May 5, 2020

When Jake Tapper asked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to explain her belief in Christine Blasey Ford and not Tara Reade...

... she really got desperate. Let's look at the transcript from last Sunday's "State of the Union." Tapper asks a completely fair and well-stated question:
TAPPER:  You have said that you believe Vice President Biden. I want to compare that to 2018, when you said you believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford after she accused now Justice Brett Kavanaugh of assault. Kavanaugh also, like Biden, categorically denied that accusation. And Blasey Ford, to be honest, she did not have the contemporaneous accounts of her view of what happened that Tara Reade does. You have spoken movingly about how you're a survivor — survivor of assault yourself. Why do you believe Biden, and not Kavanaugh? Are they not both entitled to the same presumption of innocence, regardless of their political views?

WHITMER: You know, Jake, as a survivor and as a feminist, I will say this. We need to give people an opportunity to tell their story. But then we have a duty to vet it. And just because you're a survivor doesn't mean that every claim is equal. It means we give them the ability to make their case, and the other side as well, and then to make a judgment that is informed. I have read a lot about this current allegation. I know Joe Biden, and I have watched his defense. And there's not a pattern that goes into this. And I think that, for these reasons, I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is. He's — and you know what? And that's all I'm going to say about it. I really resent the fact that, every time a case comes up, all of us survivors have to weigh in. It is reopening wounds. And it is — take us at our word, ask us for our opinion, and let's move on.
Let's move on?! The question does ask her to answer as a survivor, and she began her answer "as a survivor and as a feminist." She didn't object to being asked as a survivor until after she'd answered, though she did begin by expanding her status from "survivor" to "survivor and... feminist."

But after quickly answering, she registered her objection: She resents that her survivor status makes her a target of questions about sex assaults. It reopens the old wound. But she does want to be asked. She wants to get the question, to answer it quickly, and to be believed as a commentator on the things that happened to other people: "take us at our word, ask us for our opinion, and let's move on."

I certainly believe it's her opinion that Kavanaugh did what Blasey Ford said he did and Biden did not do what Tara Reade said he did, but why is that her opinion? Is it only because of what political side Whitmer is on? If so, I can understand telling us to move on. Don't look too closely at that.

Notice how Whitmer stopped herself in the middle of her explanation of why Biden's denial is more believable than Kavanaugh's: "I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is. He's — and you know what?" She decided not to go on about her reason why but to switch to attacking Tapper for asking the question. You know what? I resent the question! Let's move on!

That seems to give the game away. Her reason was that she's on Biden's side. It's like the way Bill Clinton was treated back in the 90s — complete with the old "move on" catchphrase.

Tapper defended himself:
TAPPER: Well, just for the record, the reason I'm asking you is because you're the only Democrat on the show today, not because you're a survivor, and not because you're a woman. But thank you so much for your time. I want to...
Well, he did present her survivor status as a basis for authority on whom to believe. He said "You have spoken movingly about how you're a survivor... of assault yourself: Why do you believe Biden."  She may have been "the only Democrat on the show today," but why was she  the only Democrat on the show today? Looking at the whole transcript, I think it was because of the protests against the lockdown in Michigan. I can see how maybe she felt ambushed by that extra question.

She responded to his self-defense:
WHITMER: Yes. No, and it's not a criticism of you, Jake. It's not a criticism of you. You're doing your job, and I appreciate that. I'm just sharing, I think, some of the simmering anger that we survivors have every time that we have got to confront this from someone else's behavior that we weren't a party to, that we weren't even a part of the reality in the moment. What I think is this. We owe it to every woman who has a story to listen to that story, and then to vet that story, ask the questions and be critical thinkers, and then make a judgment, based on all of those pieces. I have done that in this instance. And I will tell you this. I don't believe that it's consistent with the Joe Biden that I know. And I do believe Joe, and I support Joe Biden.
There is no further question, but here are the questions I would ask:

Does it all depend on who you know? If someone you know is accused, you disbelieve the accuser, but if someone you don't know is accused, you believe the accuser? Or does that depend on whether you like that person you know or the person you don't know? Seriously, what is the rule going forward as these accusations arise — especially in the context of a nomination for a high office, where there is the temptation to try to find a shortcut to bring someone down? We can't make it easier and easier to destroy a candidate, and it can't work — it shouldn't work — to stand up for the candidates we support and to participate in the destruction of the candidates we oppose, so don't you need to reexamine your position on Brett Kavanaugh if you want fair-minded people to accept your vouching for Joe Biden? You say we need to listen to every story, vet that story, and be critical thinkers, but where is the critical thinking in your distinction between Brett Kavanaugh and Joe Biden?

ADDED: Rereading this post, I noticed a point where Whitmer deviated from supporting Biden and said something that I think is properly respectful of the problem of due process to the accused. In her response to Tapper's self-defensiveness, after she rejected the idea that she was criticizing him, Whitmer talked about the "simmering anger" that survivors feel as they are called upon to look at the evidence and weigh in on whether the accused is guilty or innocent. She doesn't like having "to confront this from someone else's behavior that we weren't a party to, that we weren't even a part of the reality in the moment."

I'm not sure exactly what that meant. Maybe it's the idea of reopening the wound. To judge what happened you have to hear the evidence and imagine the entire scene, the events, and put yourself inside of it and to use your own personal experience to form a belief about whether it is true. That's a painful ordeal, and those who impose it on the survivor ought to be more aware of what they are doing.

Maybe it's the idea that fact-finding is truly difficult. It's difficult in a courtroom trial, with all of the safeguards of cross-examining witnesses under oath and a judge excluding improper evidence and meticulously instructing a sworn-in jury about the legal standards. And it's all the more difficult when we've got allegations passed along in newspaper articles and amplified by political partisans. Whitmer may have been saying — just in that one sentence — that she is in no position to give the accused the due process he deserves.

163 comments:

Achilles said...

Democrats don't care about women getting raped.

They only care about power.

Voting for democrats at this point is a clear signal you don't care about women getting raped either.

BoatSchool said...

Democrat hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug.

Anonymous said...

Glossing over Democrat candidates' foibles and excruciating examination of Republicans' will continue for as long as the media let it continue. Notwithstanding Jake Tapper's attempt to hold Gov. Whitmer to some consistent principle, the governor acted the way she did because, to borrow from Instapundit, Dem. politicians have an expectation that the media are on their side.

Bay Area Guy said...

"Why do you believe Biden, and not Kavanaugh?"

Multiple Choice Options:

(a) Because Biden is a Democrat and Kavanaugh is a Republican;
(b) Whatever tortured word salad she said;
(c) Because it was physically impossible for Biden to grab Ms. Reade by the pussy due to
angles and geometrics.
(d) All of the above
(e) None of the above

Howard said...

Get a new catch phrase for that one too, Achilles. You're beginning to go into full-blown shouting Thomas mode. Sound off like you got a pair... assuming you were spared from the same fate as Jake Barnes.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I know Joe Biden, and I have watched his defense. And there's not a pattern that goes into this. And I think that, for these reasons, I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is.

I too have watched Joe over the years, as has Fake Tapper, and I would have had at least one question about his extremely frequent invasion of females’ space, kissing squeezing nuzzling old Joe! And yet nothing. No follow-up. Even after she drops the weighty word “pattern” into her almost well constructed answer. This is why America hates the Media we Have, and we keep hoping to get the real journalism we deserve.

dreams said...

Just another liberal Democrat lightweight who achieved her position mainly via her good looks, not her brain.

DanTheMan said...

>>Are they not both entitled to the same presumption of innocence, regardless of their political views?

No. Next question.

Owen said...

So Whitmer claims authority (“..as a survivor and a feminist”) to give her opinion. Which is that accusations should be heard and then tested. But then, having stated that banality, she demands that we not question her opinion, because she is tired of being asked for it just because she’s a victim.

She’s very slick at using her victimhood to score points and then prevent anyone from testing those points for logic or accuracy. Because feelings.

I believe this dodge is called “motte and bailey.” Not a good look for feminists wanting to be taken seriously. But after her single-handed trashing of the Michigan economy, screwing up an answer to Jake Tapper is small beer.

Kevin said...

Why don't we just ask Meryl Streep?

She doesn't claim to be a survivor.

Sebastian said...

"Seriously, what is the rule going forward as these accusations arise"

Same as it always was: Dems good, GOP bad.

"so don't you need to reexamine your position on Brett Kavanaugh if you want fair-minded people to accept your vouching for Joe Biden?"

Who are these "fair-minded" people? Why are they relevant to Dem calculations?

"You say we need to listen to every story, vet that story, and be critical thinkers, but where is the critical thinking in your distinction between Brett Kavanaugh and Joe Biden?"

Well, it's critical that Dems win, so there.

What more do you need? What other point is there?

Shouting Thomas said...

I’d give it 50/50 that she’s lying about the “survivor” bit.

She’s about the age of my daughters, so she went thru college during the period when every girl made up a story of rape and surviving for drama queen points in the diversity and feminism courses.

The moral of this story is not the misapplication of feminism. It’s that feminism is evil.

Feminism is Marxism. It attempts to re-engineer humans to a set of ideological ideals.

You can see in this virus hysteria how the ideological certainty of women schooled in feminism is playing out. Safety from victim hood trumps everything. Feminist women long ago embraced totalitarian because that is the nature of their ideology. It’s a feature, not a bug.

BarrySanders20 said...

What "survivor status"?
Don't "we have a duty to vet" Whitmer's claim, especially if she is going to use it as absolute moral authority on this issue? As Whitmer says: "And just because you're a survivor doesn't mean that every claim is equal. It means we give them the ability to make their case, and the other side as well, and then to make a judgment that is informed."

Howard said...

Where the Goose meets the Gander

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/trump-loses-argument-lawsuit-from-woman-who-accused-him-rape-2020-1%3famp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations

tcrosse said...

She's angling for the VP slot with Biden, since here future in Michigan is apt to be brief.

Quayle said...

When love of party overcomes love of principle, very shortly the party will have no principles.

After that, it devolves into a thug fight, and eventually into a gangland war, and if we're not carefully into outright civil war.

Kevin said...

"to vet that story, ask the questions and be critical thinkers, and then make a judgment, based on all of those pieces."

"take us at our word, ask us for our opinion, and let's move on."

She will defer to her opinion that the man who might choose her to be his running mate couldn't have done it.

Actual critical thinking sold separately.

wild chicken said...

Gee, I guess I'm a "survivor" too. I don't like to admit it, really. It makes me feel stupid.

By God, I should have made the most of it, used it in my campaign to Raise Awareness! that this should never happen again!! Result: victory!

A gal's gotta use whatever she's got, amirite?


Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Slightly o/t. Where was the critical thinking on Jussie Smollett? Chappelle is so funny on that. What did they have with them? A noose? And you left it around your neck while you talked to the police? What? Am I dreaming?

Nonapod said...

While conservatives like myself are enjoying all the obvious hypocrisy and painful cognitive dissonance currently being experienced by the left, I do wonder if this will lead to any actual insight or change. Will the media and the left (BIRM) actually be more circumspect, fair minded, and behaive under the pretense of innocent until proven guilty in the future with regards to these sorts of accusations.

The cynical side of me says no.

gilbar said...

We owe it to every woman who has a story to listen to that story, and then to vet that story

YES! this hits it EXACTLY on the Head!
We need to listen to her story, and then to vet that story according to the Single Standard*


the Single Standard* ALL Stories MUST be presented in such a way to make Democrats look good

Kevin said...

She's angling for the VP slot with Biden, since here future in Michigan is apt to be brief.

Actual governing experience is a hindrance in the Democratic Party.

The party of promises does not do so well in the face of actual results.

Shouting Thomas said...

Really, who isn’t a “survivor” of some sort of assault at some point in their life?

I’ve been assaulted numerous times. Somehow, I don’t think I derive any moral authority out of it.

Kids beat one another up. Criminals hit you. I’ve had knives pulled on me.

This survivor crap is utter nonsense.

Deevs said...

So, sexual assault survivor status seems to be steering into a "have your cake and eat it, too" status. It gives moral authority to comment on sexual assault allegations, but no one should seek out that moral authority. The survivor has to give their opinion when they want to, and the rest of us just have to hope that they will deign to offer it unsolicited. Maybe I'm reading too much into that.

As a side note, I don't much care for the term "survivor" when discussing victims of sexual assault. I kind of get why it's used; there's a sense that a survivor overcame while a victim just experienced something, but in most of the sexual assault cases I hear about the victims lives aren't on the line. For example, assume Christine Blasey Ford's and Tara Reade's claims are 100% accurate. In either case, neither of them were in danger of losing their life. Would the experiences be traumatic? Sure, but not life threatening.

I'm guessing there's an argument out there that the experience could have led them to kill themselves, so they're survivors in that sense. But some people probably commit suicide after a job loss or some other grave financial hit. It would be silly to say people who lost their jobs are survivors. Anyway, that's my semantics complaint for the day.

Bay Area Guy said...

We gotta give credit to Jake Tapper for even asking the question. Dem pols live off softball questions by uninformed, incurious media-types. So, it's great to get these convoluted non-answers on camera, on the record.

Go, Jake, Go! Ask every female Democrat pol the same question!

Rory said...

"Seriously, what is the rule going forward"

The only rule that can emerge is that people have to report promptly. All in the Family told everyone 47 years ago that sexual assault had to reported and prosecuted. Everyone should understand it by now.

Ice Nine said...

Please, enough with the "rape survivor/sexual assault survivor" nonsense. Survivors survive car crashes and house fires and cancer and Holocausts. Puhleeze, stop demeaning them with this "rape *survivor*" nonsense. Hundreds of millions of people "survive" sexual intercourse every day. Mercifully relatively few of them through the experience of rape. For those, the term "rape victim" conveys the pertinent information quite handily.

Ah, but some of them were beaten or otherwise injured in the process, so that makes them survivors. That's like saying that I'm a nasal fracture survivor because I "survived" that especially nasty fight I was in back in Junior High. My body was terribly violated -- resulting in permanent damage that ultimately required surgical repair. So I, like a "rape survivor", am a survivor too? It's a cool mantle and I want to use it. Wait what? I can't because I merely got my nose violently mutilated rather than just getting my cooch poked?! I see...

CJinPA said...

Seriously, what is the rule going forward as these accusations arise —

I have a more uncomfortable question about The Rule:

If you use your alleged "survivor" status to advance your political career and shield political allies from criticism, as is increasingly the case, is there a threshold you must first meet to have that powerful status certified?

Do you have to have filed a police report? Do you have to give some details, or evidence of sharing it with others prior to your political career?

I don't know if the governor did any of these things.

Making a false claim, even just for political purposes, comes at a cost, so I know no one would do it lightly. But as the benefits to doing so increases, so does the incentive.

gilbar said...

here's a FUN FACT, from Dec, 2013'
Gretchen Whitmer Speaks Out On Why She Revealed Her Sexual Assault

Guess Why? Guess WHY? Guess Why she "Revealed her Sexual Assault" ???
Guesses?
She chose to give a powerful and revealing speech criticizing the law that will restrict all insurance plans in the state from covering abortion unless the woman’s life is in danger...
That's RIGHT! She was against a new law that did NOT provide FREE ABORTIONS
and to SHORE UP her argument...
She revealed that she is a survivor of sexual assault over 20 years ago: “If this were law then and I had become pregnant, I would not be able to have coverage because of this.”


So, It's OKAY for her to use it; it's NOT OKAY for You to use it
CASE CLOSED

Todd said...

She could have saved a lot of words by simply stating HER truth: That is different cause, shut up.

CJinPA said...

All in the Family told everyone 47 years ago that sexual assault had to reported and prosecuted. Everyone should understand it by now.

Poor Edith. Even as ridiculously portrayed, with the assailant loosening his tie and making come hither looks, that was pretty rough, especially for a child viewer. (Did my mom really let me watch that as an 8-year-old? I think so. Nickelodeon didn't exist.)

rcocean said...

Yeah, its just so ANNOYING when Democrat "sexual Assault survivors" are asked about Democrats committing sexual Assault. Its so much more FUN and INTERESTING when they're asked about Republicans committing sexual Assault. No annoyance there.

All that's missing is the "C'mon man, this is a bunch of malarkey" - maybe the Gov of Michigan can start using that phrase. She's already got the Clinton's "Let's Move on" down pat.

Leland said...

I could say so much on this, but there's not much of a point. The actions of Whitmer and others will remove the radical bias that was being introduced by the #MeToo movement, will assist Joe Biden in becoming the DNC candidate for President, and will assure Trump wins easily in November. Even if I disagree with the reasoning for these actions; I'm ok with the results.

clint said...

"I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is. He's — and you know what? And that's all I'm going to say about it."

This is really the best part.

I think we can all imagine what goes in the elided part -- that Joe Biden is an older man, of another generation, with well established, um, odd quirks, let's say, in his public interactions with young women. It's possible to wave a hand at all that and then say that while this makes him superficially appear more likely to be a groper, that he's been doing this for forty years, it's just Joe being Joe, and the boundaries of it are known. It's a perfectly reasonable line for a Democratic voter -- but Governor Whitmer can't say that out loud, not on national TV.

Her problem is that that's exactly what people mean by a "pattern", which she just explicitly denied. And that if she'd actually said it out loud, Republicans would make it the viral video of the week. And then she'd never be the VP candidate.

stevew said...

It's only a conundrum for these folks that make it so. If a person is willing to go public with these sorts of allegations and agrees to share details of time and place then they should be taken seriously and the situation properly examined and resolved as to its truth. To do or recommend anything else it to expose yourself to criticisms of motivation or political manipulation.

Whitmer could very easily have said, "This allegation is not consistent with the actions of the Joe Biden I know, but they should be examined and resolved.".

Levi Starks said...

The question that she should be asked, is not why she believes Biden who is I believe accused so a more serious infraction than Kavanaugh, But rather why was she eager to pile on and doubtless felt the obligation to attack Kavanaugh, yet even a small answer to a question about Biden has to dragged out of her?

rcocean said...

Tapper's apology and back down is so typical. Does he ever do that with Trump supporters or Republicans?

Answer: No. Anytime, a Republican tries the "How dare you ask that!" -CNN/Tapper fires right back. But now we're back in a Democrat being accused and that's just so "icky". Just like Monica and Bill. We just. shouldn't. be. talking. about. it.

clint said...

"I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is. He's — and you know what? And that's all I'm going to say about it."

This is really the best part.

I think we can all imagine what goes in the elided part -- that Joe Biden is an older man, of another generation, with well established, um, odd quirks, let's say, in his public interactions with young women. It's possible to wave a hand at all that and then say that while this makes him superficially appear more likely to be a groper, that he's been doing this for forty years, it's just Joe being Joe, and the boundaries of it are known. It's a perfectly reasonable line for a Democratic voter -- but Governor Whitmer can't say that out loud, not on national TV.

Her problem is that that's exactly what people mean by a "pattern", which she just explicitly denied. And that if she'd actually said it out loud, Republicans would make it the viral video of the week. And then she'd never be the VP candidate.

Dave Begley said...

Gov. Whitless, "And there's not a pattern that goes into this."

There is a pattern of Joe sniffing hair and otherwise making woman feeling really uncomfortable.

And we don't know if Joe sexually assaulted other female employees. Maybe they were paid off!
NDA's.

We need a FULL investigation with televised hearings. Now!

rcocean said...

Its good the Gov of Michigan could take time out from issuing unnecessary executive orders curtailing civil liberties and destroying small businesses to go on TV. Well Done, Girlie Girl.

rcocean said...

All in the family started out strong, then started having shows about Nazis, Edith getting raped, etc. Norman Lear and Carol O'Connor couldn't help themselves. Today, no one would watch that crap.

traditionalguy said...

Mother Gretchen’s authority decides the fate of all men. After all, she was the one sexually assaulted by a man once.

hombre said...

Democrats are moral relativists for whom everything is about winning politics. Everything!

The Party turning a blind eye to facts about Joe Biden provides three recent examples: His extortion of Ukraine; His impending nomination; the Tara Reade allegations. He did, in fact, extort Ukraine, an act for which President Trump was bogusly impeached. His speech strongly suggests that he is too impaired mentally to be POTUS. Party stalwarts who uniformly parroted the unsubstantiated Blakey-Ford claims dismiss the Reade allegations.

Democrat amorality is not attractive, but it has political benefits as well as financial rewards.

rcocean said...

Maybe we can take the NYT suggestion and have an objective bi-partisan panel of:

Bill Clinton, Bob Packwood, Al Franken, and Jill Biden

Look at the charges against Joe Biden.

Temujin said...

She's a political hack who is in over her head and, like Joe Biden, is being propped up by the media (but in a different way). She's a liar and very contemptuous of her constituency. Who, I might add, are feeling the same love back toward her.

She is currently competing with Stacy Abrams for a Veep slot, only doing it in a more traditional, less obvious way. She is applying for a job she has no business holding. No track record of anything other than...being a woman and a survivor.

Automatic_Wing said...

She was the only Democrat on the show...apart from Jake Tapper, of course.

Regarding Kavanaugh, were there a bunch of official photos of him pawing various women and sniffing their hair? Seems like maybe that happened with Biden a time or two.

CJinPA said...

Here's a FUN FACT, from Dec, 2013'
Gretchen Whitmer Speaks Out On Why She Revealed Her Sexual Assault


OK, reading the info at the link, it seems Gov. Whitmer didn't tell anyone until she was a politician trying to gain votes against a bill. The Salon interviewer did not ask a single question about the alleged incident.

This is personal stuff, but it's being used for political purposes. She very well could be telling the truth, but the incentive to lie at this point might be too great for politicians to resist. That's when you need to set up some rules for how to handle these claims.

AlbertAnonymous said...

The rule going forward...

Is whatever the dems and liberal media (redundant I know) want it to be.

She wants to be seen as the authority. Since she’s a “survivor” her opinion (and that’s all it is) is somehow more authoritative. It’s not.

But then she wants to use her status as a way to shut you down/end debate. Asking the question is somehow re-raping her. It’s not.

This is classic dem BS.

RK said...

It boils down to just being about feelings.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’ll skip to the end of this story that feminist women are leading us thru:

Men will go so crazy being consumed by chivalry that we’ll start killing one another over who’s the most devoted savior of women.

We’re heading toward war, both domestic and international.

At the end of the war, the raping of the loser women begins in earnest.

This is a cyclical pattern of human history.

Mary Beth said...

And there's not a pattern that goes into this.

Well, there wasn't with Kavanaugh. Biden doesn't seem to know or care about boundaries and personal space. I don't know if that makes him more likely to have sexually assaulted someone, but I don't see how it makes it less likely.

Michael K said...

She’s about the age of my daughters, so she went thru college during the period when every girl made up a story of rape and surviving for drama queen points in the diversity and feminism courses.

Does anyone know what Whitmer experienced as "sexual assault" ? Did she ever file a police report? She implies she could have gotten pregnant so maybe it was "rape rape" and not the usual feminist fairy tale.

My youngest daughter was sitting in a beauty parlor a few years ago and saw on TV that a black football player at U of Arizona she had dated a few times was being accused of "sexual assault." She said he had never been anything but polite. She had a hard time believing it.

The majority of sexual assault claims in college involve black males, by the way. Even though they are a small share of the male student population.

Michael K said...

OK, reading the info at the link, it seems Gov. Whitmer didn't tell anyone until she was a politician trying to gain votes against a bill. The Salon interviewer did not ask a single question about the alleged incident.

Answers my question.

Mary Beth said...

I originally read the title as "When Fake Tapper...."

Does anyone call him "Fake" Tapper? If not, that's a missed opportunity.

Martha said...

GRETCHEN Whitaker: And I will tell you this. I don't believe that it's consistent with the Joe Biden that I know. And I do believe Joe, and I support Joe Biden.

Well, I will tell you this. I don’t believe anything Blasey Ford claimed is consistent with the Brett Kavanaugh that I know. And I did believe Justice Kavanaugh, and I support Justice Kavanaugh.

And I too am a survivor. Any woman has been subjected to unwelcome sexual advances. It is called dating.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Whitmer proudly wears the mantle of virtuous victimhood when she can use it against the opposition, but shrugs it off and moves on when it comes to Biden. She knows who Biden is — a fellow Democrat.

Fernandinande said...

Saw a comic wherein a young girl says to her mother, "Mom, a man touched me in a bad way!" and the mom responds, "Was he a Democrat or a Republican?"

R C Belaire said...

She's from the People's Republic of Ann Arbor. What do you expect?

Jupiter said...

"The governor later noted: "Some of the outrageousness of what happened at our capitol this week, you know depicted some of the worst racism and, and awful parts of our history in this country. You know the Confederate flags and nooses, the swastikas, the you know behavior that you've seen in all of the clips is not representative of who we are in Michigan."

For the record, the swastikas the Governor is talking about were references to the fascism of her regime, and the nooses were figments of her imagination, although she would make an ornamental appendage to a lamppost.

n.n said...

She's Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic. So, as a matter of principle, she cannot be a bigot.

As for Biden, we progress with trial by press, and violate the privacy and dignity of Lady Justice. And, consistent, or inconsistent, with the State-established religion, he's not viable, he's a "burden", off with his head, his arms, cannibalize and redistribute his profitable parts. Let us bray.

Rabel said...

Here's the video:

"Swastikas! Confederate Flags! Nooses! Assault Rifles!"

1. She talks funny.
2. Lots of face paint. May be wearing a death mask.
3. Wild eyes.
4. Gigantic, frozen forehead possibly made of granite.
5. Michigan Gov's office still using AOL dial-up service?

Jake unsympathetic to Biden because he knows he is failing. Time for a change.

Achilles said...

Howard said...
Get a new catch phrase for that one too, Achilles. You're beginning to go into full-blown shouting Thomas mode. Sound off like you got a pair... assuming you were spared from the same fate as Jake Barnes.

Boring.

Everyone knew that Hillary hired "private investigators" to harass Bill's numerous victims.

You people voted for her anyways.

You people voted for Bill anyways despite the fact he admitted he was a rapist.

Biden is a creep. Everyone knew that and now there are credible and corroborated stories he has assaulted women.

You should "put some ice on that" Howard. You are a creep too.

Butkus51 said...

Not really news. Tell me something I don't know.

Jersey Fled said...

Heck, after our first date my wife could have claimed to be a survivor.

ussmidway said...

Howard:

Thanks for the links to Trump allegations, however, for many here the point is not whether Trump has obvious flaws in this regard, or even whether Biden should take any heat for these claims by Reade.

Clearly, many who back Trump have reconciled their concerns about his character by focusing on his mission to disintermediate the corrupt, ruling elites who sold us out to China, Iran and the EU. He is a 1-man wrecking ball and many of the unflattering things that were hidden by the Dems under Obama & Clinton are threatening to the entrenched "Deep State" cadres and are only coming to light because Trump is unconstrained by any sense of tradition or decorum. Thus, they hate him and fear him and will abandon any principles to win in November.

The deal with Biden and Reade is really about the Kavanaugh hearings precedent, and regardless of whether these situations are different in some respects, the Alinsky Rule is operative here: Force your enemies to live by their own standards. The Dems keep breaking the glass and pulling the emergency lever, and then lament when the lever is no longer there to be pulled:

1. Sen Reid (D-NV) eliminated the filibuster for judicial appointments, and now the Dems are screaming about the wave of new judges, many of when were vetted by the Federalist Society. Tough beans...

2. Obama made "Law" with "a phone and a pen", and Trump is undoing Obama's "Laws" and making up his own in the same manner. If the limits of the Executive are elastic, as Obama proved and Dems cheered, then one cannot be surprised this will cut the other way with Trump.

3. One can demand the FBI investigate local crimes that are decades old with no witnesses and no actual criminal complaint, and hold a SCOTUS appointee to an the impossible standard to prove a negative. OK Joe Biden, let's start the FBI investigation and hold Congressional hearings under oath with televised evidence of his creepy tendencies -- all networks covering LIVE and sharing rumor and innuendo, just to stir the pot. This kind of scrutiny, and his inability to understand or respond coherently to any live questioning would kill his campaign. He is too far gone already and everyone can see that, so there is no way his handlers would let that happen.

Now I think #3 is a dumb idea, and it was an equally stupid play by the Dems when they lost control, kowtowing to the abortion zealots who have only one issue, seeing Kavanaugh as a threat to Roe v. Wade. But the Dems played that card anyway and cannot take it back, setting this ridiculous standard. Now their opponents are forcing them to be semi-consistent. The pain this is causing the Dems, and the pretzel logic they are displaying to justify the deep conflict in their approach to these 2 cases is providing a true feast of schadenfreude. Rebuttals that try to immunize Biden by referring to Trump completely miss the point -- we do not care about any of these old stories, but the Dems profess to care, so care away!

Live by the impossible standard, Die by the same impossible standard. Tough shit if it hurts...

Birches said...

She was more than willing to speak out about Kav from her position as a survivor and now wants people to stop talking to her about being a survivor...I wonder what's changed?

Biden's VP is going to be asked these questions a lot. Is she taking herself out of the running? Pence had to talk about the Access Hollywood tape a lot, as well as every other Republican in the country.

William said...

I don't see how it's possible to believe CBF and not believe Reade....As it works out, it is possible to not be asked any nagging questions by reporters and not to be ridiculed by late night comedians for blatant hypocrisy so it's not all bad. The Dem pols, the reporters, and the comedians are all invested in this hypocrisy. Maybe they'll get away with it. People believe not only what they want to believe but also what the pretty people tell them they ought to believe.

Tina Trent said...

Most of the women and men I know who survived a real sexual assault -- by a fellow inmate, or someone who crawled in through their window, or pulled them off a street, don't consider themselves "survivors": they consider themselves victims of serious and almost universally un-prosecuted, life-threatening crime. They also usually submit quietly after fighting briefly out of fear of being harmed or killed if they don't. Poor Edith.

They already know they have more in common with other victims of serious real crime than with women who choose to make rape about politics, activism, career calculation, roles in movies, etc.

Hags like Whitmer who in all cases other than campus-morning-after-star-chamber-reeducation-demands opposes policing and incarceration generally should be forced to stare into the hollow eyes of an eight-year-old having DNA taken from her vagina after stepdad did her until she gags on her own vomit every time she tries to write another check to the ACLU.

This is reaching Blasey-Ford home-renovation-level bullshit.

And, Shouting Thomas? As I was being dragged around my house and garroted into unconsciousness as I begged for my life, I wasn't looking for feminist or any other type of attention, so back off. I don't need this crap from people on any side of the political equation. If I'm a survivor of anything, it's of being denied justice That particular awareness of exile never goes away.

I do find that making defense attorneys cry really helps.


Yancey Ward said...

All that verbiage wasted when all she had to say was that she is just a hypocrite. It really is as simple as that.

The alternative answer, never given by the people being asked this question today, is this:

"You know what, Jake, I was wrong to publically state I believed Blasey-Ford, and I want to take this opportunity to apologize profusely to Brett Kavanaugh- he got shafted, and I apologize for the role I played in it, and I do so without reservation."

effinayright said...

"Move on" is just the latest fascisti synonym for "shut up".

Meade said...

Jersey Fled said...
"Heck, after our first date my wife could have claimed to be a survivor."

Ah but did she get enough germs to catch pneumonia?

Big Mike said...

2,266,193 voters in Michigan in November 2018 were certifiably insane.

jnseward said...

Yes, it's a real quandary, Ann. What is her meaning? What might her reasoning be? It's a real mystery.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

By taking a position in support of Biden, Whitmer won’t have to serve on the special commission the New York Times wants to be called to investigate.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Gretchen Whitmer reminds me of President Elizabeth Keane from the Homeland series, an entitled liberal prima donna with an axe to grind.

William said...

There's been a shake up at NBC News. The good folks at NBC not only went out of their way to cover up for Weinstein, they had on-air personalities who were accused not of sexual harassment but of stone rape. The offenses at NBC were far more evil and despicable than anything that happened at Fox News.....By my count, there have been three movies or tv shows about the wrongs at Fox and nothing to date about what went wrong at NBC. That's who they are and what they do......How does anyone expect NBC News or anyone else in their cohorts in the entertainment industry to give fair coverage to this scandal.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Tina Trent,

I was attacked by a black guy at knife point in Ft. Greene Park in Brooklyn as I walked home from the subway at night. Like you, I had to fight for my life. I’m very fortunate to have survived, with only minor injuries.

I won’t bore you with the details of that story because nobody cares, precisely because I’m male.

Even the cops didn’t give a shit. This was during the crack epidemic.

“What are you doing in this neighborhood if you’re not packing?” They asked me. “You’re a fool. All we can do is pick up the body.”

I learned quickly to stop telling the story, because 8 out of 10 people found some reason in that story to call me a racist.

buwaya said...

Oh come on.

Every word is a lie, including any statement about her feelings regarding either Kavanaugh or Biden.

It is foolish to give anyone in this position any credit for sincerity. People in her position are human enough, as far as a propensity to make mistakes, misunderstand, or fail to execute their intended tactics successfully. But beside that they are all psychopaths. They aren't at all like most of us.

Assume they are all monsters. Doing that you will predict much more accurately.

Static Ping said...

It is quite confounding to analyze the thought processes of self-proclaimed honest intellectuals. Upon further review, both the "honest" and "intellectual" quickly come into question. Do keep in mind that principles and self-sacrifice are not the standard human traits, which goes doubly for politicians.

Roughcoat said...

The female main characters on Dick Wolfe's Law and Order programs all seem to have a backstory of having been raped.

In Dick Wolfe's world it's hip to be a woman who was raped.

buwaya said...

The only puzzle in this is why Tapper asked her, specifically, these questions.

Tapper is just a tool of his masters, and their political purpose is clear.

This serves only to embarass Whitmer, and does not help Biden. Maybe someone made an error. It happens.

Unclebiffy said...

I have an idea. Let's stop pretending Jake Tapper (representative of the entire MSM) is trying to accomplish anything but take this subject off of the table for discussion. He will not ask about this again. The purpose of the question was for him to claim that he did cover the subject and did his best to get as much information out to the public as possible. It is obvious he did no such thing but that will be the story moving forward.

The MSM is a political organ of the left. Name one story over the last two months, from the MSM, that has been critical of the left. Let's stop pretending they are in the business of neutrally informing the public.

Drago said...

William: "There's been a shake up at NBC News. The good folks at NBC not only went out of their way to cover up for Weinstein, they had on-air personalities who were accused not of sexual harassment but of stone rape. The offenses at NBC were far more evil and despicable than anything that happened at Fox News.....By my count, there have been three movies or tv shows about the wrongs at Fox and nothing to date about what went wrong at NBC."


Matt Lauer had a Rape Room right smack dab in the middle of the building. Put in place by NBC personnel. It existed for years. Known by all NBC execs and key on air personalities.

And they said.....nothing.

Poor Matt Lauer. I'll bet he only got 1 or 2 standing ovations from those lefties/dems who knew about him instead of the handful given by the lefties/dems to Weinstein/Polanski/Gerry Studds, etc.

And Weinstein was even called a "god" by the Hollywood "luminaries".....live in front of a global audience.

Roughcoat said...

For me, it has come to this: I don't believe any woman, at least initially, who claims to have been raped. The more so if she her claim is located in her distant past and she never reported it when it happened or soon after it happened. If she has allowed several decades to pass before before asserting her claim I believe she's either deluded or a straight-out liar.

In fairness, I don't believe most men of my generation who claim to have fought as line infantry eleven-bravos or Marine grunts in the Vietnam War. Not without corroboration.

Known Unknown said...

People say politics is "Hollywood for ugly people."

That's not entirely true. It's sports for the untalented.

Fernandinande said...

Tina Trent said...
Hags like Whitmer [..big snip...] to write another check to the ACLU.


I nominate that for Sentence of the Year.

Ann said...

If we use her own standard, should we believe she is actually a "survivor". Can't we just disbelieve/challenge her claim to victimhood if we politically disagree with her.

fleg9bo said...

Why don't we just ask Meryl Streep?

She doesn't claim to be a survivor.


She survived eating an apple that had been sprayed with Alar.

Rick said...

And there's not a pattern that goes into this.

A. There's no pattern because the left media refuses to report on incident which if known and aggregated would demonstrate a pattern.

B. Kavanaugh did not show a pattern either, but activists and media did their best to create one.

So this alleged difference is in fact a result of the left's double standards and therefore cannot not logically be cited as justifying those standards.

William said...

Unclebiffy points to an important truth about Jake Tapper. He's not there to umpire the balls and strikes. He's playing for the home team....On-air journalists have a somewhat more difficult job than politicians, who, after all, are expected to lie. They have to pretend to be disinterested pursuers of truth. Jake is pretty good at it, but I always thought Matt Lauer had just the right balance of good humor, skepticism, and sincerity. I really miss Matt Lauer. He was the true face of our news media.

Tom Grey said...

C'mon, Ann - where is the CRITERIA for believing or not-believing?
Date/time
Place
Who did what - and how bad was it?

Witnesses
What happened afterwards?
Records

On every single criteria, Tara Reade is better than Ford.
As was Juanita Broaddrick with an actual, full rape by Pres. (then Gov.) Bill Clinton, fully protected and enabled by Hillary.
Of course, she recanted her rape story.
Then recanted her recantation -- which is just what many Real Feminists say is not so uncommon when normal women are sexually harassed by the powerful, rich, famous guys.

Be honest.
Her defense of Biden is primarily because she knows he's a Dem who supports Abortion.

narciso said...

he was an aide to mezvinsky, whose brood married the dauphin, an official of handgun control, I came to know him when he ran my state of florida, for his first big publishing contract, down in the swamp or something,

Browndog said...

Blogger buwaya said...

The only puzzle in this is why Tapper asked her, specifically, these questions.

Tapper is just a tool of his masters, and their political purpose is clear.

This serves only to embarass Whitmer, and does not help Biden. Maybe someone made an error. It happens.


She was probably sent the talking points as to how to answer it, but didn't bother to read them

She was probably sent an IT guy to fix her video feed, and didn't bother to use him.

Just like she was sent the paperwork for FEMA to request emergency funding and didn't bother to send them.

She's a fucking idiot.

Francisco D said...

Martha said... And I too am a survivor. Any woman has been subjected to unwelcome sexual advances. It is called dating.

There is a lot of truth in that statement which is why the "sexual assault" meme works so well on men and women alike.

FullMoon said...
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Big Mike said...

They also usually submit quietly after fighting briefly out of fear of being harmed or killed if they don't. Poor Edith.

Every story I have read about a woman who avoided a rape avoided the attack by fighting and fighting HARD and not stopping fighting. Most recently I read about a female runner in deep woods who had a prickling sensation in the back of her neck that someone was watching. She ignored it (mistake!) and kept going. Then she was confronted by a big man with a large knife who announced that he was going to rape her and cut her up to feed to his hogs. She took off running back down the trail, used her cell phone to contact police and tell them which trail she was on. The man caught her and knocked her down, but she fought, using her fists and feet, and succeeded in crunching his testicles enough to get him off her, and he was still holding his groin when he’ll arrived with drawn pistols. Lucky for her she had cell phone coverage.

I don’t understand why women go running, or even hiking, in isolated places alone. Running people seem to register as prey to predators like bears and mountain lions, and that’s leaving aside the bipedal predators.

Annie said...

I'm sure she used facts and science to determine her opinion of Biden's innocence. She always uses facts and science. That's why we in Michigan are still locked down in our homes and can't visit our families and friends, rural hospitals are empty and fearing having to close their doors, and masks have been mandated--all while the curve has flattened and the hospitals have not been overrun. And whenever some journalist dares to ask a real question (a rare occasion), her answer is always the most recent number of deaths in Michigan--whatever the question. So that facts-and-science answer to Tapper is definitely her pattern.

narciso said...

when she does it consistently she proves herself a knave, then again if you wanted to shut down industrial production in the Midwest how would you do differently,

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

@Meade
after she does, she'll never phonia

Annie said...

By the way, note that when Whitmer first told her "survivor" story in the Michigan legislature to attempt to get a bill passed that ultimately failed, she needed to call her dad so that he heard about it from her first:

Whitmer: “The next morning, I was about as depressed as I've ever been, because I've just laid my soul bare. I had to call my dad on the way home from the legislature and tell him—because he didn't know this, and I knew it was going to be in the press.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/09/gretchen-whitmer-governor-michigan-profile-2020-coronavirus-biden-vp-177791

Apparently she never even told her family about her survivor incident.

narciso said...

who's left at cbs who was a moonves enabler, not to mention Charlie rose,


https://www.foxnews.com/media/nbc-news-andy-lack-peacock-network-investigation-reports

Leslie Graves said...

What she seems to be saying is that if a story about sexual abuse is floating around, the people who know the accused are in a different epistemological position than the people who don't know the accused. According to her, if you know the accused person, then you can listen to the accuser's story all you want, the same way anyone else would, but going in, you already know more about it than a random person listening to the story: You know the accused and you know they would never do such a thing. If that's what she is hanging her exoneration on, it doesn't seem quite accurate to say that she has "vetted" the story from Reade. Rather, she seems to be saying that no vetting is actually needed because she already knows the answer (because she knows Joe Biden) and the answer is that he would never do such a thing. So he didn't.

As far as her getting scratchy about being asked to comment on the story as a victim of abuse: That happens all the time to people who have a special status and who in the past have held themselves out as an expert with extra gravitas and truth-discerning powers because of their special status. In the future, they may very well get asked to again comment on something out of their special status. It doesn't seem quite fair to criticize reporters for wanting you to repeat your willingness to comment based on your special status, if it is something you've willingly and maybe even eagerly done in the past.

A Voice of Reason said...

Why is Biden such a liar? He's had decades of practice:

https://www.screencast.com/t/GjHxeL9U

cubanbob said...

Question for all the hetero males commenting here from Michigan: how much did a nice face and a big rack influence male voters for voting for her? One question for all commenters here: if Biden interviews her will the interview process include a grope, a touch or a hair sniff?

n.n said...

Democrats don't care about women getting raped.

Raped, no. Raped-raped, maybe. Keep women barefoot, available, and taxable.

Known Unknown said...

There are very few people I reserve the epithet "piece of shit" for.

Governor Whitmer is one of those few.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Apparently she never even told her family about her survivor incident.

So, gretchen-whitmer-governor-michigan pulled a Blasey-Ford, and was politically rewarded. As for the rape... rape-rape activism, this was an empathetic appeal -- blackmail, really -- by the Progressive Church to socially justify excess deaths for planned parenthood and other purposes.

Etienne said...
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Rory said...

"Poor Edith."

I was thinking of the attack on Gloria several years before, when Edith told her of Edith's own assault from many years before. The Bunker house was quite dangerous: a rape, two deaths of visitors inside the house, and two murders of visitors who just left the house. Realism.

Howard said...

Thanks, Achilles. I'll take Stalin's Siberian Vanilla Bean... Ben and Jerry's of course.

Your final answer is that your rapist is better than our rapists because he does so much to pretend to hurt globalist billionaires.

h said...

I heard a radio interview with Carrie Sorvino (author of a book about the Kavanaugh hearings, and a former clerk for Justice THomas). She said something like: the process use in the Kavanaugh (and Thomas) hearings were wrong, and we should not use the same process to conclude Biden is guilty, just for the purpose of making the Democrats reap what they have sown.

Howard said...

Blogger Shouting Thomas said...
Really, who isn’t a “survivor” of some sort of assault at some point in their life?...I’ve been assaulted numerous times...Somehow, I don’t think I derive any moral authority out of it...I’ve had knives pulled on me....This survivor crap is utter nonsense.


You certainly are citing your moral authority. Your massively strong free will and extreme mental toughness in the face of deathly danger is a legendary. I think it's really unfair of you to expect everyone else to be able to uphold your stratospheric high standards of manly man conduct. You have reached an almost superhuman level. Mere mortals live in the real world and it's tough for them to achieve such an astronomical high standard.

Please talk to your 900-ft Jesus for us and ask him how many oooh fathers and heil Marys Molly coddled rape victims need to complete to be cleaned of their sin of cowardice.

Michael K said...

In fairness, I don't believe most men of my generation who claim to have fought as line infantry eleven-bravos or Marine grunts in the Vietnam War. Not without corroboration.

This was a thing in County hospital when I was still teaching. I told the medical students to check age and dates when a male patient claimed to be a Vietnam vet. There were guys claiming this who would have been 10 years old at the time.

Michael said...

Howard
In fairness your rapist couldn’t get his dick in. Lame.

Marty said...

Just wondering: does Howard write stuff for Joe Biden? His posts have the same rambling, focus-free, confused content as a Biden basement interview. (Clearly he doesn't write for Whitmer, who offers the same prog content while managing to sound like she went to college.)

Howard said...

Exactly Michael. Biden couldn't grok the art of the deal.

Howard said...

Soros pays good, Marty

Etienne said...
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rhhardin said...

I don't believe Tara Reade either.

FullMoon said...
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Etienne said...
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Gunner said...

This dummy knows nothing of teenage Kavanaugh or adult Kavanaugh, besides what his haters imagine, but feels free to say he is a rapist.

Michael K said...

Wonder how many women raped fought back hard and were then beaten or murdered..

The cases that I have read, or seen depicted on the "Murder Channel" (Discovery ID), all involved murder as the intent. The rape was part of it but there was always the intent to murder. I'm sure there are exceptions. I have read of "defensive wounds" on such victims but the question was whether it would have ended differently with submission. I doubt it.

narciso said...

oh well then

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/05/in-1991-biden-opposed-creation-of-senate-office-to-handle-sexual-harassment-complaints/

narciso said...

what difference does it make,

https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/05/politico-founder-matin-tolchin-president-joe-biden-sexual-assault-allegation-tara-reade/

Michael K said...

Howard said...
Soros pays good, Marty


I understand he paid well for the bimbo fucking our pandemic expert.

The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday night as The Telegraph can reveal he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover.

Professor Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their children in another house.

The epidemiologist leads the team at Imperial College London that produced the computer-modelled research that led to the national lockdown, which claimed that more than 500,000 Britons would die without the measures.

Prof Ferguson has frequently appeared in the media to support the lockdown and praised the "very intensive social distancing" measures.

The revelation of the "illegal" trysts will infuriate millions of couples living apart and banned by the Government from meeting up during the lockdown, which is now in its seventh week.

On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown.

The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus.


She works for a Soros funded left wing outfit.

Lurker21 said...

What was going through Tapper's mind? "I'm going to gratuitously remind you of one of the most painful incidents in your life so that I can ask you to make a judgement about something you have no more knowledge of than anyone else, when I know that you can only really give one answer - an answer that leaves no one more informed or wiser than they are now"? Somebody, probably a 23-year-old intern, found out that Whitmer claimed to have been assaulted and wanted to show off and win brownie points from the bosses so he or she fed this question to Tapper. Or was it something he came up with on his own?

TJM said...

Tara Reade is a Democrat so she is extra believable, right Inga, wherever you are hiding!

MadisonMan said...

"I'm going to gratuitously remind you of one of the most painful incidents in your life so that I can ask you to make a judgement about something you have no more knowledge of than anyone else, when I know that you can only really give one answer - an answer that leaves no one more informed or wiser than they are now"?

Whitmer uses this event when it suits her. She can hardly complain when others bring it up. Well, strike that: She can complain, but she'll just sound ridiculous.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Howard,

You left out the racism taunt.

That’s de rigueur for those types of rants.

You’re getting rusty. The Biggus Dickus thing is kinda incomplete with the racism taunt.

By the way, how many rapes have you committed? More than a dozen?

Just wondering. Do you like to tie them up or do you prefer for them to fight back?

Anonymous said...

Whitmer makes a wonderful “Karen,” Gauleiter, and political dominatrix. Shudder.

gadfly said...

Fictional crimes of passion (and otherwise) can most likely only be solved by the mysterious "young man about town," Lamont Cranston.

Meade said...

rhhardin said...
"I don't believe Tara Reade either."

Meaning, you don't believe Joe Biden and you don't believe Tara Reade either? Or, someone else claims to not believe Tara Reade and neither do you.

Mark said...
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Mark said...

So Reed and Malloy respond to a domestic call. They arrive talk to the couple and move them to separate rooms. Husband shows his badly burned arm and says wife threw hot grease on him. Reed asks, "Did you do anything to provoke her?" Malloy says he should probably go get it looked at by a doctor. Then he asks if they are going to start fighting again when they leave.

Then the police officers leave. Malloy in the car makes a joke about being married.

The story I have related is true. Only the names were changed, to protect the innocent.

Season One (1968).

narciso said...


oh never mind,

https://twitter.com/irishspy/status/1257691834626666503?s=20

gilbar said...

The Bunker house was quite dangerous: a rape, two deaths of visitors inside the house, and two murders of visitors who just left the house. Realism.

Think what a bummer, life must be for Normal Lear and all?
He makes a show, where THE WHOLE POINT, is to show HOW HORRIBLE Archie Bunker is.
It ends up being Wildly Successful, and Widely watched
Sounds Good, right?
BUT; it Turns out; that THE ONLY admirable character, on the whole show, is Archie Bunker

People Watched, to Watch Archie (not Meathead!), People LOVED Archie.
Conservatives loved Archie, Liberals loved Archie; (nearly) EVERYBODY LOVED ARCHIE
that Is NOT what Normal had in mind

Mark said...

Very next episode begins with a co-worker's big black eye. Malloy reports that the officer had responded to a domestic call and while he was attempting to break the couple apart, the wife swung and punched him in the eye.

No arrest.

James K said...

Is it only because of what political side Whitmer is on?

Ya think? Possibly?

Seriously, she could have just said: "The difference is that I know Joe Biden well, and I didn't know Bret Kavanaugh." That's not a very good reason, but it's not as bad as twisting herself into a pretzel to try to rationalize her views and then saying "Let's move on!"

DavidUW said...

Has Whitmer ever identified the name, place, happenings around her alleged sexual assault?
She said it happened her freshman year at EMU, right?

anything else?
anything?

I, too, would put better than even odds she had a night of regrettable drunken sex, knowing midwestern college kids and then embellished it.

I will share a true story of my sexual assault on UW-Madison's campus. Unlike the others, I can actually give a date. October 31st 1994. I was dressed in a toga walking to a frat party on campus.

A leering, female Madison cop stopped me and demanded to know if I was wearing anything underneath my toga. She raped me with her eyes.

I carry that horrible, scarring experience with me to this day.

walter said...

" I don't believe that it's consistent with the Joe Biden that I know."
The Burisma defense.
Perhaps her vetting of Reade was tainted by her knowing Joe.

MayBee said...

There seems to be a bit of a talking point going around-that it is just unfair to ask women (according to Alyssa Milano) or survivors (Whitmer) about sexual assault allegations. It is too much of a burden for women, and just one more thing men never have to deal with. Not only do men rape women, but then you make us answer questions about other rapes. How dare you?

Derve Swanson said...
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Robert Cook said...

"Democrats don't care about women getting raped.

"They only care about power."


You say that like it's not also true of the Republicans.

Robert Cook said...

"When love of party overcomes love of principle, very shortly the party will have no principles."

And thus we have the current state of our politics.

Of course, it probably has never been substantially otherwise.

narciso said...

amplified by every channel, 1000 fold, how many even know who tara reade is, in the wider world,

Robert Cook said...

"For me, it has come to this: I don't believe any woman, at least initially, who claims to have been raped.

"In fairness, I don't believe most men of my generation who claim to have fought as line infantry eleven-bravos or Marine grunts in the Vietnam War. Not without corroboration."


Well, that's mighty white of you!

We all know women are as prone to claiming to have been raped as men are prone to bragging about their accomplishments.

Ice Nine said...

>>walter said...
Perhaps her vetting of Reade was tainted by her knowing Joe.<<

ISWYDT

Spiros said...

If Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh can push aside (credible) allegations of sexual assault and bully their way into office, so can Joe Biden. And, anyways, Joe Biden was largely silent (or worse) when it was time to support victims of sexual assault, so he's totally immune to the charges of hypocrisy.

Biden was no "women's rights champion." The Democrats knew he was a pig and they still voted for him. Deal with it!

FullMoon said...
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FullMoon said...
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wildswan said...

I'd like to know how Witless got to know Biden. She went to grade school, high school, college and law school in Michigan. She served in the Michigan House of Representatives, the Michigan Senate and she is currently Michigan's governor. So how or when did she get to know Joe Biden well enough to be a character witness? Has she ever been with him outside of the context of National Conventions and massive DC parties? Has she ever been alone with him? Has she even been to dinner at his house? (not at the VP's house but at Biden's own house) Spent time at the Jersey beaches with him? Was Biden constantly visiting Michigan? What's the content of the statement - "I know Joe Biden"? I saw him on TV?

Bobb said...

Whitmer claims to be a survivor of rape. I don't believe her. She has given no details, other than it happen while in her first year at Eastern Michigan by someone she knew. She has given no further detail. She has given less details than Blasey Ford, which is a standard hard to not surpass.

Real American said...

Don't "we have a duty to vet" Whitmer's claim, especially if she is going to use it as absolute moral authority on this issue?

Yes. Everyone, including Jake Tapper, just takes Whitmer's claim that she was raped at face value. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn't. Women lie about this being raped sometimes. Politicians certainly lie about personal details of their lives to score political points. She certainly uses the story for political gain, so there's reason to be skeptical. Regardless, it is fair that the public should get to vet whether the claim is true if she's going to continue to use it this way.

From a journalistic standpoint, I don't see how could honestly just accept as fact that it happened and use it as the basis of authority on unrelated matters unless there's some reason to believe it is true beyond the word of a politician.

brylun said...

This is all about voting: If you vote for Biden, or Whitmer, you get more of this behavior; if you vote the other way, you get less of this behavior. Why, you might even change the behavior of the Fake Tappers of MSM if you vote less for this behavior.

BTW, I think Tapper was so hard on Whitmer because he doesn't want her as VP. His preference is probably Michelle O.

Richard Dolan said...

How reluctant was she to comment about the Kavanaugh accusation? Coming from a partisan politico like her, all the angst about survivor feelings seems like a first cousin to Civility Bullshit.

Drago said...

Spiros: "If Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh can push aside (credible) allegations of sexual assault and bully their way into office,...."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

The FBi reported there were 5,000 rape accusations against Kavanaugh while the dems claimed Kavanaugh was the Criminal Mastermind of a Rape gang that prowled the Maryland countryside for 2 decades.

Yep.

Totally believable.

Marcus Bressler said...

So a women who is being raped shouldn't fight back because she MIGHT get murdered? Silly, I suppose they should just lay back and enjoy it as the life is strangled out of them

THEOLDMAN

Terry Ott said...

Whitmer: "I'm very comfortable that Joe Biden is who he says he is. He's — and you know what? And that's all I'm going to say about it."

Clint (above) points out: "This is really the best part."

"I think we can all imagine what goes in the elided part -- that Joe Biden is an older man, of another generation, with well established, um, odd quirks…..etc."

Maybe not, Clint. I think perhaps Whitmer’s got some inside knowledge that she was about to blurt out, as in: “….He’s …. been experimenting with testoterone replacement therapy since long before the public was aware of it, and sometimes when the dosage got a little too generous he took on a whole different rambunctious persona around women he could touch and restrain.”

Jamie said...

Way up-thread, Yancey said what I've been puzzling over. There's no political downside I can discern to Democrats' saying, "You know, you're right. I now see - and by 'now' I mean, frankly, 'now that my own political ox is being gored' - why due process for the accused is so fundamental to our Justice system. I didn't apply this standard at the time of the Kavanaugh hearings, and I should have, and I apologize. But now that I've had this epiphany, which, yes, should have been in my DNA as an American, and again, I apologize for my late awakening to it, I must remind us all that the burden of proof lies with the accuser. We now see where the opposite leads: any person can be stripped of civil rights by a simple, expedient, and unsupported statement against them by anyone. Let's not allow trial by media to undermine and ultimately wreck our quest for true justice."

From there, they can pivot to how "true justice" means getting Trump out of the White House, etc. They've acknowledged their hypocrisy, turned it into a Moral Lesson For Us All, and can get back to business. Why don't they ever do this? Democrats are allowed to "evolve" their positions; they do it all the time, quite openly. (So do Republicans; they're just always called out as "hypocrites" when they do.)

Tina Trent said...

Shouting Thomas: I like you. A lot. I always look forward to your comments.

I learn from you. And I agree that our experiences were, barring some orifices, utterly identical. This is reason #250 why I oppose hate crime laws. It's the terror, not the penetration. This is why I've worked so hard to eliminate gender from rape prosecutions: whatever the gender of the offender or the victim, it's the same crime. I passed that legislation for Georgia.

Though please understand, when I say real rape, I don't just mean someone beaten to a pulp by a stranger and begging for her or his life: I mean any people who make the reasonable, logical decision to "cooperate" to stay alive. When I wasn't being strangled, I did everything my (stranger) rapist told me to do, including pretend to enjoy it. And ironically, that was the main reason they decided to not try my case -- because I was honest about that and they felt it would get him acquitted because juries are full of the lowest dolt libertarians and other assorted morons.

Some "real" date rapes also fall into the category of forced collusion to save one's life. Serial date rapists generally prey on college campuses and can be the worst and most difficult to prosecute.

Being from Georgia, I've dealt with a lot of adolescent and college girls who agreed to sleep with one man and found herself being subjected to a "train" of others who piled in, through prior arrangement. It's mostly a black thing. Without exception, they submitted to stay alive, but they were gang raped in the worst sense of the word. One year, the football and basketball teams from UGA paid me to come consult on their rape problems, and I was astonished, first by how much money they have, and second, by how many decent young men of both races in each team came up to me and thanked me for trying to put a stop to what was apparently quite common behavior that repulsed them.

So I think the crucial job for people like you and me is to keep an open mind about all cases before making presumptions despite the settings and the politics. I have a pretty good eye for these things. If anyone has a hard case that needs help, this is my bailiwick. Contact me at my eponymous blog, and I'll do what I can to help, whether it's assist in getting a prosecution rolling, or a defense, or getting alternative help for woman who feels violated.

They're mostly just kids. My work is all pro-bono, bless my decent husband. I married a Catholic mensch.

The victim from UGA saw her offenders, members of the football team, paraded through town as heroes after her acquittal. Talk about lynch mobs. The trial transcript was horrifying, and they still acquitted the thugs. Ditto the other victims in my case.

And you're welcome to join me in Florida the day my guy gets out. I'm not going to kill him. I am going to blind him. It's pretty hard to be a serial rapist when you're blind. I'll also find a way to be officially unstable.

Cover all the bases, and then play ball.



Kirk Parker said...

Michael K.,

Regarding this bit from your except on Neil Ferguson getting caught with his pants down:

"computer-modelled research [emphasis added]"

Am I the only one bothered by this phrasing? Surely the computer modeling isn't research, is it? It might (or might not, depending on the case) be a very valuable precursor to research, in terms of pointing out interesting avenues to explore, but the modeling itself can't be research, can it?

Yancey, Gahrie, anybody else who labors/labored in the bowels of science or technology, care to weigh in?