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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

what happened to Tara's contemporaneous sexual harassment complaint?

There was no complaint because, as per the PBS article, people who worked with Biden did not corroborate Reade’s claim in the alleged complaint that she was asked to serve drinks.

What makes you think I didn’t read the article?

What makes you think I didn’t read the article?

You draw conclusions that are not supported by the article.

E.g.:

In interviews, staffers have also raised doubts about Reade’s claim that she was asked to serve drinks at a fundraiser, an incident she said she included in an official complaint of sexual harassment submitted while she worked in the office. But more than 50 former staffers said they didn’t remember ever attending a fundraiser for Biden in Washington, D.C., when they were on his Senate staff. And some recalled an office policy banning most of Biden’s Senate staff from doing campaign work.

This does not support the position there was no complaint, but I almost don't blame you because they wrote it very bad. But I still blame you because even if these were more solid they would point to Tara's claim being not credible, not that it didn't exist at all.

Like they interview 74 staffers, and close to a third of them remember Biden attending fundraisers in DC, which would corroborate Tara's allegation. This is also an example of a problem with interviewing so many people who never met Tara. What use is it asking a Biden staffer from 2016 if Biden had ever fundraised in D.C.? They lump in a bunch of useless data points in with people who were there. Like if the third of staffers who had attended a D.C. fundraiser worked in the 90s with Tara that is obviously a much stronger piece indication than if that third worked with Biden under Obama.

They also apparently had a policy that allowed at least some Senate staff to do campaign work (most is not all), also somewhat corroborating Tara's allegation.

The text in your hyperlink which I am quoting above does not support the conclusion that there was no complaint, it supports the conclusion that her complaint is not credible. Likewise with your second link now quoted below:

I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty

This is just an accusation. You should have highlighted this part:

Reade says she doesn’t have a copy of the report, and Biden said Friday that he is not aware that any complaint against him exists. He asked the Senate and the National Archives to search their records to try to locate a complaint from Reade.

This supports the conclusion that there was no complaint because no one actually has the complaint.