Yes, she’ll get the Nasty Woman treatment from Trump and the Bernie Bros but I think she’ll stand up to it better because she doesn’t have the kind of historical hatred, which means she doesn’t have the history of smoke which would convince the low-information voters (See? I can be polite enough to avoid calling them idiots!) that there must be smoke so I’d best just stay home.
Biden is legitimately too old in that his health is a concern even without lying about it, and his past opposition to busing is just one example of how he’s old enough to have some bad positions in his past.
If you were, say, a Republican operative on a cable news show playing up the Hunter Biden “scandal”, how would you answer the following question? I would have thought it would have been asked by someone by now, but I haven’t heard it.
“You are making the claim that Vice President Biden behaved improperly in Ukraine. Given that the he was acting at the behest of President Obama during his time there, why would he authorize Biden to intercede in such a way to benefit his son Hunter? In other words, what the fuck does Obama care about Biden’s son, and why would he risk his reputation to make such an authorization?”
Am I missing an obvious response that would add some substance to the right’s attack?
Well, that’s an easy one to answer.
President Obama was a nincompoop. He was basically incompetent amateur, playing at being the President (witness him begging Russia to give him more space, followed by Russia **taking ** more space, or him begging President Putin to stop hacking US elections, then proudly declaring “I’m a big boy, Russia stopped hacking our elections!”, and then **suddenly **it turned out Russia stepped up its hacking of our elections, immediately after Obama’s desperate pleas.
The same with Biden’s son story: Obama saw absolutely nothing wrong with Hunter Biden, who managed to get kicked out of the Reserves due to his coke addiction, serving on the board of the largest Ukrainian gas company. This was, of course, at the time Obama was pandering hard to Russia, refusing to impose real sanctions on Putin or provide lethal weapons to Ukraine.
Heck, I remember White House Press Secretary being asked point blank if there was not an itty-bitty conflict of interest with Hunter Biden getting paid 50K a month for a job he had no qualifications for and Vice-President Biden’s incompetent handling of Ukraine’s affairs. The Press Secretary was clearly disturbed and managed to stammer something along the lines of “Well, Hunter Biden is a private citizen, so you know, it’s kinda ok for him to be involved in Ukranian politics”. (and in Ukraine, gas IS politics).
So, to sum up the answer: incompetence, corruption and greed at Obama’s administration made them turn blind eye to Hunter Biden’s clearly inappropriate behavior.
Banking records are fact checkable. Nowhere in the link to the Daily Beast did they refute the fact Hunter Biden’s company was paid large sums of money. Feel free to provide a link that does, IF YOU CAN.
The link you did provide shows that John Solomon’s fellow journalists at the Hill are biased against Trump and conservatives and are butt hurt that no one invites them onto Fox News the home of real journalists.
It consists of having his father exert political pressure on his behalf, in a country, where Hunter Biden is employed by a major company, while having no qualifications for the job.
Welcome to the Straight Dope! I hope your stay here is long and fruitful.
Elections is one of our debate forums and we usually provide cites for our claims. Please cite your claim that his father exerted political pressure on his behalf. Also, please provide a cite that he was employed by them, rather than just being on the board of directors. Many members of boards of directors don’t have relevant experience, so this in an important distinction.
There’s no qualifications for the job. George W Bush appointed Hunter to the Amtrak Board of Directors in 2006. Did you know that? And the political pressure his dad applied was the exact same pressure the IMF, various EU leaders and the American ambassador exerrted. Did you know that?
Please provide proof for your claim that the political pressure applied by his dad was the exact same pressure, applied by the IMF, various EU leaders and the American ambassador, and not the pressure, he applied because an obvious conflict of interests in play here.
Joe Biden himself was caught on tape, bragging about pressuring Ukrainian authorities to fire Prosecutor Shokin. If you have any evidence whatsoever, that the pressure was NOT applied on behalf of his son, I’d be very curious to see it.
Right, so it looks like even more obvious and open case of corruption. At least in case of former Polish President sitting on board of Burisma we can take a guess as to why he was there: to peddle his influence.
What role do you think Hunter Biden was hired to perform by Burisma? What is it that made them hire him?
I’ve got to correct a misunderstanding you may have inadvertently created with this post.
It’s true the IMF, various EU leaders and the American ambassador exerted pressure for Ukraine to fire Ukrainian prosecutor general Shokin. But the pressure was brought to fire him was because he wasn’t prosecuting corruption enough – not because he was prosecuting Hunter Biden’s company. In other words, the prosecutor general was letting corruption in Ukraine slide. The IMF, various EU leaders, the American ambassador and Joe Biden, in his official role as a representative of the United States and acting in our country’s best national security interests were all acting to have Shokin fired for ignoring his responsibilities as a prosecutor. Biden never attempted in any way to intercede on behalf of his son one way or another.
Moreover, by the time Joe Biden acted in Ukraine, the investigation into Burisma had already been closed. Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in April 2014. Joe Biden did not threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine until March 2016 – long after an investigation into Burisma had been shelved in 2014 and throughout 2015.
What do you think Hunter Biden was in trouble for? What do you think his company was being investigated for?
You don’t appear to understand how boards of directors work. They are lobbyists for their companies. Is there nepotism here? Sure. What makes it any more corrupt then all of the other nepotism that occurs in business?
I’ll concede the fact. What makes this scandalous?
I didn’t have that misunderstanding personally, I just failed to correct that specific error. It has already been mentioned more than once in the thread.