On Wed, 10 May 2023 08:22:30 -0400, Yak <Yak@inbox.com> wrote:

>On 5/9/2023 9:19 PM, NoBody wrote:
>> On 5/9/2023 5:41 PM, Yak wrote:
>>> On 5/9/2023 8:36 PM, Grab them by the Pussy Donald Trump wrote:
>>>> Trump’s Failed Rape Defense Was Straight Out of the 17th Century
>>>>
>>>> What really was on trial in the E. Jean Carroll case was our attitudes
>>>> towards sexual assault.
>>>>
>>>> A Manhattan jury took only three hours to find former President Donald
>>>> Trump liable for the sexual abuse of the writer E. Jean Carroll that
>>>> occurred almost 30 years ago, but the defense Trump mounted dated
>>>> back far
>>>> longer.
>>>>
>>>> $5M Gut-Punch: Jury Finds Trump Sexually Abused E. Jean Carroll
>>>>
>>>> Trump’s defense team chose to present no evidence in the case, but
>>>> relied
>>>> entirely on a cross-examination of Carroll that was a showcase of sexual
>>>> assault victim tropes. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina applied long-
>>>> discredited assumptions about how sexual assault victims must behave if
>>>> they are to be believed.
>>>>
>>>> Tacopina’s strategy focused on the fact that Carroll had delayed in
>>>> bringing out the allegations—and never reported them to the police—as
>>>> well
>>>> as the fact that she had not screamed during the attack. Both of these
>>>> lines of questioning are based on ignorant assumptions about how trauma
>>>> affects victims and especially sexual assault victims.
>>>>
>>>> Delayed reporting by survivors needs to be viewed in light of the fact
>>>> that the majority of survivors never report being assaulted. One study
>>>> found that only one in five women even report the sexual abuse.
>>>>
>>>> Factors that affect the decision to report include the person who
>>>> committed the assault being in a position of power compared to the
>>>> victim,
>>>> as well as the fact that many victims blame themselves for what
>>>> happened.
>>>>
>>>> As a former sex crimes prosecutor, I heard many times the self-doubt
>>>> experienced by victims questioning if they had somehow brought this
>>>> violence upon themselves. In what I understood was due in large part to
>>>> the shaming that our history has imposed upon survivors, and also what I
>>>> felt was some attempt to exert control over an uncontrollable
>>>> situation by
>>>> thinking that there might have been something they could have done, many
>>>> victims would wonder aloud to me and police if they were to blame. They
>>>> wondered if they had “led the perpetrator” on and criticized themselves
>>>> for not fighting back or screaming for help.
>>>>
>>>> Such factors were front and center in the E. Jean Carroll versus Trump
>>>> trial. Carroll testified about her feelings of shame, and one of the
>>>> good
>>>> friends she told about the attack advised her to not report it because
>>>> Trump was so powerful that he would crush her. Which, of course, is
>>>> exactly what Trump tried to do once she did go public with the
>>>> accusation.
>>>>
>>>> America’s Tragedy Is Its Culture of Fear—Armed With Millions of Guns
>>>>
>>>> Tacopina’s focus on whether Carroll screamed during the attack
>>>> ignored the
>>>> well-documented research findings about how our brains react to trauma.
>>>> Freezing up and dissociation are common reactions to traumatic
>>>> stress, and
>>>> Carroll described her feelings of being frozen during her testimony.
>>>> Tacopina’s efforts to grill her about why she didn’t scream backfired on
>>>> him when Carroll told him “I was in too much of a panic to scream. You
>>>> can’t beat up on me for not screaming.” This caused Tacopina to retort
>>>> that he was not beating up on her—which isn’t exactly the best statement
>>>> for a male lawyer cross-examining a woman to make.
>>>>
>>>> Thankfully, in recent years, trauma-based interviewing of sexual assault
>>>> victims gradually has become the standard training and approach for
>>>> sexual
>>>> assault advocates and investigators. From my own experience, I have seen
>>>> how such interviewing and questioning techniques are not only
>>>> compassionate but far more effective in eliciting evidence in sexual
>>>> assault cases. But even though the research and training have been used
>>>> for many years now we are far from societal-wide understanding.
>>>>
>>>> Tacopina had a duty as a lawyer to zealously represent Trump, and the
>>>> fact
>>>> that he used such ignorant misogynistic assumptions shows his belief
>>>> that
>>>> these assumptions still exist in the minds of many.
>>>>
>>>> Trump’s deposition—in which he leaned into his assertion on the Access
>>>> Hollywood video that his “star” status allowed him to grab women by the
>>>> genitals without consent—well illustrates this. Indeed, Trump actually
>>>> testified that such behavior dated back for as long as a “million years”
>>>> —an obvious invocation of so-called cave-man behavior.
>>>>
>>>> E. Jean Carroll’s Lawyers Leveled a Knockout Blow on Trump
>>>>
>>>> The jury rejected these assumptions in its verdict against Trump, but
>>>> that
>>>> is no sign that such attitudes have been now fully consigned to the
>>>> past.
>>>> Indeed, much of Trump’s appeal to his base is rooted in the idea that
>>>> America needs to return to a more misogynistic and racist past in
>>>> order to
>>>> reclaim supposedly lost glory.
>>>>
>>>> The reveal of this theme in conservative thinking has become more
>>>> emboldened, not less. Let’s remember that Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion
>>>> overruling Roe v. Wade relied in part on the thinking of 17th century
>>>> jurist Matthew Hale, who presided over witch trials resulting in women
>>>> being put to death. (Hale also believed that women could not be raped by
>>>> their husbands.)
>>>>
>>>> Trump and his like-minded thinkers want the progress toward
>>>> enlightenment
>>>> to be reversed. But courageous survivors like E. Jean Carroll and the
>>>> other women who testified against Trump ensure through their courage
>>>> that
>>>> the progress won’t easily revert to 17th century beliefs—much less the
>>>> million-year old thinking espoused by Trump.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-failed-rape-defense-straight-
>>>> 221353714.html
>>>
>>> Seeing as how he wasn't held liable for rape it must have been a
>>> pretty good defense.
>>
>> He said he didn't know who she was and the encounter never happened.
>> The jury said the encounter happened and he sexually abused her.
>>
>> He raped her.
>
>Doubtful. Even under the civil standard of liability, which ain't all
>that hard, (preponderance - i.e. 51%) the jury didn't even find that.

That's because they weren't sure he inserted anything more than a finger.

"Grab 'em by the pussy!"

Swill
--
"Poison is running through our democracy and parts of the extreme press. Truth, buried by lies.
and lies living on as truth. Lies told for profit and power. Lies and conspiracy and malice
repeated over and over and over again, designed to generate a cycle of hate and even violence.
A cycle that emboldens, history to be buried, books to be banned, children and families to be
attacked by the State, the rule of law and our rights and freedoms to be stripped away.
Where elected representatives of the people are expelled from Statehouses for standing for the people.
I've made clear that we know in our bones, and you know it too, our democracy remains at risk.
But I've also made it clear, as I've seen throughout my life, it's within our power, each and every one of us
to preserve our democracy. We can, we must, we will." -- President Biden at the 2023 Whitehouse Correspondent's Dinner

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