"And speaking of The Former Guy, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the Justice Department is investigating Trump’s actions in connection with the attempt to overturn the election."
Somewhere in Kyiv, I hope Zelenskyy saw this news and had a hearty chuckle after everything Trump did to try and force him into announcing an ""alternate" (read: fake) investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Are you a Biden corruption denier? One of the more radical congressional left wingers, Jaime Raskin, said all politicians have dirty hands up to their elbows. That's what I expect from politicians barring some strict reforms with teeth. It's why I try to vote for those most likely to advance my preferred agenda instead of leaving it up to others.
I think if Trump had actual evidence of corruption by the Bidens, the proper way to deal with that isn't to send Rudy Guiliani and his goons to Ukraine in a private capacity to try and "Manafort" their way into starting an investigation, but to communicate that through documented and official channels.
And I certainly don't think that ignoring duly-passed Congressional legislation and withholding arms shipments in exchange for that investigation into one's domestic political foe is the proper way either.
For all of his complaints about the Biden, had Trump not tried to be too clever by half and done things the way they should have been done, you'd have a lot more public support for looking into the Bidens than we got.
As for me personally and your original question, I have zero doubt that Hunter Biden was attempting to cast himself as a gateway to influencing his father, but I'm skeptical that he - also thinking he was too clever by half - was ever successful enough for a quid to be traded for a quo. And certainly to whatever extent the Bidens may have been/are corrupt, that's peanuts compared to the amount of self-dealing and selling out to the Saudis and other Middle Easterners that we got from Trump[1] and his son-in-law Jared[2]. Maybe all politicians are corrupt to their elbows - that doesn't mean that they all have the same length arms and are reaching the same depths into the muck.
If you have actual complaints about the factual content of this reporting (Trump siding with his pal MBS on the whitewashing of Saudi money via professional golf or that same MBS overriding his own risk assessment folks to throw Kushner $2B), I'm happy to find other sources to cite that cover the same topics and cite the same facts.
On the CNN front, I thought you'd be pleased that they are reporting on the Hunter Biden tax issues and DoJ investigation.
Nearly all news reports are somewhat factual. It's not always the facts that convey the message, but the words, that are used to bring emotion into the argument, do. Not referring to your comments (at least not today). but continuous rants about a former president who has absolutely no authority while ignoring the current President, who has a ton of authority, and his band of fools who are destroying the economy and the military and failing to enforce criminal codes and immigration laws is ridiculous. It's even worse when done under the pretense of being merely concerned conservatives who believe that the current mess is better than electing somewhat imperfect conservatives.
"... electing somewhat imperfect conservatives..." is doing a LOT of legwork to gloss over that the Somewhat Imperfect Conservative isn't a former President ranting away in retirement with 0% chance of regaining power, but is telegraphing that we haven't seen anything yet when it comes to the election denialism, corruption, and tribalism that was a signature element of his last administration and the selling point to a base seeking to put him into power once more.
I don't see David and Steve and Jay railing too hard against "somewhat imperfect conservatives" as a general theme here. There's one in particular - whose propensity for discarding what Conservatives have traditionally valued in governance is not theoretical - and his enablers that the Racket crew are ringing the bell over.
I don't know if you saw this yet, but I thought it would be of interest:
"Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency operative, who analyzed the emails for CNN, said he was able to authenticate a subset of the emails because they contained verified signatures within their metadata that showed they had not been modified. Only emails he authenticated are cited in this report."
"Williams, who previously examined data from the laptop for The Washington Post, said the majority of emails he reviewed for CNN could not be verified because they lacked sufficient technical data necessary for the validation process, among other reasons."
"CNN's review of emails showed that Biden struggled with tax issues for years and that his accountant at times seemed at a loss to keep track of the flow of Biden's money. In one email, his accountant raised a question about a $550,000 receipt, asking whether it should be recorded as a loan or income from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board Biden served. No response from Biden is shown on that email chain."[1]
That's pretty sketchy and appears to be under DoJ investigation already, but it's spit in a bucket compared to the Saudis (MBS, in particular) seeding Jared's new investment fund with 2 billion dollars. Then again, I think the Saudis are running an experiment in how quickly they can blow their fortune on other stupid efforts as well[2].
I'd also be tickled silly if Merrick Garland announced that the DoJ was going after both Hunter Biden for his tax issues[1] and Trump for his attempted election fraud on the same day. Seems like a decent way to cut the Gordian Knot surrounding prosecuting folks from one party or another by going after both simultaneously.
I could agree with that except that successfully prosecuting democrats in DC seems to be impossible. Not so for Republicans. Bannon - guilty. Holder - not. Scooter Libby guilty. Lois Lerner - not. Michael Sussman - not.
"And speaking of The Former Guy, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the Justice Department is investigating Trump’s actions in connection with the attempt to overturn the election."
Somewhere in Kyiv, I hope Zelenskyy saw this news and had a hearty chuckle after everything Trump did to try and force him into announcing an ""alternate" (read: fake) investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Are you a Biden corruption denier? One of the more radical congressional left wingers, Jaime Raskin, said all politicians have dirty hands up to their elbows. That's what I expect from politicians barring some strict reforms with teeth. It's why I try to vote for those most likely to advance my preferred agenda instead of leaving it up to others.
I think if Trump had actual evidence of corruption by the Bidens, the proper way to deal with that isn't to send Rudy Guiliani and his goons to Ukraine in a private capacity to try and "Manafort" their way into starting an investigation, but to communicate that through documented and official channels.
And I certainly don't think that ignoring duly-passed Congressional legislation and withholding arms shipments in exchange for that investigation into one's domestic political foe is the proper way either.
For all of his complaints about the Biden, had Trump not tried to be too clever by half and done things the way they should have been done, you'd have a lot more public support for looking into the Bidens than we got.
As for me personally and your original question, I have zero doubt that Hunter Biden was attempting to cast himself as a gateway to influencing his father, but I'm skeptical that he - also thinking he was too clever by half - was ever successful enough for a quid to be traded for a quo. And certainly to whatever extent the Bidens may have been/are corrupt, that's peanuts compared to the amount of self-dealing and selling out to the Saudis and other Middle Easterners that we got from Trump[1] and his son-in-law Jared[2]. Maybe all politicians are corrupt to their elbows - that doesn't mean that they all have the same length arms and are reaching the same depths into the muck.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/sport/donald-trump-liv-golf-saudi-arabia-spt-intl/index.html
[2] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/jared-kushner-affinity-partners-saudi-arabia
I suppose I will have to start posting links to Breitbart and RedState and FNC to get the spin I prefer.
If you have actual complaints about the factual content of this reporting (Trump siding with his pal MBS on the whitewashing of Saudi money via professional golf or that same MBS overriding his own risk assessment folks to throw Kushner $2B), I'm happy to find other sources to cite that cover the same topics and cite the same facts.
On the CNN front, I thought you'd be pleased that they are reporting on the Hunter Biden tax issues and DoJ investigation.
Nearly all news reports are somewhat factual. It's not always the facts that convey the message, but the words, that are used to bring emotion into the argument, do. Not referring to your comments (at least not today). but continuous rants about a former president who has absolutely no authority while ignoring the current President, who has a ton of authority, and his band of fools who are destroying the economy and the military and failing to enforce criminal codes and immigration laws is ridiculous. It's even worse when done under the pretense of being merely concerned conservatives who believe that the current mess is better than electing somewhat imperfect conservatives.
"... electing somewhat imperfect conservatives..." is doing a LOT of legwork to gloss over that the Somewhat Imperfect Conservative isn't a former President ranting away in retirement with 0% chance of regaining power, but is telegraphing that we haven't seen anything yet when it comes to the election denialism, corruption, and tribalism that was a signature element of his last administration and the selling point to a base seeking to put him into power once more.
I don't see David and Steve and Jay railing too hard against "somewhat imperfect conservatives" as a general theme here. There's one in particular - whose propensity for discarding what Conservatives have traditionally valued in governance is not theoretical - and his enablers that the Racket crew are ringing the bell over.
I don't know if you saw this yet, but I thought it would be of interest:
"Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency operative, who analyzed the emails for CNN, said he was able to authenticate a subset of the emails because they contained verified signatures within their metadata that showed they had not been modified. Only emails he authenticated are cited in this report."
"Williams, who previously examined data from the laptop for The Washington Post, said the majority of emails he reviewed for CNN could not be verified because they lacked sufficient technical data necessary for the validation process, among other reasons."
"CNN's review of emails showed that Biden struggled with tax issues for years and that his accountant at times seemed at a loss to keep track of the flow of Biden's money. In one email, his accountant raised a question about a $550,000 receipt, asking whether it should be recorded as a loan or income from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board Biden served. No response from Biden is shown on that email chain."[1]
That's pretty sketchy and appears to be under DoJ investigation already, but it's spit in a bucket compared to the Saudis (MBS, in particular) seeding Jared's new investment fund with 2 billion dollars. Then again, I think the Saudis are running an experiment in how quickly they can blow their fortune on other stupid efforts as well[2].
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/politics/hunter-biden-emails-invs/index.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/27/saudis-unveil-eye-popping-plan-for-mirrored-skyscraper-eco-city
I'd also be tickled silly if Merrick Garland announced that the DoJ was going after both Hunter Biden for his tax issues[1] and Trump for his attempted election fraud on the same day. Seems like a decent way to cut the Gordian Knot surrounding prosecuting folks from one party or another by going after both simultaneously.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/politics/hunter-biden-investigation-critical-juncture/index.html
I could agree with that except that successfully prosecuting democrats in DC seems to be impossible. Not so for Republicans. Bannon - guilty. Holder - not. Scooter Libby guilty. Lois Lerner - not. Michael Sussman - not.