General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStatement by Vice President Joe Biden
Source: 4President.org
Statement by Vice President Joe Biden
April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Every year, at this time, we talk about awareness, prevention, and the importance of women feeling they can step forward, say something, and be heard. That belief that women should be heard was the underpinning of a law I wrote over 25 years ago. To this day, I am most proud of the Violence Against Women Act. So, each April we are reminded not only of how far we have come in dealing with sexual assault in this country but how far we still have to go.
When I wrote the bill, few wanted to talk about the issue. It was considered a private matter, a personal matter, a family matter. I didnt see it that way. To me, freedom from fear, harm, and violence for women was a legal right, a civil right, and a human right. And I knew we had to change not only the law, but the culture.
So, we held hours of hearings and heard from the most incredibly brave women and we opened the eyes of the Senate and the nation and passed the law.
In the years that followed, I fought to continually strengthen the law. So, when we took office and President Obama asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted oversight of the critical appointments in the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice and I wanted a senior White House Advisor appointing directly to me on the issue. Both of those things happened.
As Vice President, we started the Its on Us campaign on college campuses to send the message loud and clear that dating violence is violence and against the law.
We had to get men involved. They had to be part of the solution. Thats why I made a point of telling young men this was their problem too they couldnt turn a blind eye to what was happening around them they had a responsibility to speak out. Silence is complicity.
In the 26 years since the law passed, the culture and perceptions have changed but were not done yet.
Its on us, and its on me as someone who wants to lead this country. I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished. So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago.
They arent true. This never happened.
While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated. One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.
Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.
But this much bears emphasizing.
She has said she raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior staffers from my office at the time. They both men and a woman have said, unequivocally, that she never came to them and complained or raised issues. News organizations that have talked with literally dozens of former staffers have not found one not one who corroborated her allegations in any way. Indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way as indeed I would not have.
There is a clear, critical part of this story that can be verified. The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993. But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. It is the practice of Senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their public record: speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills.
There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. I am requesting that the Secretary of the Senate ask the Archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document. If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there.
As a Presidential candidate, Im accountable to the American people. We have lived long enough with a President who doesnt think he is accountable to anyone, and takes responsibility for nothing. Thats not me. I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth.
I have spent my career learning from women the ways in which we as individuals and as policy makers need to step up to make their hard jobs easier, with equal pay, equal opportunity, and workplaces and homes free from violence and harassment. I know how critical womens health issues and basic womens rights are. That has been a constant through my career, and as President, that work will continue. And I will continue to learn from women, to listen to women, to support women, and yes, to make sure womens voices are heard.
We have a lot of work to do. From confronting online harassment, abuse, and stalking, to ending the rape kit backlog, to addressing the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence.
We need to protect and empower the most marginalized communities, including immigrant and indigenous women, trans women, and women of color.
We need to make putting an end to gender-based violence in both the United States and around the world a top priority.
I started my work over 25 years ago with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act. As president, Im committed to finishing the job.
Read more: https://blog.4president.org/2020/2020/05/statement-by-vice-president-joe-biden.html
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)riversedge
(70,242 posts)Jill Wine-Banks
@JillWineBanks
·
11h
No surprise, but a huge difference. @nytimes
investigated charges against @JoeBiden
and reading it makes clear Reade is not credible. Trump's accusers are. That is my opinion as a prosecutor, not as a Biden supporter.
Link to tweet
?s=20
Peacetrain
(22,877 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)He posted it up Breaking News, and when asked to cross-post, suggested I do it here instead.
It is a very well crafted statement, and the campaign can simply reference it to such down the riff-raff of hacks and para-pundits who try to press for more. Just 'read the statement, it's all there', and proceed with some answer highlighting policy, or making an attack on the vicious incompetence and indifference of the present regime.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
Peacetrain
(22,877 posts)oh I am Mrs Peacetrain.. the Mr does not post in here much anymore
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)My mind gets like swiss cheese sometimes, especially when in high dudgeon --- then I seem tom lose my touch entirely....
Peacetrain
(22,877 posts)Most people think that because of the name...
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,662 posts)how soon people forget all the good Biden has done over one sketchy accusation.
crickets
(25,981 posts)LizBeth
(9,952 posts)I can use this when having conversation on social media.
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)My own support for Mr. Biden is purely situational --- he is the vehicle we must use to evict from office the cheap thug with his hairspray crown, and stymie the christo-fascist right he fronts for and enables.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
LizBeth
(9,952 posts)WheelWalker
(8,955 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)I have always thought of Trump as some dark gem essential to focus the energy of a wizard's contrivance, which without it cannot produce the beam of destruction and death so long contemplate the mage and his acolytes.
The thing was already there, just waiting for him, and he is not the cause, only the final, most virulent pustule of the disease afflicting our country --- the christo-fascist right and its Republican party.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
sheshe2
(83,786 posts)oasis
(49,389 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)mcar
(42,334 posts)The media's "but her emails" attitude toward this is making me . Never once did they subject Trump to anything even close to this scrutiny.
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)On all counts.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
ffr
(22,670 posts)Nice comeback! Loved it thoroughly!
NNadir
(33,525 posts)Caliman73
(11,738 posts)This is often, what separates Democratic Politicians from Republicans. Biden is asking for ALL documents to be released, just like Franken was asking for a full investigation. Why? Because they know who they are and that they are not guilty of the allegations. Republicans on the other hand, yell loudly, but do everything in their power to block access to information.
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)But it's an excellent statement nonetheless.
Caliman73
(11,738 posts)It really is an industry for those jerks. People like O'Keefe and Wohl make a living out of doing awful shit like spreading false allegations.
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)From the enemy's point of view it does not matter what is said, what evidence is offered in whatever quantity and of whatever quality. These trolling shit-heels will always want something more, something else.
We must make sure everyone knows we are having none of it, shame any on our side who try and pretend there's something to this swill, and blanket 'news' outlets who try and peddle these lies with angry protests and threats of boycott --- anything short of actual threats of lethal violence.
Show-boat talking heads playing 'balance' as if the Golden Mean were not a logical fallacy need to learn fear of social consequences. There are a damned sight more of us than there are of them, and we need to come together and make this plain.
The time for this sort of crap is over. They cannot ruin our leaders without our help, and we need to get this through our collective heads. Well-meaning, good-hearted people who tend to the left need to learn not to allow their better natures to be taken advantage of by vicious scum on the right, and splinterest wreckers on the far left, who enlist them in their charges against figures of the center left, by exhorting them to 'be consistent' and telling them 'don't be hypocrites'. The proper response to attempts at this is a hearty "Fuck off! Nobody cares what a rancid piece of dogshit like you thinks!" Or words to that effect....
Only attack the enemy, the christo-fascist right.
Never, ever, attack people who are on your side.
If you want one quick reason why the right wing wields power well out of proportion to the popularity of its policies, it is that they adhere to this rule, and we on the left do not.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
niyad
(113,336 posts)LAS14
(13,783 posts)Demsrule86
(68,586 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
Cha
(297,285 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)As you know, my preferred candidate was Professor Warren, but we are all in this now, and must pull together behind our candidate.
"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
honest.abe
(8,678 posts)This is all Joe needs to do. All future questions about this he can refer to this statement and his interview.
LAS14
(13,783 posts)LAS14
(13,783 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)Hekate
(90,714 posts)The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)Till I saw your post I had no idea it was Saturday....
Hekate
(90,714 posts)...and not Friday as I had thought all morning. Yikes.
I have a feeling your name is Legion.
On a side note, did you ever watch Downton Abbey? As the world changes and the younger set heads off to the big city, they come home with new words. At one point the Dowager Duchess (played by the magnificent Maggie Smith) asks: "What is a week end?" Two words, not one.
It brought me up short as I realized that in a self-contained rural world like this old estate and the associated farms and village, there is no weekend as we know it. To be sure, there is Sunday, which is punctuated by church, and all the rest of the days are named -- but the work (or whatever it is you do) goes on.
Anyway, just a random thought on being stuck at home.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)It will be nice to have an attorney in the Oval Office again.