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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   2796 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Outed as an Actual Rapist.

"Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.

'I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. 'I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’'"

Platner officially denies the allegations, but you can tell from his statement that deep down he knows it's true. He can't admit to it because he would go to actual jail, but everyone knows his campaign is over.

The haters said he would crash and burn, and they were correct. Honestly great call by the haters.

The Maine Democratic Party has one week until the ballot deadline to pick a candidate while stepping on as few toes as possible. Let the games begin.

The pundit class has been pretty significantly telegraphing that the guy is incredibly radioactive and that the republicans are just waiting for the filing deadline, and the NYT knew about this and suppressed it.

Supposedly the big thing that's being sat on is sexual warcrimes, which sounds absurd but this is a guy who said he wants his house to be robbed so he can rape the robbers*.

*Per one of his sexual assault victims.

The claim seems like nonsense. From what I can find, the only verified evidence of the supposed assault is this 2023 Facebook conversation:

“I feel morally obligated to warn you if you were anything more than friends with Graham,” she wrote in a message reviewed by CNN. “He’s not all bad, but I ended up in a bad situation with him and I will just very politely call him consensually careless at times.” When the other woman asked if “he forces himself on people?” Racicot replied “doesn’t listen when drunk…”

This is extremely strong evidence that he did not commit any assault. A raped woman is unlikely to convey her experiences like this. He’s not all bad??? Bad situation? Not providing a yes/no when asked directly if he committed assault? No woman since the end of the Ottoman Empire has characterized her rapist as “not all bad”

No woman since the end of the Ottoman Empire has characterized her rapist as “not all bad”

The counterpoint is a fairly common stereotype. "Girl tells her boyfriend she was raped/sexually assaulted, then he finds out it was a guy she still follows on Insta."

I think a fair number of women have, let's say, awkwardly complicated feelings about men who are sexually aggressive.

Just because Ms. Racicot said that Platner had non-consensual sex with him doesn’t mean that he did, of course. Right now, it’s a “he said—she said” situation, and there’s no way a prosecutor could charge Platner with no more evidence than her testimony, [1] but since there is a leftist “believe all women” streak in the Democratic party, since she has made the claim, Platner’s career is ruined. If he were a Republican, there’s a good chance he would still be standing (Kavanaugh, Trump, etc.) since conservatives are more inclined to believe in due process and presumption of innocence w.r.t. rape accusations.

About that “believe all women” streak, it’s an open question what percent of rape accusations are false rape accusations. I will list two sources with different conclusions:

  • Source 1 claims 0.2% of rape accusations are false.
  • Source 2 claims 28.8% of rape accusations are false.

Both sources show their homework, so people can look at them and see which source is more reasonable in its methodology.

[1] If she made a complaint right away after the 2021 alleged rape, they could had used a rape kit to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they had sex. It would then be a discussion about whether the sex was consensual, but police could had looked for signs of force being applied in the crime scene when it was still fresh. Five years after the fact, proving it happened is nay to impossible.

It really is reminding me of the Kavanaugh accusations (complete with Blasey Ford style "mentioned it to my therapist"). Will we get elevators full of screaming harpies and the rest of the circus?

I don't know if this happened at all, or if it happened the way she said. Platner is sleazy enough that yeah, it could have. But if E. Jean Carroll is uncritically believed, why not this woman? Tara Reade accused the wrong Democrat, but the Dems want rid of Platner, the previous scandals didn't shift him, now they can dump him with clean hands and have the progressive Democrat (as per the Silver Bulletin article on this) take his place and... lose against Collins, is my read on it.

There was a credible accusation against Biden and no one cared.

My honest guess here is that the Collin's campaigns insinuations that they have "bury him" dirt to drop in the general have either been secretly verified, or just intimidated the Dem establishment into turning on him. Maybe someone has video of him killing civillians or something.

This is probably the least bad thing the Dem establishment could use to tank him, in a way that could theoretically recover some of the capital they spent getting him this far.

There was a credible accusation against Biden and no one cared.

Ms. Reade’s accusation was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

Whether it was necessary to go to that depth to prove Biden’s innocence is another question for another day.

One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

"Trump got me alone in a dressing room in a department store in the middle of the day and managed to get my tights down without tearing them and get his finger inside me and no I never screamed for help or fought him off and no there was nobody, including any sales assistants, around and no I never went to the cops and yes I have the very dress hanging on the back of my door for years and no I didn't say anything about any of this until years later when my career was winding down and I needed the publicity boost", "why yes this poor woman was raped, even if technically under NY law digital penetration is not rape, I'm the judge I can say that" worked for E. Jean Carroll. Reade just picked the wrong guy to accuse.

Asking a bunch of people who worked or work for Biden if they thought he was a rapist while he is running for president is not a deep or serious investigation.

Also that is not what the article even concluded, the article just ends. They just interviewed a bunch of staffers and a few psychologists, each gave their piece. Where was the conclusion? It ends with a paragraph that suggests biden was too touchy.

Asking a bunch of people who worked or work for Biden if they thought he was a rapist while he is running for president is not a deep or serious investigation.

What constitutes a “serious investigation” in your book?

Keep in mind, the accusation happened in 2019, the alleged event happened in 1993, so we’re looking at a 26-year gap. They interviewed a bunch of people who were there, they checked out the architecture of the place where the rape supposedly happened.

What else could they do to investigate an event that supposedly happened 26 years before?

Now, if you ask me, if someone said “he raped me 26 years ago”, I would be very skeptical unless the person making the accusation had solid evidence backing up their claims. But, today in the post-woke era, there’s the notion that a man needs to prove his innocence if accused of any kind of sexual misconduct.

Keep in mind, the accusation happened in 2019, the alleged event happened in 1993, so we’re looking at a 26-year gap. They interviewed a bunch of people who were there, they checked out the architecture of the place where the rape supposedly happened.

What else could they do to investigate an event that supposedly happened 26 years before?

There was a 36 year gap between Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual assault and her going public with it. They had a whole entire investigation about it.

In response to Mitchell's memo detailing her conclusions, several former prosecutors and legal analysts published rebuttals, arguing that Mitchell erred in questioning Ford without there having been an impartial and full investigation. Others noted that Mitchell's role was "akin to [that of] a defense attorney", and therefore she should not have submitted a prosecution report. Two MSNBC legal analysts characterized Mitchell's assertions that Ford had "no memory of key details" and that others had not corroborated her account as flawed arguments, even going so far as to describe Mitchell's conclusions as "reek[ing] of desperation" and "misleading at best and disingenuous at worst".

What constitutes a “serious investigation” in your book?

Do talk to the people who were actually there and worked with her, like Ben Savage in the article.

Do try and corroborate or disprove. Like what happened to Tara's contemporaneous sexual harassment complaint? That to me seems like a great way to evaluate her credibility, but they mention it but dont really come back to it.

Do not talk to dozens of people who were not there and stand to benefit very very much ideologicaly and professionally if their boss is not a rapist.

Do not involve a psychologist of violence

They interviewed a bunch of people who were there,

No, they interviewed a bunch of biden staffers, the overwhelming majority of which did not remember her and were not there. I know this becauase I read the article, you do not know this because you did not.

I dont find tara's rape credible. But asking a group of people (with a huge vested interest in joe biden not being rapey) "is joe biden a rapist" is not convincing.

Ms. Reade’s accusation was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

Do you agree with that investigation's conclusions? Could you quote the parts of the linked article that you consider authoritative?

Whether it was necessary to go to that depth to prove Biden’s innocence is another question for another day.

What standard of evidence do you believe an investigation of such accusations against someone of Biden's stature should have applied? What do you think of prominent proposals for other standards, or the people championing them?

I feel it was a through and honestly done investigation of what it was like at the time when Reade worked for Biden, and why her alleged sexual assault would had been just about impossible.

The layout of that route and building [where Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden] has not changed. A recent walk through that area showed the subway tunnel contains no out-of-view areas, like an alcove. The remaining portion of the route includes multiple stairwells as well as corridors lined with offices. It is a main thoroughfare for senators and staffers.

Some former staffers told the NewsHour that if Biden did assault Reade in any of these places, it would have been a brazen attack in an area with a high risk of being seen.

“When I worked in the Senate, it was always crowded [and] packed with lobbyists, staff and tourists,” said Sheila Nix, who was Biden’s chief of staff on the 2012 presidential campaign and previously worked as chief of staff to two other Democratic senators.

"Investigated". Is that what we're calling this PBS election year hagiography?

Purportedly, the NYT had this story weeks ago when they ran the other one*, but excluded everything but that one woman so they could use the article to smear her and her allegations about Platner as motivated by sheer partisanship.

Democrats left and right are deleting all their fervent, avowed support for the man. He should brazen it out. Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L? His party would about face again in two weeks and slut-shame the accuser, just like the double-thought away the Nazi tattoo.

The haters said he would crash and burn, and they were correct. Honestly great call by the haters.

Never got that specific with the hater-ing, but it seems pretty on brand.

*Should be that one, but I don't subscribe to that rag.

Democrats left and right are deleting all their fervent, avowed support for the man. He should brazen it out. Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L? His party would about face again in two weeks and slut-shame the accuser, just like the double-thought away the Nazi tattoo.

I'm reminded of Jay Jones.

Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L?

Rumors are that there is a second story about him visiting an underage brothel in the Middle East that will drop if he doesn't quit. Every other rumor about this guy has turned out to be true so who knows.

That just sounds like an excuse to do another podcast with Hasan Piker. Talk about their common experience, maybe vlog a Devil's Tower.

but you can tell

How?

Tone and timing. Platner's video statement came out within minutes of the Politico article dropping, too soon for him to have calibrated his statement in response to public opinion about the article itself. Platner's tone is defeated and resigned, which would not be expected if Platner knew the allegations were false. He has shrugged off bad press before. If he believed in himself he could do it again. The simplest explaination is that he doesn't believe in himself, because he knows he's been caught.

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