Caitlyn Caruso Had Her Chance YEARS Ago To Speak About Joe Biden-Here IS What She Said

[Stare Decisis]

This is from Nevada Public Radio all quote here is being used under fair use for no commercial benefit.

https://knpr.org/knpr/2016-04/young-activist-has-eyes-set-2016?utm_content=buffer5fb21&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR1-vGePq2R1zQ3eZK3yYcBs3zy88F6OPU5osPKZwWdGWMNTUmkGdd4A-5Y

When Vice President Joe Biden came to town, you got to speak with him?

Oh my gosh! It was such a wild experience. It was a really fast week. I was contacted by the White House staff to come and speak before he took the stage to share my story. I got to share my story before a couple hundred of my peers, which was wild. Then afterward, he sat me down and talked to me about the work he’s been doing to prevent sexual assault all across the country.

Close quote.

No further comment.

[highplainsdem]

1. K&R and thank you for finding that!

I'd been googling her earlier, trying to find out more about her for replies in another thread

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128749776

but I was doing a keyword search that included

-biden

to eliminate all results with Biden's name so I wouldn't just get page after page with her accusation against him.

So I missed that story.

[Stare Decisis]

2. I would request the New York Times

require at a minimum to vet their witnesses before such publications.

No reporter would have gone to print knowing this quote. It is going to be up to US to do the heave lifting to ensure FAIR press, isn't it?

[Thekaspervote]

3. The common thread these women all found meeting the Vice President useful to their cause

Now, many many years later... not so much. Why? being marched forward to tell their tale of woe. Seems pretty self serving to me. And yes, I am a woman!!! It’s shameful

[Stare Decisis]

6. For those wo are wondering

Link to tweet

Apparently Caitlyn and Lucy have known each other for some time.

[R B Garr]

14. Wow! Flores and another complainer are pen pals!

What are the odds? Coordinated attack to the max. Not that we didn’t have that figured out, though.

Great find. This should have been its own OP. That is a substantial piece of incriminating information that clouds this whole charade. Charade is accurate because it was about starting a pile-on to damage Biden and get him not to run. We are not fooled.

[Demsrule86]

18. Please make this a separate post . This is suspicious. Now we need to know who

Put them up to this.

[LuvLoogie]

81. page no longer exists...hmmm

[Stare Decisis]

82. Here-

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128752789

[Demsrule86]

21. And they know each other. What are the odds? They damaged me too also.

[Jarqui]

4. If I were Joe, I'd be calling Al Franken to compare notes.

He may well wind up like Al did.

[WheelWalker]

78. Not a chance.

Biden will not be swift-boated.

[Cha]

5. I'm curious if there are any who were all up

in Gillibrand's case about "no investigations" are now trying to take down Joe Biden?

Wow! Mahalo, SD

When Vice President Joe Biden came to town, you got to speak with him?

Oh my gosh! It was such a wild experience. It was a really fast week. I was contacted by the White House staff to come and speak before he took the stage to share my story. I got to share my story before a couple hundred of my peers, which was wild. Then afterward, he sat me down and talked to me about the work he’s been doing to prevent sexual assault all across the country.

https://knpr.org/knpr/2016-04/young-activist-has-eyes-set-2016?utm_content=buffer5fb21&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR1-vGePq2R1zQ3eZK3yYcBs3zy88F6OPU5osPKZwWdGWMNTUmkGdd4A-5Y

[Blue_true]

37. Funny how that works, isn't it. I wonder WHO they are trying to help.

But honestly, I really didn't expect less. It's all about casting aspersions against while holding out their hands to show how clean and uplifting they are. Remember the campaign donor list fiasco from 2016?

[pnwmom]

7. You're blaming her for not speaking out when she was a COLLEGE FRESHMAN?

About something that happened to her in high school? You think that was her only "chance" or she needed to forever keep her mouth shut?

Years before the #metoo movement. Before the other women came forward and made her feel she wanted to support them.

I don't blame the 18 year old for trying to just ignore the incident with Biden when it occurred, just after she shared -- with an audience -- her story of her rape at the age of 13. And I'm not surprised that it took her some time to process her feelings.

[Stare Decisis]

8. So she is tough enough

to stand before a large audience to speak up about the subject, but has to wait YEARS to talk about it, WHILE CREDITING the VP with participating in a FORUM ABOUT ASSAULT?

Well here check this out on what appears to be her own Twitter account from the day of the alleged incident-a voluntary share:

Link to tweet

She mentions Biden voluntarily. Notice anything at all negative?

[pnwmom]

9. It would have made no sense for her to bring up Biden when her goal at the time

was to educate people about sexual assault.

She in no way accused Biden of sexual assault. She appreciated his Violence Against Women Act and wouldn't have wanted to undermine the discussion of actual assault by bringing non-assaults into the discussion. (Even if she had processed the incident in her mind by the time of the interview.)

NOW she has something to add in ANOTHER discussion -- that initiated by Lucy Flores. This isn't about sexual assault but about inappropriate touching by men who don't realize the effect their actions can have.

[Stare Decisis]

10. If someone patting one on a shoulder or a thigh

can send them into therapy, they have much bigger problems than an affectionate Vice-President.

[pnwmom]

11. Your snark is noted. She didn't say that she had to go into therapy

because of his inappropriate behavior. And you know it.

What you clearly DON'T understand is that there is a major difference between a man touching a woman on her shoulder and "resting" his hand on her THIGH. Particularly a woman who is a survivor of sexual assault.

She was uncomfortable with his action and disappointed that an author of the Violence Against Women Act didn't understand the importance of physical boundaries.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/us/politics/joe-biden-women-me-too.html

Ms. Caruso, now 22, said she chalked up the encounter at the time to how men act, and did not say anything publicly. But she said it was particularly uncomfortable because she had just shared her own story of sexual assault and had expected Mr. Biden — an architect of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act — to understand the importance of physical boundaries.

“It doesn’t even really cross your mind that such a person would dare perpetuate harm like that,” she said. “These are supposed to be people you can trust.”

[Stare Decisis]

12. How about this

the reputation of a good man and our chances to defeat Trump are far more important than the accusations of an over-sensitive millennial that Joe might have patted her on the thigh or hugged "too long."

Clear enough for you?

You are going to lose this argument, whether you quit now, or later, because most Democrats see right through this garbage.

Also, clear enough for you?

[pnwmom]

13. The good man should simply say he's sorry, which he has for some reason been reluctant to do.

If he isn't genuinely sorry, there are plenty of other candidates who could defeat Trump. Even aside from this issue, I've never thought Biden had the best chance against him. There are several others I think would be stronger.

[Celerity]

46. +10000

[Demsrule86]

19. You don't like Biden. This post raises questions. The fact the two knew each other in particular.

[pnwmom]

25. I don't like his touchy-feelyness or some of his policy positions. That doesn't mean I dislike him.

I thought his video statement today was good, actually. Much better than his written statement.

[Demsrule86]

59. Point taken.

I can understand that. I come from an affectionate family so it seems ok to me.

[treestar]

15. When are we adults?

This reminds me of Monica Lewinsky supposedly being a victim at 23. Oh, but she's so close! When are we finally adults able to decide when we want to commit adultery or complain about social issues?

React immediately. Quit with the excuses and then bringing this up years later. Society is no longer going to ignore it. Slap him right there. At some point we have to not be victims to this extent.

If there were not question of Biden running for POTUS, we still wouldn't have known of it?

[pnwmom]

16. Even Biden gets it now, according to his video. Even HE isn't saying what he did was right.

Resting his hand on the thigh of a 19 year old who just publicly shared about her rape as a 13 year old? He did that without thinking, not out of empathy, or he would have realized she wouldn't have wanted that kind of contact.

Unlike some people here, I am very close to someone who was raped as a young teen. I first met her when she was 19 and the rape, years earlier, was still raw. She's been through years of therapy but I don't think she'll ever be completely over it.

So I think it's really, really wrong to judge young women who've been through experiences like that, and don't immediately respond when powerful, respected men are overly physically familiar. The survivors just go into their protective mode -- they freeze and wait for the unwanted contact to be over. And then they go home and, in a safe place, absorb what happened.

Joe Biden seems to get this now. It's time for his supporters to accept that he recognizes that the world has changed, and his behavior also needs to change.

Biden being Biden has been talked about for decades, and was bound to come up sooner or later. I think he's lucky that he's gotten this behind him now, before he's even officially running.

[treestar]

17. No we should teach them to speak right up

that they have the right to and not to be intimidated about it. That's the very problem we complain of from earlier times! Now there will by sympathetic people. Even the police are trained not to just dismiss such things any more.

[pnwmom]

22. That isn't something rape survivors can be TAUGHT. Survivors of childhood sexual assault

can't be taught to feel or act the way you think they should feel or act.

It's not that they don't think they have the right to speak up. It's that a rape can have physical and psychological consequences that can last for years. And one of those consequences is FREEZING when their physical boundaries are violated. Not speaking out. Not confronting. Just freezing and waiting for whatever the unwanted contact is to be over with -- just like they did as a child being raped.

This article is about freezing during sexual harassment. I am NOT saying that Biden sexually harassed her. But your demand that she immediately "speak right up" when he was overly familiar with her shows that you don't understand why she reacted the way she did.

Because she was raped as a child, even a contact to her thigh that Biden meant as perfectly innocent wasn't felt that way by her. And so she froze in disbelief. And she didn't scold him or slap his hand away. She just waited for it to stop.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/201804/freezing-during-sexual-assault-and-harassment

Over millions of years, evolution sculpted a specific defense circuitry pathway which carries out that stop-movement or “behavioral inhibition” component of freezing.

Simultaneously, the defense circuitry also instantly stops any thought processes. Research suggests this happens via rapid chemical and electrical changes in regions underlying verbal and visual thinking.

Those sudden cessations of behavior and thought can be understood as a “network reset" (which is initiated by a brainstem area, the locus coeruleus). That reset prepares the brain to receive new and potentially life-saving information—and generate options for responding to it.

[GemDigger]

52. Did you just equate assault/rape survivors with those whose space was invaded?

That is a slap across the face of any survivor of sexual assault/rape/trafficking.

[pnwmom]

56. No, just the opposite. That 19 year old who felt uncomfortable with Biden's hand on her thigh

was a victim of rape when she was a child of 13. She was at the event to share a story about her rape. Afterwards, Biden "rested his hand" on her thigh, making her very uncomfortable.

I was responding to someone who was criticizing her for not telling Biden off, and I was explaining why she wouldn't. As a survivor of child sexual assault, she responded by freezing in surprise. Not by telling him off.

[treestar]

70. Still then say something the next day

You're making her a victim for life because of her prior assault.

[treestar]

69. Still there is a point where it is not fair

to others to let it go on for so long. I thought the whole point was that the days when the police and others did not believe you should be changed. To make that impossible proves you think we have to be victims forever. We would not say we would be so traumatized that we should not report immediately any other crime and that this one can never be reported immediately would mean it was never a problem to begin with.

And this was not a sexual harassment, so adults should deal with it on the spot. We can tell our daughters and sons that it is OK to speak up for themselves, no matter how powerful the others person.

[Demsrule86]

20. He did what he had to do to end this. But the two women know each other.

Truth will out

[pnwmom]

23. There were 4 women, all Democrats. Which 2 are you talking about?

Lucy Flores.
The woman whose neck got grabbed to pull her in for a nose rub.
The woman who was there for a photo and felt Biden's hand moving down her back in an uncomfortable way.
The 19 year old rape survivor.

[R B Garr]

27. Your embellishments are quite dramatic. "Neck got

grabbed”. Embellishing like that looks like frustration, actually. I bet Biden didn’t grab her neck,

[pnwmom]

32. She used the word "grab" except she said it was her head. I actually minimized what she said.

“It wasn't sexual, but he did grab me by the head," Amy Lappos told told The Hartford Courant about the incident on Monday. "He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth." She then described how the encounter made her feel, "There's absolutely a line of decency. There's a line of respect. Crossing that line is not grandfatherly. It's not cultural. It's not affection. It's sexism or misogyny."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2019/04/02/joe-biden-rubbing-noses-and-benevolent-sexism/#501e98d26077

[R B Garr]

40. Grab: grasp or seize suddenly with force.

I bet Biden didn’t grab her.

[pnwmom]

41. She said it. Are you calling her a liar? n/t

[R B Garr]

43. I've seen many of your posts on this subject, and I've

seen the embellishments. Like when you dramatically described how Biden supposedly approached Flores from behind when she couldn’t have seen him since she was supposedly in front of him.

Do you think Biden was forceful with her neck?

[pnwmom]

60. How can you say I embellished this when the quote is right in front of you?

And Biden DID approach Flores from behind. I have no idea what you're disputing here. Of course she couldn't have seen him when he approached her from behind. She doesn't have eyes in the back of her head.

https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/an-awkward-kiss-changed-how-i-saw-joe-biden.html

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

[R B Garr]

62. You are mixing up the two incidents.

You embellished about how Biden approached Flores from behind. Your words were overly dramatic. Neither you nor Lucy could know what that looked like because you couldn’t see him.

I was asking you to answer if you think Biden was forceful with her neck. It sounds a bit embellished to me.

[pnwmom]

63. Please show me which of my words were overly dramatic. Flores's description speaks for itself.

As to the fundraiser, who described Biden pulling her in by the neck for the nose rub, I accept her description of what occurred. I think he was overly enthusiastic, not meaning anything bad by it. But it was still inappropriate.

[R B Garr]

65. Flores could not see him if he was behind her. nt

[pnwmom]

66. She said she FELT him come up behind her, sniff her hair,

and kiss the top of her head. I didn't make that up. It's from the article.


https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/an-awkward-kiss-changed-how-i-saw-joe-biden.html

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

[R B Garr]

75. She changed her story and said he kissed the top of her head.

Some of your posts described how he approached her from behind, which would be impossible to know, of course.

[pnwmom]

83. How would it be impossible for her to know that he came up behind her and kissed her head?

She could feel him there. She said that.

[R B Garr]

84. "She said that". But she couldn't see it, so...

Official event photographers, her own friend’s pictures, no one saw it.

Any descriptions of how he supposedly approached her from behind are embellishments since we weren’t there and she couldn’t see it.

[Demsrule86]

30. I know of three women.. Flores,Caitlin and the Eskimo kiss woman

Not being snarky, can't remember her name. Very suspicious that these two know each other.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RuthieH2O/status/1113311984722665473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1113311984722665473&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F%3Fcom%3Dview_post%26forum%3D1287%26pid%3D50090 is the link.. this is on the same post we were on.

[pnwmom]

33. The fourth was a Democratic fundraiser who was at an event with her husband.

I don't remember her name but I saw her again on TV today. She talked about being uncomfortable as they took a photo, with Biden's hand moving down her back.

[Demsrule86]

35. Honestly that sounds like piling on...you think she knew the others?

[R B Garr]

38. She said his hand moved from her shoulder. Everyone has

a hand on a back or waist taking a picture. How much of a story is it, really.

Looks like it backfired. Looks like Biden has handled it really well.

[Demsrule86]

44. With her husband looking on. Didn't one the Franken accusers say this?

[R B Garr]

48. Yes , same thing taking a picture. The Franken complainer

said he pulled her closer by the waist or squeezed her closer. Isn’t that common to get everyone in the frame? So what if someone moves a hand from your shoulder to your back. It’s really not much of a story.

[Demsrule86]

54. No. Sounds like piling on...collusion?

[R B Garr]

24. Flores and Caitlyn are pen pals. Flores has said she doesn't

want Biden to run. She just wanted to start a pile-on to damage Biden, and looks like one of her friends jumped in.

[pnwmom]

26. There are four women, not just two. And Biden has recognized that he needs to change.

His video was very good today.

[R B Garr]

29. Two of the women know one another. Both of them waited

years to share their space invasion stories. Sounds coordinated. BTW, the stories morphed into an anti/Biden platform against him running. Sounds coordinated.

[pnwmom]

31. Biden has been overly familiar with women for DECADES. It was inevitable that this would become

an issue. Biden's lucky if he's gotten this over with before he's really running.

[R B Garr]

34. This is exactly the net Flores wanted to cast. It was to pile-on

Biden and see if he could be exiled. I really don’t like being manipulated by false motives. Looks like it’s back-fired, though.

[Demsrule86]

36. And if it turns out she know the fundraiser...even more so.

The Eskimo kiss woman may be someone with a different agenda or not. Who knows?

[Blue_true]

42. How can you say all four essentially must be believed in one post

because of the tendency of sexual assualt victims to go into a shell, yet come back and say one of the women may have some type of agenda? How about the two that have been pen pals for several years having an agenda? This whole affair has a definite stench of conspiracy to it and I am sure that I know where it may be coming from. This has the feel of the donor list hack in 2016 and the initial effort to pin it on Hillary's staff when, in fact, another candidates staff person was in viewing the DNC list without permission.

[Demsrule86]

49. I think you posted to the wrong person. I don't believe that

You could have the two colluding and the other oneside piling on...or yhey could all be in on it. Don't know.

[Demsrule86]

39. Post this...this changes things.

[Demsrule86]

45. Caitlin said just now that 'Anita' Hill' was what disqualified Biden. This

Bs and it makes me so angry. They will damage me to.

[R B Garr]

47. This is the pile-on, hoping to keep him from running.

It’s obviously coordinated.

[Demsrule86]

50. I think so.

[LongtimeAZDem]

55. Had her parent's even met at the time of the hearings?

[Demsrule86]

57. Good point...very suspicious.

[melman]

67. You can't have an opinion on something that happened before you were born?

Since when?

[qazplm135]

76. one thing to try to ignore

another thing to gush about the guy under no pressure to do so.

[BlueFlorida]

28. K&R nt

[samnsara]

51. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[stonecutter357]

53. K&R

[LongtimeAZDem]

58. How does one get a degree in "surviving spirit murder"?

Caitlyn Caruso

[Demsrule86]

61. I must be really old because i don't even know what it is.

Gowing to look it up.

[aikoaiko]

64. I don't think you have to denigrate female accusers -- Joe is handling this well.

IMHO.

Joe is owning the behavior generally, but not with any bad intent.

I think a lot of people are OK with Joe learning and moving on.

[LongtimeAZDem]

68. If there's evidence of co-ordinated rat-fucking, I don't care what gender the perpetrators are

Biden's response was excellent, but he shouldn't have had to make it

[aikoaiko]

72. What is the evidence of coordinated rat-fucking?

[LongtimeAZDem]

74. Don't know; there may not be any. But, these women have inserted themselves into

the national political arena by attacking the character of a presumptive candidate.

They don't get a pass because they're women; they get looked at, the same as everyone else.

We didn't do this last time, and we lost a good Senator. Not this time.

[Eliot Rosewater]

77. Who started this whole thing? Anybody going to say it?

Not Joe, someone else.

[Tarc]

71. And the alt-right narrative continues. "she didn't speak up then, so it's invalid now"

Ben Shapiro, is that you? Milo? Mike Cernovich?

[Stare Decisis]

73. There is a difference

between not speaking up and projecting a completely different and positive image of the alleged perpetrator and allowing that impression of your opinion to stand for years.

[democratisphere]

79. THIS is Joe Biden.