US Politics. Trump Crossing the Dnieper. Alea Iacta Est.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

[snip]

The only reason we're talking about this is because Trump has abused his power in order to make a mountain out of a mole hill.  "The suit was settled but resulted in a flurry of headlines."  Really?  I was politically aware in 2007.  Intensely so.  Don't remember anyone giving a shit about what Hunter Biden was doing at the time.  Plus you continue to evade the fact you used an article to gin this up when the content of the article did nothing of the sort.  Now you're intent on citing opinion pieces.  My opinion is you're pathetically echoing a bunch of bullshit from the WHO and either tragically don't realize it's covered in shit or embarrassingly think it's somehow legitimate.

[Mudguard]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Well you couldn’t have done one hell of a lot of reading about Biden to not notice he had a career at MBNA where he rose to be a Vice-President and then worked in the Department of Commerce in the area of economic policy under George Bush. Bush appointed him to the Board of Amtrak. Hey, Biden never worked on train, what was he doing on the board of Amtrak! Imagine that! Nor did you notice he and his uncle did try to take over a large hedge fund. Guess they did that because they had no skills to run a hedge fund and just figured they’d blow a few hundred mil, eh?

And you obviously have never read the annual reports of any major US corporations, which I have over three decades or so, because you’d know that corporations regularly invite executives from very different companies to sit on their boards, including lots of lawyers and consultants. And oh, people from banking.

I did read that, but I assumed that his job at MBNA was related to legal aspects, and not the business side.  It's clear from the article that Hunter's interest is now on the business side and has been for a while now.  It's clear from the article that Hunter is a great networker and very personable, which is a good business skill.  It's how he keeps getting all these jobs all over the place.

Did you read how that hedge fund that he bought with his uncle was a complete failure?  Doesn't sound like he has much of a clue how to run a fund.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Mudguard said:

And the ethical standard in these cases—people’s basic understanding of right and wrong—becomes whatever federal law allows. Which is a lot.

I mean, every corporatist and the horse they ride in on retreat to this exact thing. "It's legal, so piss off, you've got nothing on me." So long as the general corporate standard, which is largely supported by the right, especially Trump and his ilk, is this then this Hunter Biden stuff is the true witch hunt.

Jobs for politicians' families is all part of the game. It always looks a bit sketchy, but most of the time it's not corrupt in a criminal sense or otherwise illegal. It's morally corrupt, but the system in general is. Hate the game not the player, I guess.

[Mudguard]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

The only reason we're talking about this is because Trump has abused his power in order to make a mountain out of a mole hill.  "The suit was settled but resulted in a flurry of headlines."  Really?  I was politically aware in 2007.  Intensely so.  Don't remember anyone giving a shit about what Hunter Biden was doing at the time.  Plus you continue to evade the fact you used an article to gin this up when the content of the article did nothing of the sort.  Now you're intent on citing opinion pieces.  My opinion is you're pathetically echoing a bunch of bullshit from the WHO and either tragically don't realize it's covered in shit or embarrassingly think it's somehow legitimate.

I'm getting sidetracked on what originally was a tangent point to begin with.  It really doesn't matter whether the fund was 1.5 billion, 4 million, or whatever.  I admit, my original post to Fragile Bird started as a nitpick of the $4 million dollar figure.  The number just didn't make sense to me, and I also saw some early reporting that was saying similar things based on comments from Hunter Biden's lawyer, so I did some internet research and made my post.  Obviously, Fragile Bird did not like my nitpicking and I can see how that would be annoying to her, but I'm a numbers person and that was bothering me. 

Regarding your points, I honestly don't know how to respond because they are often so off the point that I'm trying to make.  What am I trying to "gin up"?  Really, I have no idea what you are talking about.  I'm not citing articles and trying to summarize them.  I'm citing them to support a specific point (i.e. the dollar figure), which has nothing to do with many of your points.  You keep citing portions of the article that I'm not arguing about and that I have no issue with and that are completely irrelevant to the argument that I'm making.  At least Fragile Bird's arguments were responsive to mine.

This forum is definitely an echo chamber for liberals.  Any contrary point of view results in rabid, personalized attacks, even when presented in a neutral manner with citations.  People are super upset that I'm criticizing Hunter Biden, but it's perfectly OK to criticize and make fun of Trump Jr. and Eric Trump?  If Biden wins the nomination, Hunter is going to be dragged through the mud.  And obviously, they'll try and drag Joe through too by association.  

I like discussing Trump/Republican talking points because the strategy behind it, and the response strategy from Biden/Democrats, is more interesting to me than railing against the next dumb thing Trump or the Republicans have done.  That's gotten old a long, long time ago for me.  When I'm doing this, I try to be as objective as I can.  If you can't see the appearance of a conflict of interest in the Ukraine and China matters, and if you really think that being a JD qualifies you to run a $1.5 billion private equity fund, then there's really nothing further to discuss.  I provide citations, but you attempt to disregard them as opinion pieces.  Come on.  The New Yorker article in particular was a heavily researched piece that included an interview with Hunter Biden.  It covered his entire life from when he was a kid to present day.  The author is also not a Republican hit job artist.  His bio:

Quote

Adam Entous joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2018, covering intelligence, national security, and foreign affairs. While working at the Washington Post, Adam shared a Pulitzer Prize and a special Polk Award for stories that led to the firing of President Trump’s first national-security adviser and to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 Presidential election. In 2017, Adam was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for a story about an American diplomat wrongly accused of spying. Previously, Adam worked at the Wall Street Journal, where he covered national security. Before joining the Journal, Adam served as a senior correspondent for Reuters based in Jerusalem and covered the White House and Congress. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Sure, just dismiss this article because it doesn't support your narrative.  Again, if you have any better sources of information about Hunter, please share.  Unsurprisingly, no one is providing better sources of information.

[Mudguard]

7 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I mean, every corporatist and the horse they ride in on retreat to this exact thing. "It's legal, so piss off, you've got nothing on me." So long as the general corporate standard, which is largely supported by the right, especially Trump and his ilk, is this then this Hunter Biden stuff is the true witch hunt.

Jobs for politicians' families is all part of the game. It always looks a bit sketchy, but most of the time it's not corrupt in a criminal sense or otherwise illegal. It's morally corrupt, but the system in general is. Hate the game not the player, I guess.

The problem is that Democrats tend to penalize their own for moral corruption or the appearance of moral corruption, more than Republicans.  See Clinton and Franken.  If Biden wins the nomination but doesn't have a good rebuttal to this (one rebuttal would be that Hunter was well qualified and earned the job through his own merit), I think this issue could really hurt Biden in the general.  I'm curious to see if this has an effect on the polls for Biden among Democrats.  Most of the focus is on Trump's impeachment right now, so I don't think it's getting much airtime from the media yet. But after the impeachment process runs its course, I think the attention will turn to Biden.

[sologdin]

the biden's prodigal son narrative is kinda dull, no?  maybe get back to when big mama warren managed all the sex workers at the joie de beavre niteclub in boston.

[The Anti-Targ]

47 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

The problem is that Democrats tend to penalize their own for moral corruption or the appearance of moral corruption, more than Republicans.  See Clinton and Franken.  If Biden wins the nomination but doesn't have a good rebuttal to this (one rebuttal would be that Hunter was well qualified and earned the job through his own merit), I think this issue could really hurt Biden in the general.  I'm curious to see if this has an effect on the polls for Biden among Democrats.  Most of the focus is on Trump's impeachment right now, so I don't think it's getting much airtime from the media yet. But after the impeachment process runs its course, I think the attention will turn to Biden.

I think this time around Democrats will forgive a lot of the usual political nepotism and corporate dodgyness. As long as it's limited to money stuff and not sexual abuse, racism or homobhobia, or actual criminality they'll show up on the day.

Democrats usually have to hold their own to a higher standard because if they let slide an image of one of their own simulating coping someone's boobs a feel, Republicans will let actual video of an unwelcome pussy grab go by saying "Look Democrats do it to and it's OK if they do it. So back off man!". The thing now is, almost anything Joe or Hunter might have done is still clears the bar set by Trump's standard by a huge margin.

2 minutes ago, sologdin said:

the biden's prodigal son narrative is kinda dull, no?  maybe get back to when big mama warren managed all the sex workers at the joie de beavre niteclub in boston.

It's pretty clear to me that the Bidens stitched up the Warren sex stuff to deflect from their own immorality, and that poor marine with the chain scar is just an innocent pawn in the evil Democrats political game. For shame! You wait. it'll come out from QAnon, and QAnon is truth.