Johnson claimed that Trump violently raped her when she was 13 at a 1994 orgy hosted by Jeffrey Epstein — the billionaire who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution and has been accused of having sex with more than 30 underage girls.
Johnson said Trump had sexual contact with her at four of those parties, including tying her to a bed and violently raping her in a “savage sexual attack.” The lawsuit said Johnson “loudly pleaded” with Trump to stop, but that he responded by “violently striking Plaintiff in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted.”
Americans influenced everything in my life.
I hope they collaborate onto better goals.
Buckle up.
I am afraid to think that soon we will find ourselves discussing whether or not someone who has raped a girl can run for presidency
Current court might decide it’s a requirement. Look at Jefferson.
Although they might decide that it’s not rape if it’s a slave. Which might make 13th amendment interpretations interesting.
It is amazing how there is no line that Trump/GOP are willing to cross for this man. I’ve never seen a guy make so many people admit they have no moral backbone at all. Everything they hate and say other groups are he is.
Criminal ✅
Con-Man ✅
Rapist ✅
Racist (They enjoy this.) ✅
Hostile insurrection. ✅
Try asking a Democrat to name one thing that Biden could do that would make them not vote for him.
To be fair, though, I don’t think that Biden would’ve gotten the nomination if he were as scummy as Trump.
Criminal ✅Illegal Democrat Witch HuntCon-Man ✅Media LiesRapist ✅Fake NewsRacist (They enjoy this.) ✅Democrats are the real DEI racists.Hostile insurrection. ✅Peaceful protest.Unfortunately for them this is what that list is.
We live in 2 or more realities existing simultaneously due to the real scum of the earth: propagandists.
I don’t get why people are down voting you. This is exactly it. They have an infinite layer of lies on lies to spin all of this stuff.
Whoops I missed the last line! My bad.
Yeah man, Trumpists and Propagandists, two mutually exclusive groups…
Most Trumpists have been duped by propagandists. It’s more comforting to them to believe the fake news talking points than to admit “their guy” is actually a vile waste of skin.
I think its also that “free speech” has become “you can lie to anyone for any reason and recieve almost no consequences” and in the age where media can be pushed and spun faster than it can be read there’s just no way our existing system can handle it.
This is why there’s a clear parallel to the 1940s where broadcast mediums pretty much did the same thing.
Now everyone has a megaphone and you get extra money if it snags eyeballs.
Yep, spot on. When you read trough their new media and their forums, this is ant it comes down to.
deleted by creator
And no MAGAtard worth their trash has ever linked their God-Emperor to that pervert Epstein. 😡🤬
MAGAtard? They prefer MAGAt or MAGAholic
Why isn’t this all over prime time news, including fox, so the christian voters can see it.
More importantly why aren’t the democrats and liberal establishment forcing this into the public eye. They could be using this to their advantage. Why aren’t we hearing about it as loudly as we should be. I’m not seeing it any where mainstream.
Fuck, biden should give a press announcement only for this.
(1) trillionaires (such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk) bought out the media - “prime time news” no longer exists, as it used to, now instead we have advertising segments meant to increase profitz
(2) the christians do not care - as evidenced by the fact that they already know. They just used him to accomplish their ends, of restricting abortion and whatever. Authoritarians just don’t think in terms like right or wrong, and rather what am I told to feel about this or that?
(3) also, yes they are THAT MUCH against the LGBTQIA+ “agenda” (of living life free from outside interference) that they could have watched the event happen live, heard her screams, and still vote for Trump. Some would still vote that way even if he had done it personally to them. It is an entirely different mindset, and we would do well to listen to it, rather than be surprised a few months from now (as we were before in 2016).
(4) if you want to understand it moar better-er, the best teacher I’ve seen is The Alt Right Playbook, by Innuendo Studios - I recommend starting at the beginning and going all the way through it, but the most relevant one to this discussion I think is this one.
TLDR: they know, they don’t care in the slightest - truly.
It boils down to this: To the GOP the idea that a LGBT person might molest a child is more important than the reality that Trump actually has.
I have to upvote Innuendo Studios.
No need to hyperbolic with the use of trillionaires there.
Billionaires, 0.1%, ultra wealthy or any other term would have sufficed.
Thank you for the correction - it is Amazon that has 2 trillion and Tesla 1 trillion, but Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk themselves each have only ~0.2 trillion, so billionaires not trillionaires indeed. My words would carry more weight if I were more careful slinging them around:-).
Ya, it’s Amazon that’s 2T. Tesla is currently 785b after its latest delivery report, but did make it into the 1T club at its peak.
I love the Alt-Right Playbook series. It’s so well done, but definitely not something I’d expect any Republican voter to understand, yet alone watch.
It is not meant for, nor aimed at, them. Rather it is to help liberals become woken up to the fact that conservatives aren’t merely temporarily displaced liberals themselves, who simply need a slight course correction and then they’ll be eternally grateful for being shown to be wrong (as we would in reverse), but rather how they think fundamentally, foundationally, in an entirely different manner.
And everything gets filtered by that worldview. Hence, even someone who was personally raped by Trump himself may still vote for him, believing not in “him” but in how he can be strategically useful to their cause of returning America to a state that never existed for us where an emperor can do whatever he wants, and somehow that’s what will make us great (again?). Just like how Russia is “great” and “strong” now - you know, in spite of literally all of the evidence to the contrary.
But lest my message get lost here: Innuendo Studios isn’t poking fun of conservatives for ignoring literally all of the facts that contradict their worldview and instead believing in their fantasical magical wonderland - rather, it helps liberals realize that we are the ones who are ignoring literally all of the facts that contradict our worldview and instead believing in our fantasical magical wonderland, e.g. where Bernie Sanders had some kind of a ghost of a chance at winning despite bucking the system of powerful elites, or that Hillary would win so easily that she didn’t even need to bother campaigning in the Midwestern states (beyond bringing hot sauce in her purse), or that people are so scared of Trump that Biden is a shoe-in despite not having earned people’s votes or being able to finish a sentence. We will receive our rude awakening, once again, and as always we will blame not enough people for voting or whatever tidbit lies easily within reach - anything rather than own up to the fact that irl reality is hard, and might involve some actual effort to understand, both others, and most especially ourselves.
You know that little boy near the end of Sixth Sense whispering “I see dead people, walking around like regular people - they don’t know they’re dead!”? Imagine instead that he said “we are the same, conservatives and liberals - other-group-person=bad but same-group-person=good, ignoring any inconvenient facts to the contrary”. This is why we’re fucked up the ass, and so easily led like sheep by the billionaires - bc we refuse to learn, from either failures or success, and instead merely tell stories to convince ourselves of the rightness of our respective causes, since we enjoy those calm stories more than the harshness and complexity of reality.
It doesn’t help that the same billionaires have spent decades dumbing down education and making higher education prohibitively expensive. All while cramming every single wedge issues under the sun into the national narrative to further entrench this tribal mentality. I know all of what you say is true, but it seems all but impossible to combat at this point.
It’s so hard to have any motivation to carry on in this world given a portion of it is fine with all manner of atrocities so long as “their guy” is “winning.” Why try to make anything better – be it more just, equal, enjoyable for all – when a good portion of the country (possibly the world) is so hell-bent on making it worse because they dislike a small subset of some insignificant problem?
Yesterday was the 4th. I just don’t know why anyone celebrated at all. What’s there to celebrate at this point when some will sell out their future, and the future of their own, for a “red hat?”
It does help though… it helps them. And that’s an important distinction that we would do well to recognize.
When a lion wants to eat you, b/c it is hungry or maybe it just wants to fatally bat you around for fun, it is not the lion’s job to not eat you - it is our job to not allow it to do so, or at least make our best attempt.
I am also not certain that this fight can be “won”. It most certainly can/will not if we do not even try.
Even so, there is value in learning things. Whatever comes after America will be rough, and it behooves us to wake the fuck up and face that rather than go back to sleep.
More to the point, it is more fun to live life awake and facing forward, than to have to constantly anticipate bad things that are inevitably coming but we have no idea when or how or what precisely it will look like. Maybe it won’t even be all that bad? But we’ll only know that if we look at it with our eyes.
But back to the fun aspect: why be Sisyphus, constantly struggling against things that we have no control over, when we can focus our attention on the things we can control? We cannot control “them” - we never will be able to control “them” - so why worry about it? That seems counterproductive. Instead, focus on what we can control, and the motivation returns. There is no spoon. No, seriously, there isn’t: we could only ever control ourselves, that’s it and that’s all that was ever possible, anywhere, at any time.
Another neat thing: when the USA broke away from England, it spawned an entire rash of similar actions in other colonies that gave the middle finger to the English kings, and other nations likewise ditched their own kings of their respective colonial empires as well (e.g. France). We inspired the entire fucking world. As Rome did before us. Even after we fall, nobody is taking that legacy away - it will live on for thousands of years when all of us have long since died, of causes natural and/or otherwise.
Moreover, they have updated to Democracy 2.0, while we remained mired in our 1.0 version, and really having downgraded even from that by allowing devolution into a 2-party system that brought us to this point. Maybe after a time we can import some of those newer democratic systems back in, if fascism replaces democracy and then democracy replaces that fascism, and we can have a bright shiny Democracy 3.0 then. Though one thing is for certain: Democracy 1.0 has already failed - not will fail in some future sense, but already. Either that or we can at least not be blamed overmuch for thinking thus, given how fatally we seem to be wounded lately.
Focus on what you can control. There is no spoon - only ourselves.
This is why.
It’s not just Bill Clinton though. Many of the rich and powerful are vulnerable to the Epstein story, including Bill Gates.
The media itself is a fucking mess.
Take this, for example:
So a self-affirmed victim sends an email to a magazine. That email becomes a point of fact even though people involved either never confirmed it or straight up said it never happened.
This happens constantly. “News” is getting reported before or without confirmation. Shoot first, ask questions later, maybe put a blurb at the bottom a couple weeks later when nobody will read it correcting everything that was wrong.
Obviously the Clinton’s wouldn’t confirm it, but they’ve long since learned not to deny it either. Denying is nearly as bad as confirming, since it gives even a little more credibility to the claims, just by acknowledging its existence. Especially in this current political climate, commenting at all has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Highly recommend the book “Trust me, I’m Lying”. News consumers have to do their due diligence now and actually judge the sources of the news itself, even for sources previously thought to be reputable. The court of public opinion is all that matters, and it’s judged by old and new media alike. Spez and Musk and Zuck are all as powerful as Murdoch, and they’re the Supreme Court of Public Opinion.
And then you have shit like the Internet Research Agency flooding the docket.
That’s a bingo.
They don’t want to shed light on it because it could implicate way more than just trump.
I think evangelicals see this sort of thing as a positive.
They think they might get a chance to do it too
The body has ways to shut down violent rape.
not that fucking guy
Christians have a thing about fucking kids, remember?
The article describes why the story feels to them so strange and suspicious. For example
It was the end of an incredibly strange case that featured an anonymous plaintiff who had refused almost all requests for interviews, two anonymous corroborating witnesses whom no one in the press had spoken to, and a couple of seriously shady characters — with an anti-Trump agenda and a penchant for drama — who had aggressively shopped the story around to media outlets for over a year.
Those shady characters — a former reality TV producer who calls himself “Al Taylor” and a “Never Trump” conservative activist named Steve Baer — had been mostly unsuccessful in getting the media to bite. There are a few very good reasons for that, which the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim succinctly summed up: Taylor and Baer have been really sketchy about the whole thing, and since the accuser is anonymous, journalists can’t do anything to verify her claims. The only journalist who has actually interviewed Johnson, Emily Shugerman at Revelist, came away confused and even doubting whether Johnson really exists.
Since a tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault came out in early October, a dozen named women have come forward with credible, similar-sounding allegations of Trump forcibly kissing or groping them in exactly the way he described on that tape. Johnson’s case was an outlier, with far more salacious allegations from a source that seems far less credible.
And it goes much further. I guess not many wanted to go hard on this story with it seeming a bit sketchy. Like they said in the end
It’s true that the allegation is explosive, andcould make voters see Trump’s many disturbing comments about young girls over the years in a new light. But it’s also very dubious and uncertain, and there’s no real need to promote a case like that when a dozen women have come forward with much more credible stories, using their own names and making themselves available to reporters for scrutiny.
There is a whole group of religious folks that are certain he is the antichrist and want to bring him to power so he can bring about the end of days, revelations, the rapture (where they will be saved), then after hell on earth, the 1000 years of peace…so…they are totally cool with his evil. It’s insane when you think about it from the position of nothing in religion being real.
I dont doubt it one bit. These people belong in mental institutions. Yet they’re allowed (encouraged?) to vote, as well as raise (indoctrinate) children into their ridiculous way of thinking.
I was one of those children. It’s a crazy life, and there are tons of people who live it and believe it.
Why are the dumb people driving the car?
It should be revealing with a story like this just how controlled the media has actually become. The vast majority of major media outlets have been slowly bought out and/or heavily funded by right-wing groups. The story should be everywhere, but you’ll probably only see it in niche news sites and maybe MSNBC. This is also why all we really see are negative stories about Biden regardless of what Trump does or says.
Well, as others said, it’s probably because it’s a 2016 article about a story that never got anywhere.
Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, who knows. But it’s definitely not the best thing to give press announcements about, especially considering all the horrible stuff Trump has verifiably done.
I don’t think they’ve read the article, which is a shame because it’s an interesting one. But it does make that point and comments about Clinto campaign
But the Clinton campaign hasn’t touched Johnson’s allegation, and with good reason. It’s true that the allegation is explosive, andcould make voters see Trump’s many disturbing comments about young girls over the years in a new light. But it’s also very dubious and uncertain, and there’s no real need to promote a case like that when a dozen women have come forward with much more credible stories, using their own names and making themselves available to reporters for scrutiny.
Jimmy carter sold his peanut farm to be president. Dan Quayle spelled potato wrong and lost the presidency.
But rape allegations are fine, because it might not be true. He’s such a trustworthy guy after all.
That’s not the point I’m making. I’m saying between inciting an insurrection, spending campaign funds for silencing pornstars, telling people to inject disinfectant in their veins, and sexual assault sentences… I’d say one shady rape allegation that never went anywhere is definitely not the main reason why he shouldn’t be president.
Trump is a pedo with several decades of documented creepy behavior.
There. “Explained.”
Yet, here we are, with the potential of him to be the next president of the country (again). :/
I think you mean the next king of your failed democracy.
and the first king in the idiomonarchy.
This.
100%Genuine curiosity, I thought we collectively agreed not to bring “This”, and other underwhelmimg comments, to Lemmy. Why does this “This” have so many upvotes? Why not just upvote the OP of the thread? Is it a demographic thing? Is Lemmy gaining enough popularity that the Upvoters are unaware of the history of Lemmy’s complaints against Reddit that led to (in our view as) its downfall? Or does “This” and it’s related Upvoters mean Lemmy bots and Lemmy farms are already rampant?
Edit: Or, looking at the post history, maybe this was bait for me and I gobbled it up. If DMs are a thing here and anyone has recommendations for positive and enriching communities, I’m keen to explore and find fulfilling engagement! Getting a bit disenchanted by Lemmy/the internet in general. Are niche hobby communities the only wholesome, silly spaces left on the internet? The irony is not lost on me that my post is negative in itself. Just trying to find a place with good people to feel a bit of belonging.
This.
democracy
Never was one. Kinda exactly what led us here.
I’m not from the US but even that kinda offended me. To say that there has never been democracy in the US, clearly judged by your very narrow view of history is incredibly ignorant.
How old are you?
If you really want to get into it, there was a great paper showing that by definition we’re much closer to an oligarchy, than a democracy or republic.
The US has always been a representative republic. For much of that time, it was representative of only a fraction of a fraction of the whole population.
how old are you?
"Uh… uh… eyes dart to the side 21 gulps.
And how are those representatives chosen, perhaps in some elections like in, I dunno, a representative democracy
Saying that the US isn’t a democracy because it’s a representative republic is like saying a shape isn’t a rectangle because it’s a square.
We aren’t a direct democracy. But in a representative republic power still stems from the people voting (ostensibly). Demoi (δῆμοι) meaning “peoples” and kratos (κράτος) meaning “power,” we get “democracy.” Power from the people.
That’s an ignorant, illiterate and pedantic puerile answer.
That whole “republic” bullshit is…bullshit.
The USA, as of today, is a FAILED democracy.
What point in history would you pin as American government being representative of it’s population. It was failed from the start.
That’s an ignorant, illiterate and pedantic puerile answer.
Baby’s first thesaurus?
That whole “republic” bullshit is…bullshit.
The USA, as of today, is a FAILED democracy.
An argument I’m sure you’ll support in your next replies.
Democracies will most likely always have flaws, I think it makes more sense to compare it to other systems in the same historical context than to apply a current vision of what a democracy should be.
While technically true, and for more reasons than you displayed knowledge of in the comments below (e.g., we really seem more of a “plutocracy”, where regardless of which side gets elected, the wealthy get their way outside of the legal system), it is also besides the point. We used to have more elements of democratic choices, like we were at least on the spectrum. Until Monday at least…
The US system is a representative democracy. How well that system works is another matter.
Pedantry got you here.
He should probably withdraw
He should be thrown in prison and not even given the freedom to withdraw. He should be forcefully taken out, legally but violently.
Something something defend something enemies both foreign and domestic…
Didn’t you hear? The president of the United States, who takes that same oath, exact same that any other military service member and elected official takes, is not actually bound by that oath, and can do whatever crimes they want so long as it’s a Republican president and the shriveled sack of justice, the SCrOTUS, says it’s official duties of the office!
What a time to be alive…
I told a trump cultist about the creepy things he said about his daughter. Guy said it’s ok, he made a mistake and God had forgiven him.
Think of the children, though. Those books are really dangerous.
He Raped that LITTLE GIRL as an OFFICIAL Act of the Presidency!
And he’d do it again too.
offtopic: Other than Trump and MAGAts using it, such capitalization could look interesting. As something, indeed, characteristically American. And it might make texts more legible sometimes (I’m not joking), a bit like with Bionic Reader.
538 upvotes on an article from 2016. This rape allegation was known in 2016:
A 2016 lawsuit accused Trump, then a candidate for president, of raping a minor, but no evidence was put forth before the case was dropped.
but no evidence was put forth before the case was dropped.
The case was dropped because the victim received death threats from Trump’s fanclub.
The whole case was also really suspicious, like the article said. People, including the only reporter who got to interview the woman (over a phone call) wasn’t even sure if the person actually ever existed. Seeing that this is a fairly old article, I wonder if we got any new info on this.
Oh well if he raped the 13 year old child 8 years ago it’s all fine. Statute of limitations on ethics and all.
/s
So this wasn’t an official act? I guess it depends upon which SC justice you ask.
He might not have been the president in 1994, but I don’t have a source to back that up
Ask Trump is all.
But her emails. But his stutter.
Technically not an accusation, Trump lost the lawsuit to Jane Doe. When Trump denied the allegations and accused her of defrauding him, he got sued again for defamation.
Trump raped a 13 year old girl.
Technically not an accusation, Trump lost the lawsuit to Jane Doe.
I’m not sure if there’s some other Jane Doe lawsuit he lost but he didn’t lose (either time) the rape accusation talked in the article. First was dismissed and second was dropped (likely because death threats).
A lawsuit filed in California in April 2016 accused Trump and Jeffrey Epstein of forcibly raping three 12 and 13-year-old girls at underage sex parties at Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 1994.[39] The case was dismissed the following month. A second version of the lawsuit was filed in New York in June by a Jane Doe claiming to have been raped by the pair at four 1994 parties when she was 13 years old.[40] It was withdrawn in October as the plaintiff said she had received death threats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations#Jane_Doe_(1994)
Aren’t those different cases?
I’m not sure what case they mean but this particular Jane Doe doesn’t seem to have won against Trump on rape allegations. First case was dismissed and second was dropped after there were death threats. Seems like there’s four Jane Doe lawsuits against Trump, two about the rape, but two of them have nothing to do with that. Pretty confusing.
No. But Trump does have like 30 other allegations, so I could see why you were confused.
Sure, the guy who says his friend likes girls on the younger side and that they are okay with it deserves the benefit of the doubt. Excuse me while I throw up.
This particular case is, technically, an accusation, though. Even if we’re all just about certain that it’s true.
Sure, I heard he totally respects women’s rights. He would be never think of purposely walking in on a young girl changing… Ohh wait
Did you even read what I said? I agree with you there. But technically, and I’m only bringing this up because you originally did, it is an accusation.
Suuuure, I am just calling bullshit on it. You are okay, even if your playing devils advocate to a rapist.
Jesus fucking Christ with you people.
Justified sarcasm, but not relevant to this particular thread about technical legal language.
The situation is so perverse but we are to hold a logical detached conversation about a child rapist. Excuse me while I go throw up again.
Again. Not arguing about the red team rapist.
Holy crap, I hope that’s not what you think I was saying.
It is hard to tell when you are dealing with a serial rapist.
Republicans: “That man is just LIKE US! He embodies every value that we hold dear! We should totally nominate him to lead our party.”
Oh thank God it was explained away.
Anyway, here are 13 pages of links to Biden old lame shitposts by tankies.
Don’t forget to nuke the west!
Supreme Court: “Presidential Action! Immune!”
But, but Biden!!!
Biden sniffs hair and loves his son yuck!
/s
Not here to start a fight. I get the annoyance at the whataboutism, but the list of allegations against Biden is much longer.
What list? Also quite literally Trump has been tried and was considered guilty of grapes. Literally admits to walking around nude children and touching women because he is a star
Not here to defend Trump. Nor imply he can be defended.
What list?
Not here to start a fight. Just saying that Biden haters have more on their list than your two items.
Them being more willing to make up a firehouse of random bullshit means nothing.
It does if you want piercing satire.
Faking whataboutism is very different to pretending your guy is whiter than white.
Both sides!!1! /s
