House Impeachment Inquiry

[kellyb]

More interesting, I think, is that the redacted transcipt is still damning, and Trump cleared it. One might ask "What was Trump thinking?" if one suspected thought came into it. I suspect sabotage myself. Someone told Trump " We've scrubbed it", and he took it on faith.

He was thinking that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and still get elected so he didn't care what was in the transcript.

Or probably both. The guy's brain is total pudding. It's mush.

He really does seem to be suffering legitimate and severe cognitive decline.

 

[Armitage72]

On another forum, I saw someone say "I don't like Trump and I hope he gets impeached" while simultaneously regurgitating all of Trump's lies about Ukraine and the Bidens as if they were accepted fact. "Joe Biden forcing the President of Ukraine to halt the investigation of the company his son worked for is a lot worse than Trump just wanting them to investigate corruption." If he doesn't like Trump, I'd hate to see him if he were a supporter.

 

[thaiboxerken]

That is just another "strategy" of Trumpanzees. They say they don't like him, and then parrot Trump's talking points. They think it's clever...

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Meanwhile Trump is complaining that hearings should not be held in public. Exactly the opposite of a couple of weeks ago.

He wants them to be publicly private?

Isn't that what he already had?

The most telling thing to me is that Trump and his advisers can, in perfect confidence, rely on the certain knowledge that Trump supporters will totally disregard the vehement complaints Trump was making only a couple of weeks ago about the hearings being held in private.

They know that it really doesn't matter to that group what Trump or his booster club says. They'll just nod their heads, agree, and repeat the new talking points.

At least until they change again. Then they'll agree with that.

 

[quadraginta]

I doubt many Democratic voters actually believe Biden's corrupt; I think they just don't want this thing dominating the campaign, especially when they find Hunter Biden's activities rather distasteful. As, I imagine, do most of us.

Do you feel the same about anyone on any board of directors, or is your distaste reserved for certain individuals?

I haven't seen any compelling evidence (or any evidence at all, for that matter) establishing that H. Biden was unfit to sit on that board and had no skills or experience to contribute. That it was nothing but a sinecure intended to put money in the Biden family's pocket for no reason aside from gaining influence.

Do you have such evidence?

I don't mind seeing Hunter made into a target if he has earned it somehow, but I do if he is just being used as a convenient whipping boy for GOP slime campaigns.

 

[shemp]

This Is No Ordinary Impeachment

This is not just an impeachment. It’s the endgame for Trump’s relentless assault on the institutions, norms, and practices of America’s liberal democracy for the past three years. It’s also a deeper reckoning. It’s about whether the legitimacy of our entire system can last much longer without this man being removed from office.

I’m talking about what political scientists call “regime cleavage” — a decline in democratic life so severe the country’s very institutions could lose legitimacy as a result of it. It is described by one political scientist as follows: “a division within the population marked by conflict about the foundations of the governing system itself — in the American case, our constitutional democracy. In societies facing a regime cleavage, a growing number of citizens and officials believe that norms, institutions, and laws may be ignored, subverted, or replaced.” A full-on regime cleavage is, indeed, an extinction-level event for our liberal democratic system. And it is one precipitated by the man who is supposed to be the guardian of that system, the president.

Trump has fast-forwarded “regime cleavage.” He is appealing to the people to render him immune from constitutional constraints imposed by the representatives of the people. He has opened up not a divide between right and left so much as a divide over whether the American system of government is legitimate or illegitimate. And that is why I don’t want to defeat Trump in an election, because that would suggest that his assault on the truth, on the Constitution, and on the rule of law is just a set of policy decisions that we can, in time, reject. It creates a precedent for future presidents to assault the legitimacy of the American government, constrained only by their ability to win the next election. In fact, the only proper constitutional response to this abuse of executive power is impeachment. I know I’ve said this before. But on the eve of public hearings, it is vital to remember it.

None of this presidential behavior is tolerable. If the Senate exonerates Trump, it will not just enable the most lawless president in our history to even greater abuses. It will deepen the regime cleavage even further. It will cast into doubt the fairness of the upcoming election. It will foment the conspiracy theory that our current laws and institutions are manifestations of a “deep state” engineering a “coup.” It will prove that a president can indeed abuse his power for his personal advantage without consequence; and it will set a precedent that fundamentally changes the American system from a liberal democracy to a form of elected monarchy, above the other two branches of government.

 

[kellyb]

Do you feel the same about anyone on any board of directors, or is your distaste reserved for certain individuals?

I haven't seen any compelling evidence (or any evidence at all, for that matter) establishing that H. Biden was unfit to sit on that board and had no skills or experience to contribute. That it was nothing but a sinecure intended to put money in the Biden family's pocket for no reason aside from gaining influence.

Do you have such evidence?

I don't mind seeing Hunter made into a target if he has earned it somehow, but I do if he is just being used as a convenient whipping boy for GOP slime campaigns.

This is from 2014:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-gas-company-is-a-problem-for-u-s-soft-power/

Hunter Biden’s new job at a Ukrainian gas company is a problem for U.S. soft power

It's true that there are no rules against Hunter Biden taking this position. And it's (fairly) safe to assume that his appointment was not part of a broader, U.S.-led plot to oust Moscow-backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and steal all of Ukraine's gas. However, whatever the practical reality of this posting, its symbolic nature makes it look very bad.

It's also unclear why, exactly, Biden was hired: At Yahoo News, Olivier Knox and Meredith Shiner have speculated that the fact that so much of Burisma's permits are in Ukraine's troubled Dnieper-Donets Basin may play a role.

Then there's the broader problem: The appointment of the vice president's son to a Ukrainian oil board looks nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst.

It's a country where there had just been a coup, and his dad oversaw foreign policy there.

It's extremely unseemly. Not illegal, just....uuuhg.

 

[dasmiller]

Several people in the thread seemed to have missed some of the news reports where Trump personally told various people to deal with Rudy.

Which in no way conflicts with my suspicions about Giuliani. I don't doubt that Rudy was working for Trump to do unconstitutional things. But I believe that Rudy wasn't working only for Trump, and if Rudy could dupe one client into helping another client . . . I don't think Rudy's above that.

I think Yovanovitch is out because Parnas et al wanted her out. I think Rudy convinced Trump that Yovanovitch was a problem as part of a multi-pronged attack on Yovanovitch, at the behest of Parnas et al. And I think it's entirely possible that Trump wasn't aware of the real reason Rudy was telling him that Yovanovitch was bad.

If Yovanovitch's replacement was necessary for Trump to push Ukraine, why replace her with Taylor? He doesn't seem any more willing to 'play ball' than Yovanovitch was.

All of this is tangent to the impeachment proceedings. Trump is being impeached over pressuring a foreign entity to provide assistance for his political ambitions, not for firing Yovanovitch, and the impeachment evidence is overwhelming.

I'm just saying that Giuliani isn't just foppish. He's evil, too.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That is just another "strategy" of Trumpanzees. They say they don't like him, and then parrot Trump's talking points. They think it's clever...

They think it shows they aren't biased and aren't subject to Trump's propaganda.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do you feel the same about anyone on any board of directors, or is your distaste reserved for certain individuals?

I haven't seen any compelling evidence (or any evidence at all, for that matter) establishing that H. Biden was unfit to sit on that board and had no skills or experience to contribute. That it was nothing but a sinecure intended to put money in the Biden family's pocket for no reason aside from gaining influence.

Do you have such evidence?

I don't mind seeing Hunter made into a target if he has earned it somehow, but I do if he is just being used as a convenient whipping boy for GOP slime campaigns.

I am admittedly not a Biden fan even before I knew all this.

Hunter had more than one very high paying job that his father influenced whether actively or not.

It's not like he was an oil company legal expert or anything remotely suggesting the job had nothing to do with his father/name.

National Review (GOP bias): From being appointed senior MBNA vice president (two years out of law school), to a gift of a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese energy tycoon, to Burisma Holdings . . .

Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.

The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws:

According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

Both James and Hunter Biden have denied to Politico that James had ever made these comments.

Up until that time, Hunter Biden had been employed as a consultant to the Delaware bank MBNA, with a $100,000-a-year retainer, according to the New York Times. The bank hired him fresh out of law school and in less than two years promoted him to senior vice president. Biden also separately worked as a lobbyist until 2008, founding the firm Oldaker Biden & Belair, where he represented mostly universities and hospitals but also drug companies such as Achaogen Inc. and Pulmatrix Inc., and the music-sharing company Napster and online gambling sites.

Hunter says he has never lobbied his father on any client matter. But the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest allegedly troubled the senator at one point.

National Review:follow-up article

“Hunter Biden isn’t running for president, Joe Biden is!” Er, yes, and the whole point is that if Hunter Biden wasn’t the son of Joe Biden, then he would not have been hired at such a lucrative rate by MBNA, various universities and hospitals, Chinese institutional investors, Chinese private-equity fund Bohai Capital, Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming, Burisma Holdings, and other institutions. The issue is not merely that Hunter worked for shady people and institutions, it’s that he worked for shady people and institutions who wanted to influence or profit from changes to U.S. policy.

“Hunter Biden joining Burisma’s board was a bad decision, but it wasn’t illegal.” No, but as the timeline illustrates, Hunter Biden’s career was built on one situation after another that was technically legal but still looked bad.

Daily Wire: Hunter Biden Admits He Got High-Paying Jobs Because ‘I’m The Son Of The Vice President’

There are multiple articles and Hunter's been using his dad's name for decades.


Might not be illegal, maybe he never did lobby his father, maybe he did or did not have inside knowledge making him a valuable employee. But it is a symbol of business as usual and it is distasteful at a minimum.



It also shows how stupid Trump was pushing Ukraine to do the dirty work. All of this would have looked bad for Joe without any help from Zelensky.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Which in no way conflicts with my suspicions about Giuliani. I don't doubt that Rudy was working for Trump to do unconstitutional things. But I believe that Rudy wasn't working only for Trump, and if Rudy could dupe one client into helping another client . . . I don't think Rudy's above that.

I think Yovanovitch is out because Parnas et al wanted her out. I think Rudy convinced Trump that Yovanovitch was a problem as part of a multi-pronged attack on Yovanovitch, at the behest of Parnas et al. And I think it's entirely possible that Trump wasn't aware of the real reason Rudy was telling him that Yovanovitch was bad.

If Yovanovitch's replacement was necessary for Trump to push Ukraine, why replace her with Taylor? He doesn't seem any more willing to 'play ball' than Yovanovitch was.

All of this is tangent to the impeachment proceedings. Trump is being impeached over pressuring a foreign entity to provide assistance for his political ambitions, not for firing Yovanovitch, and the impeachment evidence is overwhelming.

I'm just saying that Giuliani isn't just foppish. He's evil, too.

Could be. But getting back to Trump, this has been going on for months, it wasn't just one phone call and there are many people involved.

 

[acbytesla]

I am admittedly not a Biden fan even before I knew all this.

Hunter had more than one very high paying job that his father influenced whether actively or not.

It's not like he was an oil company legal expert or anything remotely suggesting the job had nothing to do with his father/name.

National Review (GOP bias): From being appointed senior MBNA vice president (two years out of law school), to a gift of a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese energy tycoon, to Burisma Holdings . . .

National Review:follow-up article

Daily Wire: Hunter Biden Admits He Got High-Paying Jobs Because ‘I’m The Son Of The Vice President’

There are multiple articles and Hunter's been using his dad's name for decades.


Might not be illegal, maybe he never did lobby his father, maybe he did or did not have inside knowledge making him a valuable employee. But it is a symbol of business as usual and it is distasteful at a minimum.



It also shows how stupid Trump was pushing Ukraine to do the dirty work. All of this would have looked bad for Joe without any help from Zelensky.

Except it really doesn't. How is this anything but SOP? I can show you Congress person's children, President's children etc getting high powered jobs. From the Bush twins to Chelsea Clinton. How is Eric Kushner qualified to DO ANYTHING. Yet he's been tasked to DO EVERYTHING.

What you know is Hunter sold himself as the Vice President's son. Which is wrong, but hardly surprising and unfortunately not illegal. What we dont know and have no evidence for is Joe Biden doing anything for his son's positions.

I worked for years as a Sales rep and would send gifts to influencers at my customers. And they were not cheap gifts sometimes costing thousands. I also expensed those gifts. I remember my moron boss balking at one of them because the big order we were expecting from that customer was slow in coming. He wanted to make it some kind of quid pro quo.

I had to make it clear to the dummy that one might argue sending or accepting the gifts was ethically questionable, but what he was suggesting made it definitely unethical and probably illegal.

 

[Stacyhs]

Does it really matter whether H Biden was qualified to sit on Burisma's board? Does it matter if he got there because he was the VP's son? Unless Joe used his position as VP to GET that job for H, then the answer is 'no'. Unless it's shown that Joe or Hunter did something illegal, then the answer is 'no'. This is all nothing more than an attempt to distract from Trump withholding funds to Ukraine to further his personal, not the country's, interests. That is abuse of power.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

No, it doesn't.

Personally, my respect for Biden has increased after finding out that he didn't force his son out of the position to make Biden himself look better - Hunter doesn't have to refuse a lucrative gig just because his Dad is VP.

 

[phiwum]

No, it doesn't.

Personally, my respect for Biden has increased after finding out that he didn't force his son out of the position to make Biden himself look better - Hunter doesn't have to refuse a lucrative gig just because his Dad is VP.

Hunter should have had the decency to know how bad it looks. It is profiting from the public office of his father (but not the father's fault) unless you think that Hunter Biden was as qualified as any other candidate and his father being VP was mere coincidence.

 

[acbytesla]

Hunter should have had the decency to know how bad it looks. It is profiting from the public office of his father (but not the father's fault) unless you think that Hunter Biden was as qualified as any other candidate and his father being VP was mere coincidence.

Have you ever seen the qualifications of 50 percent of Fortune 1000 corporations boards? Hunter Biden was more qualified than most. Does that make it right that an Oil company hired the VP's son as a director? No. I'd have no problem with laws that prevented this kind of thing, but offering up the Bidens as scapegoats seems a bit much.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hunter doesn't have to refuse a lucrative gig just because his Dad is VP.

Hunter was offered the gig only because his dad was VP. Do you seriously think that he got the job for any other reason? That he accepted means he was willing to help them curry favor through his father. It's not like he was thinking, well, they might be trying to exploit my political connections, but I'll show them by mastering business and energy production!

 

[phiwum]

Have you ever seen the qualifications of 50 percent of Fortune 1000 corporations boards? Hunter Biden was more qualified than most. Does that make it right that an Oil company hired the VP's son as a director? No. I'd have no problem with laws that prevented this kind of thing, but offering up the Bidens as scapegoats seems a bit much.

Doesn't really matter how qualified most board members are (what are Hunter's qualifications? I genuinely don't know). The question is whether he was benefiting from his father's office and whether he shouldn't have been.

Sure looks like he was to me. It's possible I'm wrong and he's particularly well-suited for the job and his father's job never even crossed the minds of the folks at Burisma, but I kinda doubt it. And I think that he shouldn't have done that.

Do other kids of famous and powerful folks do the same? I reckon so. Even sons-in-law manage to reach positions of power for no reason other than their wife's daddy. (Aren't we lucky that Kushner is so darned good at his job, though?) I don't think that Hunter did anything worse than lots of folks.

But he still deserves criticism for what he did.

And none of this, of course, warrants an investigation by Ukraine or calling Hunter to testify in the impeachment hearing.

 

[Stacyhs]

Hunter should have had the decency to know how bad it looks. It is profiting from the public office of his father (but not the father's fault) unless you think that Hunter Biden was as qualified as any other candidate and his father being VP was mere coincidence.

Perhaps. But I find it rather hypocritical that Trump, or anyone in his family (by blood or by marriage) should be criticizing Hunter for "profiting from the public office of his father".

 

[phiwum]

Perhaps. But I find it rather hypocritical that Trump, or anyone in his family (by blood or by marriage) should be criticizing Hunter for "profiting from the public office of his father".

Sure.