May 2, 2020

Things no one was picturing in 2016... but we are now!

I'm going back to my old posts in early October 2016 to see what I said about Trump's Access Hollywood remarks (because I want to see how well I'm maintaining my cruel neutrality now as I process the news about Joe Biden). I was struck by this post from October 9, 2016, "Jake Tapper attempts a euphemism — and it's not 'vulva'":
So what Trump said was "And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

And Jake Tapper obviously didn't want to say "pussy":



If you're going to use the anatomical term to avoid the slang, use the scientifically correct term. "Vagina" for "vulva" is as much slang as "pussy." "Pussy" is at least a quote. "Vagina" is ridiculous.

No one was picturing grabbing a woman by the vagina.
No one was picturing that back then, but we are now! That's the Tara Reade allegation. We're not talking about a grabbing of the outer genitalia, but the penetration of the vagina using the hand — grabbing by the vagina — the seemingly ridiculous phrase used by Tapper.

The old post ends:
If we were, those of us who are saying that Trump was referring to sexual assault would be saying rape, not merely sexual assault.
The accusation against Biden is an accusation of rape.

243 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 243 of 243
stephen cooper said...

chickelit - that is some bad Botox on Biden right now.

I am not exactly Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, but you could not pay me a million dollars to botox my face.

Anne-I-Am said...

Rhhardin,

Just because someone doesn't do what you are so sure YOU would do, were you a young woman, doesn't mean it didn't happen. I am sure this is a logical fallacy of some kind. Or maybe just pig-headedness.

You have at least two women on this blog saying that similar things happened to us. Neither of us called the police. Now, many people might be curious about that and wonder what it is about this kind of assault that leads to hesitancy to get the authorities involved. Not a few people, aware of the climate surrounding such allegations over the past 50 years, would need no explanation.

Your insistence that "it just doesn't happen" or "this could not possibly have happened" is not a good look.

I shouldn't have to reiterate this, but I will. I have no opinion on the veracity of her claim. My knowledge of the Hill in the 70s and 80s, my assessment of Joe Biden, my understanding of young women--all lead me to conclude that it may have happened.

stephen cooper said...

I call him Harold for a specific reason.

At least one member of the wack pack googles in search of my comments, and (s)he misses the posts when I call him Harold.

I Know it is Howard, honey.

stephen cooper said...

I am happy that Ricky Gervais grew a pair of balls and decided to stay faithful to his working class origins rather than go all Ellen Degeneres.

I am happy that Howard Stern, who is in many ways a despicable guys, is an angel of light when it comes to protecting animals.

I like almost everyone who does something good with their lives.

(and yes, ALL the writers on the Stern show, with one or two exceptions, are in the wack pack without knowing it, if you know the show at all, you know I am right).

I am very particular about people's names, I usually know what saint or noble progenitor they are named after if they are Christian, I know what their Hebrew names mean if they are Jewish or their Arabic names mean if they are Muslim. I am a lot less stupid than some people here think I am. (to be fair, there are vast areas of knowledge I pretend to be familiar with in order to be amusing, but with which I am not familiar, but names are not one of those areas.)
I know the difference between Harold and Howard.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

It’s not so much that it didn’t happen if there was no police report, but that IN EFFECT it didn’t happen. In law it’s not what’s true that matters, but what you can prove. In politics it’s what you can insinuate, no proof, or anything like it, needed. It’s dirty pool to accuse someone decades after a supposed bad act, whether it’s true, false, or uncertain, and whether the accuser is a Dem, a Republican, or Bernie backer.

Furthermore, the latest news is that Reade didn’t accuse Biden of any crime back then, but only made some nebulous complaint about harassment. She had 27 years to either call the cops, or take down Biden, but she waited until now, for whatever reason, or no reason. It’s too late to file a criminal charge now, but it’s not too late for Reade to be the special one who gets to chose the next president all by herself because vagina.

Birkel said...

Why did the CDC remove 26,000 from the Winnie Xi Flu death count?

Anybody on the "kill the economy" side want to venture an explanation?

rhhardin said...

Even if it happened, who cares. Not serious enough at the time even.

Who cares is weak minded women. Lots of votes.

A world of hostile forces, is how they see everything.

rhhardin said...

Other things you can get in NYC is e.g. mugged.

stephen cooper said...

Richard is an exception, and there are one or two more.

walter said...

Michael K said..Even my Bernie Bro daughter has a gun and a supply of Hydroxychloroquine.
--
But Truuuummmmp! ;)

bagoh20 said...

When I was a teenager vacationing with my family in Atlantic City in the 70's I went into a store on the boardwalk to buy a bathing suit. I went into the try-on room which was only behind a curtain. I put on the bathing suit and suddenly the clerk at the store who was probably in his 30's came in and put his hand down the front of the suit and grabbed my mangina. I immediately fought him off, and he left like nothing happened. I changed, and just left the store. I didn't tell anybody, other than my friends, becuase frankly, I just didn't care enough about it. It was mostly just funny. I wasn't harmed in any way. The guy was much bigger than me, but he really wasn't a threat, because I knew I could just yell, make a scene, and he'd be the one in trouble. I don't want adults doing that to kids, but I can't say it really hurt me even really affected me in any negative way.

stephen cooper said...

Birkel - CDC numbers will be used at the Hague.
Preparation for litigation.

Birkel said...

No benefits from lockdown, you say?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf

Maybe destroying an economy because Orange Man Bad is a bad idea.
Also, fuck Canada.

For the humor impaired:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x52aTiLVG3I

stephen cooper said...

The Cuomos of the world right now are wanting the nursing home numbers to look better.
Preparation for litigation.

bagoh20 said...

In fact, I've been sexually assaulted in similar ways a number of times in my life, and it even still happens around some gay guys. I'm not gay... yet, but it's just not a big thing to me, and I'm kind of a shy, sexually modest adult, which only makes sense when you get into your sixties.

stephen cooper said...

CDC, Cuomo, WHO, Macron, Boris Johnson, Bill Gates, the rest of the blue state governors with one or two exceptions - they are not fully on our side, and crushing the economy is just part of their curriculum vitae.
Trump is in the middle right now, I hope he deflects to the better side.

In the 20th century, people were constantly surprised to find out that the powerful politicians were not on their side.
Ask the WWI veterans in Hooverville that the dishonorable generals assaulted with no compunction , or the Pacific theater soldiers abandoned by Roosevelt and Churchill.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

But bagoho20, did he put his fingers INSIDE your mangina?

John henry said...

Blogger stephen cooper said...

you could not pay me a million dollars to botox my face.

Botulin toxin is the world's deadliest person. 1 gram would be enough, properly distributed to kill the entire population of NYC.

I would no more inject botulin toxin than I would drink bleach.

Oh...wait...

I do drink bleach, a couple liters a day. Bleach keeps me healthy.

Let me think of another analogy.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

Insty occasionally has a story of school boy raped by female teacher, which always seems like the guy's lucky day but that doesn't seem to be the party line.

Apparently the guys aren't ruined for life.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Yes.

After Chi-Com Wuhan Hillary Covid - giddy!
Isn't it odd that the D's cannot deliver anyone fresh?

It must be a deep state insider.

Biden
Hillary
Obama

No one fresh.

stephen cooper said...

John Henry - agreed.

Also, the history of the Republican Party would be a lot different if dozens of Congressmen and Senators had not ingested female hormones, year after year, in order to keep from going bald. Sad! Edward Gibbon would have devoted pages and pages to that, had he lived long enough.

There is nothing wrong with going bald if you are a middle aged male human being.
And Anne is right about the shorts.

walter said...

Bagoh,
I'm glad you were firm against that intrusion.
Is the perp available for prez run?

LA_Bob said...

Anne-I-Am said, "Just because someone doesn't do what you are so sure YOU would do, were you a young woman, doesn't mean it didn't happen. I am sure this is a logical fallacy of some kind. Or maybe just pig-headedness."

I've seen the "it didn't happen" statement repeatedly, and I don't like it either. But, the way I take is that if the victim doesn't go to the police -- for whatever reason -- it makes no sense to make the accusation ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty years later and expect the world to draw a reasonable conclusion about the event. It's simply impossible to know the truth.

Much as I hope Biden, a real slimeball in my opinion, goes down in a big way, I can't pillory him over this specific situation.

I wrote this the other day in another thread:

"But, I agree with Browndog. We -- the collective "we" -- need to stop rehashing and fighting over decades-old he-said-she-said events without independent witnesses. Both the accuser and the accused have plenty of volition for bad faith here, and they are likely the only ones who know what really did or didn't happen."

Speculating is clearly a popular sport though.

walter said...

"Much as I hope Biden, a real slimeball in my opinion, goes down in a big way, I can't pillory him over this specific situation."
Can you expect his own tribe to?

Anne-I-Am said...

Bob,

I agree. Both sides have an agenda. I wonder if hers is to get a different candidate--one who isn't dementing and bumbling.

rhhardin,

Your invective is revealing. "Weak-minded" women? And what a mind-reader you are, knowing that all women see the world only as a sea of hostile forces.

I wonder what stirs such vitriol in you. Sexist stereotyping is not a good look.

walter said...

Btw, sensible folk make a distinction between did it or didn't happen vs "hey, sticking fingers in pussies are office SOP"

Night Owl said...

Anne, his attitude towards woman is bigoted, to say the least. He's so stereotypical of the male chauvinist pig that we women of a certain age grew up with that for a while I thought it was an act, like some attempt at satire. Act or not, it's off-putting. I usually ignore his rantings but today I just felt the need to tell him to fuck off. He's not worth any more effort than that.

bagoh20 said...

I still considered myself a virgin afterward. In some ways, I still am.

walter said...

The campaign will complete you.

Anne-I-Am said...

Night Owl,

Perhaps. I can't say I've noticed before. I guess this is the first time a topic like this has surfaced since I have been commenting.

I find the juxtaposition between "women are weak and neurotic" and "women are so powerful, they have sissified all the men and tilted everything in their favor" positions held simultaneously by many people (some women, too). Of course, globalizing is a logical fallacy and an emotional weakness, as is making everything black or white.

Interesting too, some of the other comments. "Women are mean." "Women are nasty." Etc. If women see the world as an array of hostile forces, what are remarks like that indicative of? People who see half the population as malignant. @@

bagoh20 said...

"Bagoh,
I'm glad you were firm against that intrusion.
Is the perp available for prez run?"


It was Atlantic City, and someone in this race has connections to that city back then, but if he was looking to grab some pussy, he got more than he bargained for. The art of the deal recommends making sure the other party has what you want. I wonder if I was inspiration for a book and someone's muse. I always wanted that.

Night Owl said...

Perhaps. I can't say I've noticed before. I guess this is the first time a topic like this has surfaced since I have been commenting.

I've been around here for many years. Belittling women is his schtick.

I find the juxtaposition between "women are weak and neurotic" and "women are so powerful, they have sissified all the men and tilted everything in their favor" positions held simultaneously by many people (some women, too).

I've learned not to try to reason with bigots. There is no logic that can "win" against bigotry.

Night Owl said...

For the record I don't think groping a woman 30 years ago disqualifies a man from being president. I'm jaded enough to think every powerful man has groped some women in his life.

It's the Dems and #Metoo that started this type of witch hunt in an attempt to get at Trump. Don't blame this on all women. Even though 2016 was an historic election having the first female nominee, many women still picked Trump because they could discern that his flaws were less of an evil that Hillary's corruption.

Night Owl said...

As with all Dems plans against Trump this #METOO thing blew up in the faces.

LA_Bob said...

walter said, "Can you expect his own tribe to?"

Hi, Walter. What Biden's "tribe" does to him is probably based entirely on politics. Ethics has no role to play in a high-stakes power game.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"I can understand women being upset/shocked given that they've rarely been privy to conversations between men, especially conversations between young men and male teenagers but..."

You don't believe that.

Guildofcannonballs said...

The entire feminist movement, of which Althouse is a loyal soldier of documentation if not more, is all about only male/male conversations.

Guildofcannonballs said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cazale

One of the extreme few: every set or stage he set foot upon he was the best.

Guildofcannonballs said...

He John Cazale, never stepped a foot in this world where he wasn't the best actor in the vicinity.

narayanan said...

Blogger rhhardin said...
Other things you can get in NYC is e.g. mugged.
-------------=================
so going by your standard of reporting to police - how many muggings have been reported?

how many have you been told about or heard about?

rwnutjob said...

Technically it's Labia majora, or labia. I've never understood using vagina.
In Biden's case, yes.

RigelDog said...

"All the women I grew up with in NYC had been groped more than once on the subway."

Michael K said: This is why I think all woman should know how to handle a gun and have one available. }}}

Agreed, and done. But I wouldn't dream of shooting someone on a crowded bus or subway unless they were about to do me severe harm/death. Having a firearm when you are attacked in a crowd or attacked by a group is a horror that presents few effective or justified opportunities to use deadly force.

RigelDog said...

But, I agree with Browndog. We -- the collective "we" -- need to stop rehashing and fighting over decades-old he-said-she-said events without independent witnesses. Both the accuser and the accused have plenty of volition for bad faith here, and they are likely the only ones who know what really did or didn't happen."}}}

Me three, and I qualify for Me Too. I'm just not interested in old un-provable allegations. If a person that I was close to and knew to be truthful told me that Biden or Trump or Mr. Whittle had assaulted them, I'd believe it--but would never expect her assault to become a part of a national conversation. If she produced a unambiguous video of the assault that would be a different matter.

«Oldest ‹Older   201 – 243 of 243   Newer› Newest»