel betrayed that the DP almost nominated an alleged or actual rapist.
3. She can more effectively attack Trump over COVID-19 because her brother (who did multiple tours in Vietnam) died from it recently.
4. She's progressive enough to get most of the Bernie supporters, but not so progressive that she'll scare off more than a few Biden supporters.
5. With a misogynist like Trump as the alternative, women will proabably vote for her in unprecedented numbers.
6. If Trump calls her "Pocahontas" and tries to pose as the anti-racist in the contest, that will back-fire massively- it will bring more attention than usual to his record on race. And he WILL call her Pocahontas.
7. She came to prominence by being placed in charge of overseeing Obama's response to the recession that started in 2008. She'd be perfect for guiding efforts to get the economy going after COVID-19 is over and we're in a depression.

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UPDATE 4/30/20 Some more comments I left on Politico.

People need to watch some Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. There's not some category of man that is not capable of assault. What about accusations of racism of one sort of another directed towards white allies? Some white allies have made serious mistakes, and some have not admitted it. What about the Southern Poverty Law Center (which I generally like)? They have made some mistakes. And what about assault that falls short of rape? What Biden allegedly did isn't TONS worse than grabbing a boob- it'e very possible a politically feminist man could do that. And in the last week a fair amount of evidence has emegered that she IS telling the truth. What about believing a woman who makes such allegations unless you have a good reason to think she's lying? Do you know how difficult it must be for women to come forward about this? Maybe that's why she initailly didn't mention the assault. It must be easeir to to tell people you were inappropriately touched than it is to tell people you were penetrated. And as far as the amount of time that has passed, that happens too and you die-hard Biden supporters know that.

And what effect will this refusal to believe her have on other women who want to and need to come forward with allegations agaist powerful Dems or progressives?

And what about this lie about the NY Times clearing Biden? That's suspicious. They're desperate and that's probably because it's true. Also, his refusal to say it isn't true, that's also suspicious.


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UPDATE 5/2/20 When someone criticized me for leaning on a TV show, I wrote:
"This is almost as simplistic as what I said in that first comment above, but SVU is INCREDIBLY popular and Hargitay is incredibly popular, and what SVU says about sexual assault makes sense to me. And I love Ice-T for a lot of reasons. I have known some women who have been assaulted. I was exposed a little bit to Women's Studies. More of my thoughts about SVU are [here].


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**(UPDATE 5/27/20 Facebook recently decided that many of my comments on Politico are spam, apparently because I was including the URL for this blog. So they are now visible only to me, although I am appealing and hopefully they'll be restored. I have thus deleted the names of the people I responded to and what they said. Think of the statements I am responding to as representative of what critics of Reade say)**

UPDATE 5/2/20 in a discussion below an article here, I had the following exchange, partly about my belief that Biden should stand aside for Warren 

"Biden won because he got the most votes. He shouldn't be replaced by one of the losers. We've heard Reade's shifting stories. She's lying."

Tom Shelley There is good reason to believe she is telling the truth. Why would her mom call in to Larry King if Reade wasn't VERY upset and why would she be VERY upset if she was just touched inappropriately? It was recently reported that she DID tell some people years ago. Her story changed, I assume, because it must be difficult to say that you were assaulted.

These allegations wil drag down Biden's campaign. Trump supporters don't give a shit about sexual assault. Dems and progressives do.

Tom

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UPDATE 5/9/20 There's an article here about how this is hurting other Dems.

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UPDATE 5/9/20 

**(UPDATE 5/27/20 Facebook recently decided that many of my comments on Politico are spam, apparently because I was including the URL for this blog. So they are now visible only to me, although I am appealing and hopefully they'll be restored. I have thus deleted the names of the people I responded to and what they said. Think of the statements I am responding to as representative of what critics of Reade say)**

Below an article here, I had the following exchange (that article also includes some more evidence that Reade is telling the truth). Based on the silhouette for his Facebook account, ***** is apparently male. (within minutes of updating this, there was another reply for me to reply to, by someone named ******)



Tom Shelley
I don't know how biden's campaign says that she's being inconsistent by adding details. That happens. She said, accoridng to the article "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." How is that in conflict with what she said earlier? More of my thoughts are at- https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/.../a-response... after the first few paragraphs.

Tom Shelley
https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/


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"She said one thing and then added more"


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Tom Shelley
Saying publicly that you were sexually assaulted cannot be easy for a woman in our society. It's easier to say you were harrassed. That would explain why she initially just reported the harrassment. But, if she's telling the truth, she then got the courage to report the assault.

Why would she lie? She's a progressive and wants Trump defeated. If she was a tool of the GOP, why has she refused offers to be interviewed on Fox?

Tom Shelley

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"She is doing this because she supports Bernie Sanders"


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Tom Shelley
Bernie supporters want Trump defeated. Bernie has endorsed Biden. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that she wouldn't harm Biden just because he defeated Bernie. If she's a die-hard Bernie supporter and she wasn't assaulted, she would follow Bernie's lead and endorse Biden. She is saying this stuff because it's true.

Tom

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"At one point she said she wasn't scared of him and at another point she said she was scared to file a sexual harassment complaint"

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There's a difference between being scared for your physical safety and scared about political/vocational/personal retaliation for reporting a sexual assault

Tom

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UPDATE 5/21/20      As far as the reports that she is incredibly unethical. Although (if they're true) it makes me a little open-minded that she is lying, consider this- A: unethical women get assaulted, just like ethical women do and B: maybe her experience being assaulted affected her behavior. Do people think that rapists do psychological profiles of their victims and only rape the ethical ones? IF they do such profiles, they would only rape the unethical ones because a lot of ass-holes like a lot of Biden supporters won't believe the woman.

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UPDATE 6/20/20 As I said above, it's possible for an otherwise feminist man to do something stupid and bad and what Biden allegedly did is not as bad as rape. I just watched a Season 20 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit called "Hell's Kitchen." It's partly about an Assistant DA assigned to sex crimes who has a good reputation, but tried to rape a girl in High School and as an ADA covers for a friend of his who rapes women. Obviously that ADA character is not a mirror image of the kind of man Reade says Biden is, but still, it's possible for otherwise feminist men to do something stupid and bad.