Month: April 2020

A 1993 video clip supports part of the story told by Tara Reade, a former aide to then-Sen. Joe Biden, who has accused Biden of sexual assault.

Reade has claimed the likely Democratic presidential nominee sexually assaulted her in 1993. Biden served as a U.S. senator representing Delaware from 1973 until he assumed the vice presidency in 2009.

Reade worked for Biden from 1992 to 1993, and has said that in one instance, Biden kissed, groped and digitally penetrated her during an unwanted sexual advance.

Biden’s campaign has denied Reade’s allegation. Although Biden has been the subject of complaints in the past from women who has said he inappropriately touched or kissed them, Biden has denied any inappropriate or malicious intent.

When Reade first told her story to The Intercept, she said her mother, who died in 2016, called into CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss the alleged assault, although she was unsure of the precise date.

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The newly resurfaced video appears to provide evidence that Reade relayed at least parts of her allegations to her mother.

The video clip shows King taking a call from a woman who did not give her name but who was from San Luis Obispo, California, where Reade’s mother lived.

“I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington?” the caller said.

“My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.”

#BREAKING: HERE is the video from August 11,1993’s ‘Larry King Live’ described by @TheIntercept (and Tara Reade) as allegedly featuring her mother calling in and alluding to Reade’s sexual assault claims against @JoeBiden (blog here by @ScottJW) https://t.co/fCgEqBnX7n pic.twitter.com/V5FGHskv56

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2020

King then asked, “She had a story to tell but out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?”

“That’s true,” the caller replied.

Reade had spoken about the call to Politico last month, before the video clip surfaced.

“She called him, I think, ‘a prominent senator,’” Reade said last month.

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“She didn’t get into the assault, she got into the harassment. She said my daughter was sexually harassed by a very prominent senator, and then they retaliated and fired her.”

Read has confirmed that the voice on the video was her mother’s.

“I just heard audio, my mother died and hearing her voice made me cry. She was such a good mom and always watching out for me even now,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation, saying the video proves “that I was forced out and wanted to come forward in 1993.”

This is my mom. I miss her so much and her brave support of me. https://t.co/okU80kqWAI

— taratweets ( Alexandra Tara Reade) (@ReadeAlexandra) April 24, 2020

Donald Trump Jr. used the video as the impetus for a fresh round of tweets about Biden:

Joe Biden isn’t sheltering in place in his basement bunker because of the pandemic, he’s hiding from Tara Reade. pic.twitter.com/Hf61yVQa9Z

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 25, 2020

OMG. Even today’s media will have a hard time not covering this, but they will try desperately. https://t.co/Vl1cs59OFo

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 24, 2020

Fox News reported that the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters was among the first to find the video clip, which was not uncovered by CNN despite the fact that King worked for the network in 1993 and that the video aired on CNN.

“While unsurprising given how fundamentally unserious of a network CNN has become, it’s gratifying for the MRC but shameful for CNN that they hadn’t unearthed this long ago,” NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck told Fox.

“It’s truly despicable that this footage existed and yet CNN failed to do its own due diligence within its own archives,” he said.

“That CNN couldn’t pull this clip out of their own archives, even after Reade mentioned it in a recent interview, seems to demonstrate that CNN just lacks hustle to investigate this story or just wants to keep the story buried,” DePauw University professor and media commentator Jeffrey McCall added to Fox. “Either way, this comes off as journalistic misconduct.”

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Election officials will automatically mail New Yorkers a postage-paid absentee ballot application during the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Friday.

“We’re making great progress to flatten the curve and decrease the spread of infection, but we don’t know when this pandemic will end and we can’t put democracy on hold,” he stated.

“I am issuing an Executive Order to ensure every New York voter automatically receives a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot because no New Yorker should have to choose between their health and their right to vote,” the governor continued.

Recently, Cuomo also issued an executive order allowing residents to vote absentee in the June 23 primary election, the announcement noted.

However, the New York GOP called the move an “illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections,” according to Breitbart News.

“The ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has permeated the Governor’s office and Cuomo is using this pandemic as a reason to expand his powers and force his political agenda through,” said chairman Nick Langworthy.

He continued:

There have been numerous cases across the country that should serve as a grave warning sign for the potential problems: ballot harvesting, ballots arriving late, ballots going to the wrong or old address, more than one ballot being delivered and bins of ballots that were never delivered. I have spoken directly to Boards of Elections commissioners from across the state of New York who oppose this order and characterize it as an impossible task.

Langworthy also warned that the New York GOP was ready to “legally challenge” Cuomo’s decision at every level.

Nearly 30 million mail-in ballots sent to registered voters went missing in the last four election cycles dating back to 2012, Breitbart News reported.

“In 2012, for instance, more than 33 million mail-in ballots were sent to registered voters. Of those, nearly four million went missing, more than 425,000 were undeliverable, and almost 260,000 were rejected,” the article read.

In a statement, Public Legal Interest Foundation (PILF) President J. Christian Adams called vote-by-mail a “disaster.”

“People who think it works haven’t studied the failures. The facts show mail voting doesn’t work,” he concluded.

Cuban Christians are using the need to wear sanitary masks in public to spread their faith, printing Bible verses on the front of them, the Christian aid group World Help revealed this week.

Babalú Blog, a website dedicated to news of interest to the Cuban global community, highlighted the development, noting that pastors were printing these messages despite the severe repression that Christians face in the communist country. Officially an atheist state, Cuba has allowed some Catholic activity after the Vatican began seeking closer relations to the Castro regime, but Protestants, dissident Catholics, and other Christian groups face regular threats and arrests on the part of state security.

World Help noted on its website that the group has been sending food and other necessary aid to Cubans on the island struggling to attain basic goods for years due to decades of communist economic collapse. It also received the suggestion of printing biblical verses on face masks to “share the Gospel to those who are looking for help spiritually … without even saying a word.”

“We don’t want to miss an opportunity to continue witnessing for the Lord,” Cuban Christians working with the organization reportedly told the group.

“They ordered 1,000 face masks printed with Bible verses to wear and hand out,” Vernon Brewer, the CEO and founder of World Help, told Fox News. “What an incredible witness. Their faith reminds us that, even when everything seems to be going wrong, God is still at work and we can put our hope in him.”

World Help did not name any of its partners or identify them as members of any particular church. Open identification as a Christian in Cuba could result in criminal action on the part of state, making declarations like those printed on the masks a risk to the life and health of the wearers. Like in other communist countries, notably China and North Korea, Christians often also tend to align with human rights and pro-democracy activists.

Among the most prominent examples of this is the dissident group Ladies in White, made up of the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of political prisoners. For nearly two decades, the group’s sole act of defiance against the regime has been to wear white, carry the photos of their loved ones, and attend Catholic Mass every Sunday in silence. The Castro regime has practically banned them from churches and arrests group members every Sunday on a regular basis. The group’s leader, Berta Soler, faces as many as four violent arrests a month.

Another prominent example of this repression is the arrest and sentencing of Pastor Ramón Rigal and wife Ayda Expósito for homeschooling their children. Cuba uses its schools as indoctrination centers, teaching children to worship the Communist Party and abide by its mandates; homeschooling is considered an act against the state. Rigal was sentenced last year to two years in prison for “acts against the normal development of minors;” Expósito was convicted of the same crime but faced only a year and a half in prison.

Cuban authorities released Expósito to make room in prisons to help prevent the rapid spread of the Chinese coronavirus, but Rigal remains behind bars at press time.

In addition to providing the couple no due process or adequate time to prepare a defense, Cuban state police arrested an independent journalist, Roberto Quiñones Haces, for attempting to cover the trial. Quiñones marked seven months in prison this month.

Christians have nonetheless attempted to continue offering aid on the island through the ongoing Chinese coronavirus disaster, which Cuban officials exacerbated by inviting tourists to the island and welcoming cruise ships as late as March; the pandemic is believed to have begun in China in November, but China waited until late January to alert the world and even then claimed the coronavirus was not contagious from human to human. Cuban officials also refused to shut down schools, noting their pivotal function to ensure generations of communist rule, and demanded parents send children in with soap and water, both of which are exceedingly rare on the island.

Cuba only recently began recommending the use of masks, but has not distributed them, instead requesting Cubans make them on their own.

Among the churches pitching in to help during the pandemic is the Christian Reform Church, Diario de Cuba reported, offering food and other basic items to those in need.

“In some communities, we have had to hand out raw goods and in others distribute money, as there are places where there is no food to buy in large quantities, Yordanys Díaz, the president of the church, told the newspaper. While community kitchens have closed, door-to-door distribution remains viable.

The communist regime claims to have documented 1,189 cases of coronavirus nationwide; 40 of those identified have died.

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On the one hand, there is Whitney Tilson, a liberal retired hedge fund manager who supports gay rights and all the liberal causes near and dear to many residents of New York City.

On the other, there is Samaritan’s Purse,  the healing arm of the ministry of the Rev. Franklin Graham, who has staunchly opposed gay marriage and defends conservative values.

When they met in Central Park near Tilson’s swanky Fifth Avenue digs, it would be normal — in a world where fault lines of faith divide people and identity politics rules the day — to expect sparks to fly.

Instead, friendship, partnership and respect blossomed, according to Religion News.

Sun over ⁦@SamaritansPurse⁩ field hospital in NYC Central Park; ⁦@Franklin_Graham⁩ ⁦@CissieGLynch⁩ pic.twitter.com/rXGA20Jj3i

— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) April 21, 2020

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“Their primary mission in life is not to go out and have hatred toward gays,” Tilson, who now writes an investment newsletter, said. “They believe what the Bible says, that homosexuality is a sin — yes. But it is not what drives them. What drives them is, ‘How can I do God’s work by healing people and saving lives?’”

Tilson had never heard of Samaritan’s Purse when its trucks arrived at Central Park on a mission to care for COVID-19 victims. When he learned the tents being erected would house patients Mount Sinai Hospital could not treat because it was full, he thought he might help out.

Four weeks later, Tilson, 53, cannot say enough in praise of Samaritan’s Purse.

“It’s an incredibly impressive organization,” he said. “I have no doubt they are delivering world-class critical care to my fellow New Yorkers stricken with COVID-19. Every single person I’ve met has been a genuinely nice person and very competent and good at their job.”

Official New York looked askance at the conservative Christian values espoused by Graham and demanded proof that the LGBTQ population and Muslims would not be discriminated against.

Franklin Graham has a long history of spewing anti-LGBTQ hate speech and I find it extremely troubling that he and his organization are involved in our relief efforts in any way. I will be monitoring this situation closely.

My full statement: pic.twitter.com/2cg6dHYHwA

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) April 1, 2020

Tilson had that battle as well. His family attends New York City’s Central Synagogue, although he is not Jewish. When he asked the synagogue to advertise for donations to help Samaritan’s Purse, which it did, there was pushback.

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“The values harbored by this group and its founder just completely fly in the face of what Central stands for,” Nancy Gilman, a member of the synagogue, said, according to the Forward.

Tilson said there was something more important taking place.

“I’ll have the ideological discussions with them later. If they’re here saving my fellow New Yorkers’ lives, and not even asking to be paid for it, then I will absolutely help them do that,” he said.

In fact, Tilson said, he was being true to the synagogue’s ideals.

“Central Synagogue’s ideology is first and foremost serving New Yorkers and healing the sick,” he said. “That is by far the most important ideology of Central Synagogue, and this is entirely consistent with that.”

It’s nice to get some good press for a change! (There must be something odd going on in the cosmos when a non-religious guy like me is getting written up by Religion News Service – LOL!)https://t.co/o8UrvubO1d

— Whitney Tilson (@WhitneyTilson) April 21, 2020

Tilson has spent thousands of dollars on food for the men and women working at Samaritan’s Purse, as well as supplying equipment to help the project. He is also letting the volunteers use his address to receive mail and made bicycles available to visitors who might want to use their scarce time off to see something more of Central Park than the field hospital.

In the late hours of the night, our night shift staff at our New York City Emergency Field Hospital tirelessly cares for patients struggling to breathe. Take a walk through a night shift inside our hospital. https://t.co/nx2wkODsLW

— Samaritan’s Purse (@SamaritansPurse) April 18, 2020

“He’s a great human being,” Graham said. “He might disagree with me, and I might disagree with him, but that’s not going to stop us from working together to help people.”

Graham invited Tilson to visit the North Carolina headquarters of Samaritan’s Purse, an invitation Tilson plans to accept.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.