https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52584774

I've got no comment on whether these allegations are true/false but there is some evidence from the 90s which backs her claims but also some inconsistencies.

However this case has brutally exposed the hypocrisy of some of the Democrats and their followers in America. Politicians and supporters had essentially in the past come out and said people should be presumed guilty and have to prove their innocence and a lot of high profile campaigners on that have suddenly gone quiet. Especially around the Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh who was smeared as some kind of sexual abuser when the government were trying to confirm him to his position, no idea if he is or isn't and that's the point, he was assumed to be guilty. The lawyer she is using has been smeared as he has a photo with Trump yet they didn't have a problem with him previously as also represented Harvey Weinstein's victims. They rightly talked about how some of Bernie supporters had got quite nasty with them yet happy to dish that nastiness out to this lady. Fair few left leaning TV stations trying to avoid interviewing her when this story broke hoping things would just go away.  

What a mess the political system has become out there. Trump is gonna walk this election again, what a fucking shambles.

Handsy joe has quietly been polling well, doing minimal press, and letting trump fumble over the covid crisis. He won the primaries without having to do much, its possible he nicks the general in a similarly magoo-ish fashion. The drumpf campaign is clearly not above hypocrisy, but most of their avenues of attack on biden - corruption, racism, sexual harrasment, gaffes - are things drumpf himself is up to his eyeballs in

Yeah, a few months ago I would have thought Trump would walk it but the Covid-19 shambles will help Biden unless a lot of voters just choose to stay at home.

Gazza M wrote:

Handsy joe has quietly been polling well, doing minimal press, and letting trump fumble over the covid crisis. He won the primaries without having to do much, its possible he nicks the general in a similarly magoo-ish fashion. The drumpf campaign is clearly not above hypocrisy, but most of their avenues of attack on biden - corruption, racism, sexual harrasment, gaffes - are things drumpf himself is up to his eyeballs in

Yeah but none of that wasn't true in 2016 too. Don't forget he invited Bill Clintons victims to a debate and sat them up front. Trump isn't trying to make out he's purer than Biden, he just wants people to see Biden as being as dirty as he is.

If the relative handful of swingstate voters that swung to vote Trump in 2016 didn't care that Trump was dirty then the "dirty" won't come into their decision making on Biden v Trump?

Those voters could easily vote Biden over Trump.

It's possible that the Bernie supporting progressive wing would not have supported Biden anyway, even before all of this.

I imagine the election will hinge on how Covid plays out over the coming months.

Qwiss! wrote:
Gazza M wrote:

Handsy joe has quietly been polling well, doing minimal press, and letting trump fumble over the covid crisis. He won the primaries without having to do much, its possible he nicks the general in a similarly magoo-ish fashion. The drumpf campaign is clearly not above hypocrisy, but most of their avenues of attack on biden - corruption, racism, sexual harrasment, gaffes - are things drumpf himself is up to his eyeballs in

Yeah but none of that wasn't true in 2016 too. Don't forget he invited Bill Clintons victims to a debate and sat them up front. Trump isn't trying to make out he's purer than Biden, he just wants people to see Biden as being as dirty as he is.

Clinton was an intensely disliked candidate, for a number of reasons. Biden is nowhere as disliked

y va marquer wrote:

If the relative handful of swingstate voters that swung to vote Trump in 2016 didn't care that Trump was dirty then the "dirty" won't come into their decision making on Biden v Trump?

Those voters could easily vote Biden over Trump.

It's possible that the Bernie supporting progressive wing would not have supported Biden anyway, even before all of this.

I imagine the election will hinge on how Covid plays out over the coming months.

I think theres a lot of damage being done to Biden with "progressives" and not just the Bernie supporters. I've seen a lot of people who would be critical of Bernie and "Bernie Bros" also being put off by Bidens record. I'm not sure how many of them are in swing states though.

The Covid issue will come into I'm sure but how much worse can Trump do? He told people to drink bleach.

Gazza M wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:

Yeah but none of that wasn't true in 2016 too. Don't forget he invited Bill Clintons victims to a debate and sat them up front. Trump isn't trying to make out he's purer than Biden, he just wants people to see Biden as being as dirty as he is.

Clinton was an intensely disliked candidate, for a number of reasons. Biden is nowhere as disliked

Thats why the Trump camp will want to air his dirty laundry as much as possible. Its not so easy to like "Uncle Joe" when you hear his rape victim on TV.

I think it's important to be precise about the description of the crime.
Tara Reade said he sexually assaulted her, she has not said she was raped.

It does women no favours when rape and sexual assault are conflated.

The fact that these two are all that is to be considered for president is tragic.

Qwiss! wrote:
y va marquer wrote:

If the relative handful of swingstate voters that swung to vote Trump in 2016 didn't care that Trump was dirty then the "dirty" won't come into their decision making on Biden v Trump?

Those voters could easily vote Biden over Trump.

It's possible that the Bernie supporting progressive wing would not have supported Biden anyway, even before all of this.

I imagine the election will hinge on how Covid plays out over the coming months.

I think theres a lot of damage being done to Biden with "progressives" and not just the Bernie supporters. I've seen a lot of people who would be critical of Bernie and "Bernie Bros" also being put off by Bidens record. I'm not sure how many of them are in swing states though.

The Covid issue will come into I'm sure but how much worse can Trump do? He told people to drink bleach.

He is currently being advised to question the number of reported Covid deaths, which would seem to indicate that his campaign see his handling of the pandemic as a threat to his chances.
In brutal terms there will be a tipping point in terms of how many deaths even his most rabid supporters will accept, so the game will be to convince them they are being lied to.

It is terrible that Biden is not being censured for his predatory behaviour, just as it's terrible Trump hasn't been. But it's entirely predictable.

The level of decline and dysfunction Biden exhibits in his video messages and interviews seems pretty unprecedented, though.

I was asking for a historical example of someone put forward as a suitable candidate for high office who seemed to be so impaired the other day, best anyone could come up with was Charles II of Spain.

My main point of curiosity / worry about the coming election is how far both candidates will go with anti-China sentiment, both have been rolling it out in their recent campaign propaganda.

A tendency to more and more antagonistic nationalism and racism, against a backdrop of precipitous economic downturn, allied to the greatest military arsenal in history … it does my head in a little bit.

5 days later

Battleground polling from august onwards is the thing to keep an eye on

People got swept up in hillary's strong national polling in 2016, and there was an air of complacency around the way tjlhe democrats campaigned in swing states

7 days later

Pick makes no sense. If a white moderate from Scranton can’t carry the Midwest states, what was the point of picking him?

Just fulfilling all righteousness.

His pick has to be Warren.

They want to lose.

Or to put it slightly differently, there's no one running the Democrats to whom the possibility of losing would be a disaster.

Wasn't she very popular with Republicans when they were grilling that Supreme Court Judge?

Burnwinter wrote:

They want to lose.

Or to put it slightly differently, there's no one running the Democrats to whom the possibility of losing would be a disaster.

It's a strategy issue. A classic case of how do you proactively disrupt the core before it collapses on itself. How do you  as Microsoft successfully build out cloud and services before desktop and on-premise die. I do wonder if, just as coronavirus will accelerate events in the tech space, will it have the same effect on politics? If people look at 30% unemployment rates, difficulties in affordably accessing healthcare in a crisis, and the challenges of paying for education during recession, will more people buy into left-leaning principles faster? And how well is the Democratic Party tracking this?

It accelerates nothing. The more the Democrats try, the more stuck in “Republicans” seem to get. You underestimate how stubborn these people are.

Folks who actively refuse to put on masks to reduce the rate of transmission of a virus...

*I assume that not every Republican is or is being unreasonable, just the staunch Trumpites and their kin.