NY Times Editor Admits Editing Article on Biden Sexual Assault Allegation After Campaign Complained

So the article originally written like this: "Dean Baquet, in an interview with Times media columnist Ben Smith, explained why edits were made to the following sentence, which appeared as follows in the print edition of the paper, on page A20: "The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."
And changed it to this at the request of the Biden campaign: "Baquet said the Times decided to delete the second half of the sentence, without explanation in the form of an editor's note, because "the [Biden] campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct."
NY Times Editor Admits Editing Article on Biden Sexual Assault Allegation After Campaign Complained

So, other than " the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable", they found no pattern of sexual misconduct? They thought it " made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct."? No kidding. Whatever happened to "we must believe the woman?" OR, "we believe women." or "#me too"? I don't get it. Why isn't it on every news channel? Radio show? Over and over? Where's Anenatti? Oh , yeah, sorry....
Anyway, has anybody noticed a double standard? :shock:

There are no other instances of Biden being accused of sexual harassment or assault. Just one hardcore Bernie supporter who changed her story and announced on a pro-Bernie podcast this year that Biden allegedly raped her 27 years ago. There certainly are people in the metoo movement who want everyone to surrender their faculties and renounce any and all skepticism even when warranted, but too bad.

Napoleon said:

There are no other instances of Biden being accused of sexual harassment or assault. Just one hardcore Bernie supporter who changed her story and announced on a pro-Bernie podcast this year that Biden allegedly raped her 27 years ago. There certainly are people in the metoo movement who want everyone to surrender their faculties and renounce any and all skepticism even when warranted, but too bad.

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Ms. Reade, who worked as a staff assistant helping manage the office interns, said she also filed a complaint with the Senate in 1993 about Mr. Biden; she said she did not have a copy of it, and such paperwork has not been located.

Examining Tara Reade’s Sexual Assault Allegation Against Joe Biden - The New York Times

That, and Tara Reade supposedly filled charges against him with the senate, but there are no records to support that.

swing_voter said:

Ms. Reade, who worked as a staff assistant helping manage the office interns, said she also filed a complaint with the Senate in 1993 about Mr. Biden; she said she did not have a copy of it, and such paperwork has not been located.

Examining Tara Reade’s Sexual Assault Allegation Against Joe Biden - The New York Times

That, and Tara Reade supposedly filled charges against him with the senate, but there are no records to support that.

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Yeah, Tara Reade. The Bernie supporter who has a suspicious history as it relates to this accusation.

PSA: if you voted for Trump, you have absolutely no business saying anything about this.

Dude's got 19 rape accusations and another 6 "other" sex assault allegations to his name. And that's on top of the pedo-admission of walking in on minors in the changing room at his pageants just because nobody was gonna stop him.


It's also the rare instance where doing something that might otherwise be immoral - voting for someone who might just have committed digital rape - is actually the moral act, since it is the only way to take someone far worse out of power. Someone who....well since someone asked me to explain why I despised Trump so much the other day, here's the short list.


"Evil" acts:

1. Spending the first 70ish days of the COVID-19 outbreak lying and denying, all in a bid to try to protect his numbers, thereby helping cause an exponential growth of the disease. He quite literally got lots of people killed in a pointless bid to protect re-election prospects.

2. Abandoning Kurds who bled and died with us to torture and death, simply because evil dictator Erdogan wanted a favor.

3. Ignoring the court decision that required Obama to release and monitor families that had been detained together - in a program that saw roughly 94% (if memory serves) of the released people show up in immigration court - reinstituting it, but deliberately separating children from parents while not making any effort to track the parents. Oh right, and not even giving them basic necessities or adequate medical care. Permanently breaking up families of asylum seekers just to try to scare the others away.

Pro-tip: asylum seekers are generally escaping death. It's just Trumpists who accuse them of lying.



Not-quite-evil-but-utterly-corrupt acts:

4. Knowingly receiving foreign interference from the country the right called our "greatest geopolitical foe" when it was convenient to slander Obama for his benefit in an American election, and not so much as letting the authorities know.

5. At least fourteen instances of obstruction of justice to cover it up. You'll have to read the 485 page Mueller report for that.

6. Having Barr lie about the contents of the report, again, to protect his re-election prospects.

7. Unlawfully withholding aid approved by congress for Ukraine, our ally, which it needed to ward off the country the right called our "greatest geopolitical foe" when it was convenient to slander Obama.

8. Corrupt appointments for family members.

9. Despite years of cheering on the GOP's "Benghazi" hearings, which were in reality just about smearing Hillary in advance of 2016 for sloppy use of a private email server, turning around and engaging in far more pervasive careless treatment of sensitive information. This involves "declassifying" information simply by blurting it out on live TV.

10-100. Gimme a break. That's too much work.

Napoleon said:

There are no other instances of Biden being accused of sexual harassment or assault.

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Oh, I think he's up to nine now.

Napoleon said:

Yeah, Tara Reade. The Bernie supporter who has a suspicious history as it relates to this accusation.

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Would you support Biden if he sexually assaulted you?

Mr Person said:

PSA: if you voted for Trump, you have absolutely no business saying anything about this.

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Okedoke, but, what if - and, stay with me here for a moment - what if it's wrong no matter whose team the person is on?

Napoleon said:

There are no other instances of Biden being accused of sexual harassment or assault. Just one hardcore Bernie supporter who changed her story and announced on a pro-Bernie podcast this year that Biden allegedly raped her 27 years ago. There certainly are people in the metoo movement who want everyone to surrender their faculties and renounce any and all skepticism even when warranted, but too bad.

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yeah...maybe you can refresh us as to your position about a 40 year old allegation of an alleged groping incident at a gathering that according to the 6 witnesses cited never even occurred?

cpwill said:

Okedoke, but, what if - and, stay with me here for a moment - what if it's wrong no matter whose team the person is on?

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If you acted on it and didn't vote Trump, then you can say it. If you voted Trump despite those 25 allegations, 19 of which were rape, then no...you have no standing.



As I see it, voting for someone who actually raped someone is immoral. Biden might have done it. It'd be nice to hear some testimony so I can observe demeanor and the like. But at the end of the day I have to ask myself: what's more important, whether I tarnish my soul by voting for a potential rapist, or whether I tarnish it more and in fact inflict four more years of Trump on everyone else by not voting against a much bigger rapist?

Right now, I'm at the "tarnish my own soul" phase. Trump has done too much wrong in too many directions. Reality isn't black and white. It's grey. And I think I do more wrong not voting in the one way to take Trump out than I do voting for someone accused of rape, just this one time.

Any other election, any other republican, and I'd have no problem voting 3p or protest voting. I've done it before. ****, I've voted for Republicans before. If someone wasn't convinced now about 2020, I can only ask them to consider the first 70 days of is COVID-19 response. He lied and denied, in a hopeless bid to protect his re-election prospects. He got people killed. He didn't care. That's no president. It just isn't. And I'd hope anyone of any lean would agree.

Sure, I could vote third party. I could say "Person, see how righteous you are? You didn't vote for any rapists! Go YOU!" But then I'd have to face the fact that in a binary political system, that can operate as a vote for Trump.

My only out is that I'm in MA. MA is voting blue no matter what. Maybe I'll lean on that. But this guy....this guy just isn't a president. It's bad. And people really did die because of him. Look again at that list of 9 points you cut out b/c of the character limit. He's worse than bad.

Taylor said:

Would you support Biden if he sexually assaulted you?

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I wouldn’t make up a sexual assault as a political weapon.

VanceMack said:

yeah...maybe you can refresh us as to your position about a 40 year old allegation of an alleged groping incident at a gathering that according to the 6 witnesses cited never even occurred?

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What allegation?

Anyone who supported Trump has no standing to talk about Biden and sexual improprieties.

Napoleon said:

What allegation?

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Specifically the Ford Allegations.

cpwill said:

Okedoke, but, what if - and, stay with me here for a moment - what if it's wrong no matter whose team the person is on?

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did you vote for Trump?

VanceMack said:

Specifically the Ford Allegations.

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I don’t have any doubts that Kavanaugh was a wild and reckless partier in his youth, but I’ve always treated Ford’s specific allegation with the skepticism it deserves and specifically recommended by the APA in repressed memory therapies.

Mr Person said:

If you acted on it and didn't vote Trump, then you can say it.

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Well, I didn't vote for Trump. For a host of reasons, this among them, he was utterly unworthy to the office.

But, you are conflating unlike things - simply voting for someone to hold an office does not mean that you cannot think some acts of theirs are abusive and reprehensible.

If you voted Trump despite those 25 allegations, 19 of which were rape, then no...you have no standing.

As I see it, voting for someone who actually raped someone is immoral. Biden might have done it. It'd be nice to hear some testimony so I can observe demeanor and the like. But at the end of the day I have to ask myself: what's more important, whether I tarnish my soul by voting for a potential rapist, or whether I tarnish it more and in fact inflict four more years of Trump on everyone else?

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For example: See Above. People can make the argument that:

Reality isn't black and white. It's grey.

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In order to make the argument that yes-Trump-is-bad-but-here-is-the-list-of-reasons-why-his-major-opponent-is-worse, etc.


It's possible Trump did it. It's possible Biden did it. If you think this is a binary choice (and, I would point out, technically, it isn't), then your only choice is to vote for someone about whom this sort of accusation is indeed quite possible, or not to vote at all.


Personally, I think both men are unworthy of the office and will probably be voting third party again.

Right now, I'm at the "tarnish my own soul" phase. Trump has done too much wrong in too many directions. Reality isn't black and white. It's grey. And I think I do more wrong not voting in the one way to take Trump out than I do voting for someone accused of rape, just this one time.

Any other election, any other republican, and I'd have no problem voting 3p or protest voting. If someone wasn't convinced now, I can only ask them to consider the first 70 days of is COVID-19 response. He lied and denied, in a hopeless bid to protect his re-election prospects. He got people killed. He didn't care. That's no president. It just isn't. And I'd hope anyone of any lean would agree.

Sure, I could vote third party. I could say "Person, see how righteous you are? You didn't vote for any rapists! Go YOU!" But then I'd have to face the fact that in a binary political system, that can operate as a vote for Trump.

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Then you need to accept that equally reasonable people will make equally reasonable arguments about Biden in order to justify their vote for Trump :shrug:

Either we accept that something like this puts a political candidate out of the bounds of someone who can receive our vote, or we don't.

CaughtInThe said:

did you vote for Trump?

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Nah. I voted for the guy out in Utah who later turned out to be a smug preening little fella. :shrug: I had planned on voting Libertarian until they put up Gary Johnson.

Did you vote for Bill Clinton?

cpwill said:

Well, I didn't vote for Trump. For a host of reasons, this among them, he was utterly unworthy to the office.

But, you are conflating unlike things - simply voting for someone to hold an office does not mean that you cannot think some acts of theirs are abusive and reprehensible.

For example: See Above. People can make the argument that:

In order to make the argument that yes-Trump-is-bad-but-here-is-the-list-of-reasons-why-his-major-opponent-is-worse, etc.

It's possible Trump did it. It's possible Biden did it. If you think this is a binary choice (and, I would point out, technically, it isn't), then your only choice is to vote for someone about whom this sort of accusation is indeed quite possible, or not to vote at all.

Personally, I think both men are unworthy of the office and will probably be voting third party again.

Then you need to accept that equally reasonable people will make equally reasonable arguments about Biden in order to justify their vote for Trump :shrug:

Either we accept that something like this puts a political candidate out of the bounds of someone who can receive our vote, or we don't.

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Ok, you didn't vote Trump. Then you certainly can make that criticism. I still disagree.

It is worth repeating that our exchange started with my list of reasons (or, shortlist) to vote in the way most likely to defeat Trump is what is motivating me here. I've never liked Biden all that much, I groaned when he won the nomination, but the bottom line is that a 3p vote is a throwaway vote; a protest vote. And while I'd happily do that in other times, Trump is on the GOP ticket. For me, that means the very most important thing is a putting a Democrat on.

I'm willing to do wrong - vote for a potential rapist - to stop Trump. That's my pragmatic judgment. If I pay a price in some afterlife, then I pay that price. But I won't contribute to four more years of Trump. He isn't just a bad president. He got people killed out of vanity and greed. He alienated our allies and cozied up to countries that were supposed to be enemies or at least borderline enemies, depending. His acts affect all of America. A president who puts himself before the country is no president at all.

So you'll vote the way you'll vote, and I can only hope you'll reconsider. Or perhaps more importantly, that the subsection of "Bernie Bros" currently planning on sitting at home will reconsider.

And I do not think I've ever said that reasonable people cannot disagree with me. That would be stupid in the extreme. It's a different weighting of values, aka of premises, that leads to different conclusions. I get it. I just wish more people saw this one election the way I see it. It's: (1) vote for a turd that is possibly going senile, but one that will at least listen to intelligent experienced people around him, (2) vote for a raging ****gibbon who is an utter narcissist (and more) who has harmed the country, (3) throw away a vote and thereby, by operation of a binary political system, help whomever is otherwise leading in his state.



I'll know what I do on the day I vote. At least I have the comfort that MA is voting blue no matter what. People in the swing states that matter most? We'll see.

Napoleon said:

I don’t have any doubts that Kavanaugh was a wild and reckless partier in his youth, but I’ve always treated Ford’s specific allegation with the skepticism it deserves and specifically recommended by the APA in repressed memory therapies.

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Well kudos to you then. Most liberals on this site didnt show such restraint.

Mr Person said:

Ok, you didn't vote Trump. Then you certainly can make that criticism.

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See, though, you can make this argument....

It is worth repeating that our exchange started with my list of reasons (or, shortlist) to vote in the way most likely to defeat Trump is what is motivating me here. I've never liked Biden all that much, I groaned when he won the nomination, but the bottom line is that a 3p vote is a throwaway vote; a protest vote. And while I'd happily do that in other times, Trump is on the GOP ticket. For me, that means the very most important thing is a putting a Democrat on.

I'm willing to do wrong - vote for a potential rapist - to stop Trump. That's my pragmatic judgment. If I pay a price in some afterlife, then I pay that price. But I won't contribute to four more years of Trump. He isn't just a bad president. He got people killed out of vanity and greed. He alienated our allies and cozied up to countries that were supposed to be enemies or at least borderline enemies, depending. His acts affect all of America. A president who puts himself before the country is no president at all.

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...Or you can make this one.


But you can't make both. Either the logic that "I can vote for someone who is morally unacceptable because the other person is worse" is acceptable (meaning that someone who voted for Trump could indeed criticize Biden on this issue, and could reasonably vote for Trump if they considered Biden worse).... or it isn't.

So you'll vote the way you'll vote, and I can only hope you'll reconsider. Or perhaps more importantly, that the subsection of "Bernie Bros" currently planning on sitting at home will reconsider.

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For me, I cannot morally cast a vote that supports our current abortion regime.

And I do not think I've ever said that reasonable people cannot disagree with me. That would be stupid in the extreme. It's a different weighting of values, aka of premises, that leads to different conclusions. I get it. I just wish more people saw this one election the way I see it.

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Ever the lament of those who care.

cpwill said:

But you can't make both. Either the logic that "I can vote for someone who is morally unacceptable because the other person is worse" is acceptable (meaning that someone who voted for Trump could indeed criticize Biden on this issue, and could reasonably vote for Trump if they considered Biden worse).... or it isn't.

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Except I'm not the kind of moral relativist who thinks that morals are just a sort of vague up-for-grabs thing. So no, you can't make that argument. If a person thinks that voting for Trump is the moral thing, that person is wrong. And no, I am not bound to accept it because, shruggy shrug cpwill says it's all subjective. '

Or maybe you can tell me how many times Biden lied and denied, and got people killed directly, as Trump did with COVID. Maybe you can tell me how many times he said "hey, you know those allies who bled and died in the **** and the mud? Let's just abandon them because I want to kiss dicatator's ass."

You discredit yourself with this stupid game-playing, this false moral equivalence game. If Biden is nowhere near as bad as Trump, any "Both sides" claim is dishonest.

cpwill said:

For me, I cannot morally cast a vote that supports our current abortion regime.

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How dare those women be allowed to make decisions about their bodies.

Is "picking the least of multiple evils" really that hard to comprehend? Is there anyone on the right who can understand voting for Biden to oppose the much worse Trump? Or do they all really think that "the left" is all bad unless they either vote Trump or third party, even as they themselves decline to urge their counterparts to vote 3p?

"The Hypocrite Game" is almost always so stupid, so dishonest, so partisan. Shame cpwill played it in a circumstance to which it did not apply.





It's sad that he does not understand that in making a big show of how principled he is by voting 3p, he will be helping the embodiment of what he rages against win again.





Public Service Announcement: If your show of standing on principle means a ****load of other people pay the price, you aren't standing on principle. It's only standing on principle when you're the one tied to the stake (and damn humanity for the simple fact that that metaphor is possible to utter).

Mr Person said:

PSA: if you voted for Trump, you have absolutely no business saying anything about this.

Dude's got 19 rape accusations and another 6 "other" sex assault allegations to his name. And that's on top of the pedo-admission of walking in on minors in the changing room at his pageants just because nobody was gonna stop him.


It's also the rare instance where doing something that might otherwise be immoral - voting for someone who might just have committed digital rape - is actually the moral act, since it is the only way to take someone far worse out of power. Someone who....well since someone asked me to explain why I despised Trump so much the other day, here's the short list.


"Evil" acts:

1. Spending the first 70ish days of the COVID-19 outbreak lying and denying, all in a bid to try to protect his numbers, thereby helping cause an exponential growth of the disease. He quite literally got lots of people killed in a pointless bid to protect re-election prospects.

2. Abandoning Kurds who bled and died with us to torture and death, simply because evil dictator Erdogan wanted a favor.

3. Ignoring the court decision that required Obama to release and monitor families that had been detained together - in a program that saw roughly 94% (if memory serves) of the released people show up in immigration court - reinstituting it, but deliberately separating children from parents while not making any effort to track the parents. Oh right, and not even giving them basic necessities or adequate medical care. Permanently breaking up families of asylum seekers just to try to scare the others away.

Pro-tip: asylum seekers are generally escaping death. It's just Trumpists who accuse them of lying.



Not-quite-evil-but-utterly-corrupt acts:

4. Knowingly receiving foreign interference from the country the right called our "greatest geopolitical foe" when it was convenient to slander Obama for his benefit in an American election, and not so much as letting the authorities know.

5. At least fourteen instances of obstruction of justice to cover it up. You'll have to read the 485 page Mueller report for that.

6. Having Barr lie about the contents of the report, again, to protect his re-election prospects.

7. Unlawfully withholding aid approved by congress for Ukraine, our ally, which it needed to ward off the country the right called our "greatest geopolitical foe" when it was convenient to slander Obama.

8. Corrupt appointments for family members.

9. Despite years of cheering on the GOP's "Benghazi" hearings, which were in reality just about smearing Hillary in advance of 2016 for sloppy use of a private email server, turning around and engaging in far more pervasive careless treatment of sensitive information. This involves "declassifying" information simply by blurting it out on live TV.

10-100. Gimme a break. That's too much work.

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Very very well said.

Mr Person said:

Except I'm not the kind of moral relativist who thinks that morals are just a sort of vague up-for-grabs thing. So no, you can't make that argument. If a person thinks that voting for Trump is the moral thing, that person is wrong. And no, I am not bound to accept it because, shruggy shrug cpwill says it's all subjective. '

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I believe in an absolute morality - but people of good intent working with the same information are capable of coming to radically different conclusions about what that may be. If you want to say that you think that voting for Trump is an immoral act because he has been accused of sexual assault - okay - that is your judgement, and it's defensible.

You simply do not get to then turn around and say either:

A) "but it doesn't count when it's my team because the other team is worse"
or
B) others cannot logically and reasonably come to their own conclusions regarding whether or not voting for Trump (or Biden) is a moral or immoral act

Or maybe you can tell me how many times Biden lied and denied, and got people killed directly, as Trump did with COVID.

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Sure. I'm pro life. Biden supports the mass-murder of innocent children that is ongoing. By that logic, until the death rate of Trump's lies reaches more than 600,000 every single year, Biden is the worse choice, as Trump will at least appoint pro-life Judges.

Now, you are free to disagree with me (and I'm sure that you do), however, that is not the same as me being illogical. It is me drawing a different (equally logical) conclusion than you do from the same data.

Maybe you can tell me how many times he said "hey, you know those allies who bled and died in the **** and the mud? Let's just abandon them because I want to kiss dicatator's ass."

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Again, you seem to be confusing "I think Trump is worse" with "Therefore everyone else must begin from the presupposition that Trump is worse". That is rather self-evidently not the case.

You discredit yourself with this stupid game-playing, this false moral equivalence game. If Biden is nowhere near as bad as Trump,

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You may think so (and, as a person, I would agree with you). Others agree with you only because they believe that Trump is nowhere near as bad as Biden, and they can be equally logically coherent.

How dare those women be allowed to make decisions about their bodies.

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A) the whole "Keep your laws off my body" argument is emotionally appealing, and also very stupid. We have all kinds of laws that impact the body - we say, for example, that you are not allowed to use your body to assault other people, you can't take your body over certain speeds on the roads, you have to put coverings over particular parts of your body if you go out in public, you can't put certain substances into your body, and if you put these other substances into your body in certain amounts you cannot legally do this laundry list of tasks. Right now we are telling you that you can only take your body certain places and - in some locales - if you take it other places or get it close to too many other people we will arrest you. In this thread you are criticizing Trump because he didn't place enough restrictions on people's bodies, early enough. We even claim the right (in extremis) to take your body from you, put it in the military, and send it off to die.


B) However, within that construct, one individual's rights end where another's begin - for example, I am fully on board with not allowing men to make the decision to use their bodies to beat their wives. Once you accept that unborn child is a human child (and, as I said above, you may disagree, and probably do), then it is no more a violation of human rights to forbid the using one's body to kill unborn children than it is to kill (say) a three year old.