So, Biden has someone accusing him of inappropriate touching.
Biden, as a perusal of news photos will show, has always been very, errr, touchy, with women.
Though he hasn’t said he’ll run for President in 2020, Biden is regularly included in the polling and generally runs just slightly ahead of Sanders, with the two of them well ahead of the other contenders. (Polling at this time is largely a matter of name recognition.)
This isn’t a problem which will go away. If Biden runs, more and more women will make these accusations, because Biden has been free with his hands. It may well be that he meant nothing offensive by it, but the fact is that he does it.
How much this matters is unclear. Trump did far worse things, we have tape, and it didn’t matter.
On the other hand Biden is running as a Democrat, not a Republican.
I suspect the wisest course of action for Biden would be not to run. But he’s reportedly upset he didn’t run last time, after seeing Clinton lose.
If he does run, however, this will be a persistent, open sore throughout his campaign, and probably into his Presidency.
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someofparts
Trump is ecstatic. First Mueller is off his case and now this.
sorrycreepyjoe
Biden is finished, as he should be. His legislative record, and his role in destroying Anita Hill should disqualify him. I’m very pleased to see yet another neoliberal scumbag bite the dust.
bruce wilder
i think Biden would be a terrible candidate on other grounds, so if this serves to disqualify him with people who do not share my view of his unsuitability, i guess i am ok with it.
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i think Biden would be bad, among other reasons, because i think he loves the financial sector in all its predatory and fraudulent glory. in a similar vein, i think he is ok with the foreign policy blob in all its neocon/neoliberal stupidity. i could go on, but i think the drift of my thinking on Biden goes a certain way. call it policy.
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i am just not sure the folks who would and could disqualify Biden for being handsy even know what policy is or think it matters.
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probably i should qualify my expression of discomfort with identity politics. i myself am not sure whether the “folks” in question are the elite politicians, pundits and activists who will put the propaganda machine into motion or the easily manipulated mass audience who receives the outrage show and applaudes on cue. the elite scribes and talking heads may be playing a machiavellian game to stop the sort of populist / progressive policy reform i favor — or both elites and mass audience may be clueless.
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i am ok with the cultural shift taking Biden out furthers — more respect for women, good! and, obviously, sacrificing Biden to the cause is a win all-round; genuinely bad candidate bites the dust.
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but i feel a bit uncomfortable with these allies.
Bill H
Joe Biden is toast. If this accusation doesn’t sink him, more and more women will pile on until he is buried under the weight of them. That isn’t the reason he should be defeated, his devotion to the financial industry is, but this is what will sink him.
@bruce wilder
You aren’t sure who the “folks” are that want to sink him? Please. It’s the crowd that is desperate to have a female in the White House. They rigged the election to defeat Bernie last time, and will do something this time too. Can’t be too obvious, because he’s a socialist, and that’s popular with Democrats now, but he’s a male, so he has to go.
Hugh
We used to call Biden the Senator from MBNA because he backed the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Reform and Consumer Protection Act which favored credit card companies and essentially made student debt undischargeable through bankruptcy.
In the Clarence Thomas hearings, he prevented corroborating witnesses for Anita Hill.
And he was Vice-President during Obama’s “hopey, no changey” neoliberal 8 years.
He is Establishment to the core and it is important to remember that a lot of people who voted for Trump did so as a vote against this Establishment.
I think these are sufficient reasons to reject Biden as a candidate. I have problems with stories like this one because in its timing it is clearly meant to torpedo a Biden run and because it detracts from much more serious and professional allegations like those of Anita Hill.
Ché Pasa
Biden is old. And a bullshitter. And a serial mauler.
We already have an old white bullshitter and serial mauler in the White House. You think the voters are going to switch out one for the other? I seriously don’t think so.
The idea is kind of interesting though, because Trump is so repellent and Biden is so warm and cuddly. Biden is accepted as a Wise Elder, Trump is a Gross Asshole.
But they’re not all that much different when it comes down to it, are they? Both favor the rich over the rest, both are fine with certain wars of aggression, both are apparently acceptable to the factions that run the permanent government. Neither cares much about the well-being of women, people of color, or anyone who is not deemed “worthy” in their eyes.
The field is broad, and it is Trump vs. the Multiplicity. Again. Dems, Bourbon-like, forget nothing and learn nothing, so they will replay the 2016 catastrophe because they can’t do anything else. Actually fixing the electoral system to make it fairer, more transparent, and verifiable doesn’t occur to them, but then the Rs wouldn’t allow it anyway, so nothing gets done, and here we go again. None of the Dem candidates and potential candidates show the least sign of having what it takes to throw Trump and his enablers into the dustbin of history where they belong.
All except Sanders seek a restoration of a supposedly glorious past. No. It’s not going to happen.
And Sanders has yet to develop a clear-eyed vision of a future where the worst aspects of the past are relegated to the archives and are never revived.
As many here and elsewhere have pointed out again and again, we have very little time to engage in the necessary transformation of our social, political, economic and environmental systems. It should be obvious by now that our electoral system won’t get us where we need to be in time — or at all.
Nor will the ever-growing global Oligarchy.
In fact, they’re headed in the opposite direction.
Biden should be no more than a nostalgic memory. As should nearly all of our politicians.
Bill Hicks
If this was the worst thing oxen had ever done in his godawful career, he might have half a chance. These allegations also cannot be separated from his disgraceful actions towards Anita Hill, who had a much stronger case against Clarence Thomas than Ford’s against Kavanaugh. Then there is his abysmal voting record and his championing of making student loan debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. If he runs, he’s even more delusional than your average Washington hack.
Herman
Ian Welsh wrote:
“How much this matters is unclear. Trump did far worse things, we have tape, and it didn’t matter.
On the other hand Biden is running as a Democrat, not a Republican.”
This is what I find most fascinating about this issue. Republicans seem to be almost impervious to sexual misconduct allegations. Heck, Roy Moore almost won his US Senate race in Alabama. I wonder why this is the case. In any event, it will likely be a source of strength for the political right since taking people down with sexual misconduct allegations is becoming a common political tactic. Expect opponents of Bernie Sanders to try to take him down with a #MeToo scandal.
Z
Biden will never become president unless somehow the dnc and their Clinton-infested financiers are able to fund enough candidates to keep them in the contest to the very end in order to disperse votes and prevent an outright win. Then they can subvert the democratic process with the corrupt super delegates. I’d imagine that’s in the dnc blueprints to prevent the power-shifting horror of a Sanders and/or Warren nomination, with their deep pocketed funders financing folks like the narcissistic and empty Beto, Kamala, and Cory trio to insincerely align with Sander’s and Warren’s discerning stances and skim votes. Young. Black. Female. Got all the most powerfully divisive identities covered. Going to be a very interesting show over the next two years …
Biden is like a maitre de’ who is trying to jump into managing the kitchen. Eventually, your geniality gets exposed for all its emptiness when voters take a good, hard look at the garbage you are serving them.
“But, Trump did it” seems to be the qualifier, but Trump did it from the outside and doesn’t have decades of legislative deeds that have run counter to the interests of the vast majority of the American people. “Common” Joe’s nightclub act won’t play well with that blazing in the background.
Always wise to remember that the favored fuel of our rulers is refined amphetamines. To them, the opioids are for the dumb f*cks who have miseries to placate.
Z
Z
Shocked at our rulers’ undisciplined impulsiveness? Appalled at how short-term selfish they are and blind to the inevitable consequences that they’ll pay for, along with the rest of us, one way or the other? Horrified at how focused and dedicated they are to their perceived self-interests and how their reasoning twists within it? At how vacuous, egotistical, and empty they are?
Keep in mind what is racing through their veins. Because when you’re thinking a million miles a minute and one inch deep, who else do you have the time to think of? How far out are you able to think about beyond the present? How many variables are you able to integrate into your thought process?
Z
1001
Pfft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaddyNSo-xE
someofparts
Bill Clinton would have privatized Social Security if he hadn’t gotten pushed off track by the Monica Lewinsky business. That is hardly the best way to accomplish something as important as protecting our national pension system, but I will take that success with gratitude regardless of the dopey, bass-ackward way it happened.
Same with Biden. I found him extremely unacceptable as a candidate for all of the reasons that have been so ably articulated here. Even so, none of his other more serious faults would have discredited him enough to really finish off his chances, but this will. So, again, even though the shortcoming that will be his downfall is far from his worst misbehavior, if it is the one that will push him out of the running most effectively, then I’m grateful for it.
Someone asked a successful nature photographer which animal was the most dangerous, and he said that would always be mothers, of any species.
Z
If the corporate media can’t discredit Bernie and his support continues to grow, then the game for power of the democratic party will probably take the form of the financiers of the party heavily funding campaigns that they know can’t win, but will serve the purpose of diluting the delegate count so that no candidate can win outright. That’s probably why they are standing up cardboard cutout candidates Harris in CA and O’Rourke in Texas: they’re from states with a large amount of delegates. Neither of them are capable of withstanding critical scrutiny of their records well enough to win the nomination themselves. They’re not polished enough public liars to provide enough gravitas to their bs.
If our rulers are able to prevent any one candidate from getting enough delegates to win outright, then there will be a media-driven campaign of hysteria from MSNBC, the NY Times and such, that Trump must be defeated at almost any cost, it’s absolutely paramount, and despite Sanders having the most delegates, the one best suited for this role will be some party centrist of some type. And then they’ll drop their hand-picked super delegates card on the table and subvert the voters’ will. A political deal made in the smokiest of parlors.
Neither would it be a surprise that the Koch’s and any other traditional Republican party funders play some big boy chess and toss some money to the “right” kind of democrats if they catch scent of the scheme.
Z
Eric Anderson
The interesting thing to me is that the #Resistance set is already spinning this as a (ahem … cough cough) Trumped up BernieBro attack.
Tribal much?
Theo
The man is so awful (I didn’t know about his touchy ways with women until the other day when I saw something on line) it is disgusting and depressing that he is polling with Sanders. The man has an horrendous record. He’s a complete phony, nothing but a hail fellow well met back slapper and political opportunist, going with the easiest wind that hits his sail. God, I despise Democrats.
scruff
Every interview I heard of people who were admitting to voting for him was because of his pro-life stance.
Hypothetically – and to be clear I think this would be a bad outcome – what happens to the voting demographics if the Democrats drop the hardline pro-choice stance?
Spring Texan
Um, after watching a few of the video clips here, Biden’s behavior is a LOT worse to watch than it’s being described as https://twitter.com/i/moments/930120742422716416
I thought Franken was railroaded, but I sure don’t think that of Biden after the stuff are that link (from 2017). The stuff with little girls in particular is truly disturbing to watch. (Only time I’ve ever approved of anything Jeff Sessions did is when he swatted Biden’s arm away from his granddaughter.) Sickening.
Hurray for Lucy Flores!
Linda Merrill
All of “them” have open sores and they’re not all that concerned about it, unless they are forced to seem so. The concern is only recent–much thanks to Youtube, wikileaks, etc.–because their behavior, and much else, has been captured forever on tape and there is nothing they can do about it. A recent accusation from Nevada only lends credence to what we’ve long known from Biden’s public, on-camera, behavior; as many have considered: imagine what he does OFF camera. Who knows, but not hard these days to imagine, unfortunately–I say unfortunately because I liked it a lot better when I didn’t have to think about such realities as elite pedos and all that, alas, apparently goes along with it. Biden will not be the Democratic canditae, that’s pretty certain.
mago
Always wise to remember that the favored fuel of our rulers is refined amphetamines. To them, the opioids are for the dumb f*cks who have miseries to placate.
Z
Si Senor.
nihil obstet
The personal accusations don’t register with strong Republicans because they are the party of hierarchy. The top people get to do whatever they want. This is especially true with regard to sex. Powerful males have the right of access to any females. I’m not sure of two situations: can a powerful female molest a lower status male? Can a powerful male molest a lower status male? I suspect that in both cases, status in the hierarchy trumps sex. However, the difference in status between two males would have to be large, because one way patriarchy maintains its hold is by bonding the males in rights over females.
Simply put, calling for Republicans to repudiate a high status person because of personal conduct is like babbling in a foreign language.
different clue
@Ché Pasa ,
Your analytical framework is deficient in at least one respect. That at-least-one deficiency leads you to think that ” both are apparently acceptable to the factions that run the permanent government.”
“Both” referring to Biden ANNNND Trump.
Trump? Really? Have you really not noticed the huge screaming-in-broad-daylight conspiracy between Deep Embeds in the Intelligence Agencies, the MSM Clintonite Media, the Democrats, etc. to fabricate a fake conspiracy theory about ” kuh-LOOOOZH-uhn” between Trump and Putin? First, in order to prevent Trump’s election/inauguration if possible and failing that . . . his premature removal from office? Have you noticed how “not okay” the Establishment has been with Trump?
Have you not noticed that the only times the Establishment has portrayed Trump as “maturing in office” and “acting Presidential” is when he does something like bomb the Legitimate Government Forces of Syria? Because then the Establishment thinks that maybe Trump is coming around to support of the same Cannibal Liver-Eating Jihadis that the Establishment supports in Syria? Have you really not seen that?
Ché Pasa
Of course I’ve noticed, and I’ve also noticed it’s a show, a big, fat, farking show.
It’s a show intended to and working to condition the Rabble to accept Trump-Chaos as “normal.” Almost the only people who notice the effects of the Chaos any more are the victims. Which are legion.But never quite enough to make a difference.
If there had ever been a serious effort at a “coup” for example, neither Trump nor Pence would be in office today. Our vaunted Deep State or whatever you want to call the shadow government has many perfected ways to dispose of inconvenient presidents — which from any rational perspective, Trump certainly is. But he’s instead proved himself to be very useful, hasn’t he? Primarily for keeping the rubes and the media entertained while the People Who Matter loot, plunder and destroy with abandon.
Hugh
In response to different clue, oranges.
different clue
@Hugh,
What is “oranges” being offered in response to?