House Impeachment Inquiry

[acbytesla]

And from my link, this was not entirely on his merits either. Joe was an influential Congressman.

From post 1390 quoting the right leaning National Review:

That article is a bunch of crap.

To start with it's the National Review which is about as right wing neocon rag as you're ever going to find.

Secondly, the article references an unnamed source for a comment only an idiot would make. You can never prove it's false and that is the point. It can say anything it wants and you there is no way to disprove it.

 

[Upchurch]

"The Biden angle" is unavoidably baked into the Trump impeachment, because what we're talking about with Sorkin and the Bidens is what Trump broke the law to put in the headlines.

I disagree. The Bidens are only an issue because the Republicans are desperately trying to make it one. The issue of Trump's impeachment is that Trump using is public office to extort Ukraine into making a public announcement that they were opening an investigation into Joe Biden's corruption, even though that investigation had already happened and found nothing.

Biden's actions have no bearing on whether Trump abused the power of his public office. Even if Biden were guilty up to his eyeballs of some illegal activity, this investigation is into Trump's actions.

The trap they're trying to set, is to get democrats enmeshed in defending a perfectly legal but legitimately ethically questionable quasi-conflict of interest. The more we argue about the (perfectly legal) nespotism and ethically questionable (but also perfectly legal) stuff, the less attention is paid to Trump's overt, criminal, undeniable lawbreaking.

I don't hear a lot of Democrats even talking about Hunter Biden, let alone defending him.

 

[CapelDodger]

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'll take some convincing that Hunter Biden's appointment was unconnected with his father's role, or that Hunter Biden didn't realise that. From what I've read he had no previous involvement with Ukraine or the gas industry, so while he may well have been qualified he was hardly likely to be uniquely qualified, which does raise the question of why him. I give no credence to the Republican conspiracy theory, of course, and I'm not suggesting that Hunter Biden was touting his political influence around Ukraine the way Giuliani has been, but people raised under the Soviet nomenklatura and the post-Soviet kleptocracies are more than likely to think they'll gain something by hiring the US VP's son. If Hunter Biden didn't realise that he's probably to dumb to serve on a board on merit, and I don't think he is. He knew full well he was taking advantage of his family name, and I find that distasteful in general.

 

[CapelDodger]

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.

As I've said before, Trump's efforts to present this sort of thing as illegitimate is a direct assault on the Establishment (the Establishment which has never accepted him as one of theirs, which I'm sure still rankles with him), which is a dangerous move. It could be the end of him. McCarthy's ascendency ended very abruptly when he turned on the wrong people. As did Robespierre's.

 

[CapelDodger]

The odds that Hunter was literally the best candidate (or as good as the best) and chosen without consideration of who his father is strikes me as unlikely, but unlikely things happen.

I'll allow coincidence up to a point, but not that point.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I'll allow coincidence up to a point, but not that point.

That the Trump Family has made this into a discussion of nepotism is really quite fascinating.

 

[CapelDodger]

That the Trump Family has made this into a discussion of nepotism is really quite fascinating.

We're living in the Irony Age, apparently. Fredo has "written" a book about how the Left are all haters and got chased away from the book-launch by Trumpists. There's someone who was born well above his pay-grade.

 

[Lurch]

The "nepotism" is him getting the jobs just because people want the Biden last name.

The financial conflict of interest in Ukraine is a totally separate issue.

I thought nepotism involved the hiring of family. Hunter striking out on his own, outside the family, is decidedly not indicative of nepotistic practice.

 

[CapelDodger]

I thought nepotism involved the hiring of family. Hunter striking out on his own, outside the family, is decidedly not indicative of nepotistic practice.

Quite. Trading on your family name (implicitly or not) is not nepotism.

 

[kellyb]

No, it's the issue I was responding to. You can't call it a conflict of interests when the person you're accusing of it does the right thing, consequences to his loved ones be damned.

Conflicts of interest exist when people are doing the right thing all the time.

Just HAVING a conflict of interest isn't some sin. All it means is "a situation in which an individual has competing interests or loyalties."

Just because acted (as far as anyone can credibly claim) in the legally correct way - behaving with his loyalty to his oath of office and the US having primacy over his loyalty to his son - does NOT mean there was no conflict present.

 

[kellyb]

yes, it was unseemly, but was it unseemly of Joe or Hunter?

Hunter. He put his dad in a **** 'ed up position taking that job. It was in a country that had just had a coup, his dad oversaw foreign policy there, and the company probably was (just being real!) hiring him to give cosmetic cover to that oligarch's corruption.

 

[kellyb]

"The Biden angle" is unavoidably baked into the Trump impeachment, because what we're talking about with Sorkin and the Bidens is what Trump broke the law to put in the headlines.

I disagree. The Bidens are only an issue because the Republicans are desperately trying to make it one. The issue of Trump's impeachment is that Trump using is public office to extort Ukraine into making a public announcement that they were opening an investigation into Joe Biden's corruption, even though that investigation had already happened and found nothing.

You say you disagree that the Biden angle is baked in, but can't describe the Trump impeachment's without saying the words "Ukraine into making a public announcement that they were opening an investigation into Joe Biden's corruption".

Are we disagreeing over the meaning of the term "angle" here, maybe?

Biden's actions have no bearing on whether Trump abused the power of his public office. Even if Biden were guilty up to his eyeballs of some illegal activity, this investigation is into Trump's actions.

Well, I think if it were close to planet "reasonable suspicion" that Biden had been doing something illegal in Ukraine - to use an extreme example, like funneling nuclear bombs into Iran, knowing Iran's objective was to use them to purge the middle east of Jews, just so Biden got a billion Iranian dollars in a Swiss bank account somewhere...that would justify a foreign policy of "No weapons for you until you expose the entire horrifying sordid mess for the world to see."

The thing is, Biden not only did nothing illegal - Trump ain't even got a theory of how some law somewhere might maybe have been broken! All he has is "Hunter worked for Bursima while Joe oversaw foreign policy in Ukraine and got the prosecutor who was investigating Bursima fired". Which...only a geriatric wannabe mobster in serious cognitive decline would think that justifies a blatant and extreme, undeniable violation of The Federal Election Campaign Act under the stupidly thin pretense of legitimate foreign policy.

I don't hear a lot of Democrats even talking about Hunter Biden, let alone defending him.

I was just talking to the people doing it here, in the last couple of pages in the thread.

 

[kellyb]

To start with it's the National Review which is about as right wing neocon rag as you're ever going to find.

NR is probably the closest thing to sane, honest, intelligent, almost reasonable "conservative" media that exists.

 

[kellyb]

I thought nepotism involved the hiring of family. Hunter striking out on his own, outside the family, is decidedly not indicative of nepotistic practice.

Quite. Trading on your family name (implicitly or not) is not nepotism.

You two are correct. My bad. A better word for it would just be "oligarchic" or "dynastic".

A feature of oligarchy is the dynastic ascension of new leaders, children who rise to positions of power and wealth simply by the luck of birth.

 

[acbytesla]

NR is probably the closest thing to sane, honest, intelligent, almost reasonable "conservative" media that exists.

That's not saying much. The National Review is extremely critical of the Trump administration, but they never say anything good about Democrats EVER.

The real point though is the quote comes from an "unnamed source". I don't take those very seriously even if it supports my position.

 

[CapelDodger]

You two are correct. My bad. A better word for it would just be "oligarchic" or "dynastic".

Both are appropriate. What generally happens is that one generation as a whole helps the next : one chap does another chap he went to school with a favour by employing his spawn and so it goes. The Establishment also tends to marry-in, which brings in the dynastic side.

Forty years on from the Thatcher-Reagan Revolution this is what we've got : the entrenchment of inherited wealth and status. The icon of the age in the US is the Kushner-Trump dynastic alliance : in the UK it's the feckless Eton Boys who are screwing-up this country. The exact opposite of what their revolution was sold on, which was that low taxes and small government would encourage people to better themselves and create opportunities for them to do so. Voodoo economics turned out to be just that.

 

[kellyb]

That's not saying much. The National Review is extremely critical of the Trump administration, but they never say anything good about Democrats EVER.

The real point though is the quote comes from an "unnamed source". I don't take those very seriously even if it supports my position.

I don't personally expect them to say good things about democrats. It's better that they don't feign being "unbiased" IMO, too. I like my media's bias proclaimed loudly from the rooftop. As long as a writer/journalist is intelligent, curious, and being as intellectually honest as they can be, I'm cool with them.

I evaluate unnamed sources on a case by case basis, trying to correct primarily for my own bias. 538's guide to evaluating them is similar to how I think about them. I also factor in things like "probability of motive for someone to just basically lie to influence or control the narrative," "chances the source's claims are based on a secondary source that's simply mistaken," and things like that.

 

[kellyb]

Voodoo economics turned out to be just that.

What's wild about the voodoo economic theories is that "they" (the economic advisers to the politicians) really did know it was voodoo at the time. It was all a nefarious hoax by the mid 80's.

See:
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/19/opinion/in-the-nation-a-deliberate-deficit.html

IN THE NATION; A Deliberate Deficit
By Tom Wicker
July 19, 1985

But, Dr. von Hayek continued, ''You see, one of Reagan's advisers told me why the President has permitted that to happen, which makes the matter partly excusable: Reagan thinks it is impossible to persuade Congress that expenditures must be reduced unless one creates deficits so large that absolutely everyone becomes convinced that no more money can be spent.''

Thus, the economist said, Mr. Reagan ''hopes to persuade Congress of the necessity of spending reductions by means of an immense deficit.

While some Americans may agree that a shrunken government makes a deliberately created deficit ''partly excusable,'' such a deficit still reflects a reckless deception with worldwide consequences yet to be calculated. And Congressional Democrats should realize the source of the pressure they're under to sell their political birthright.

I'm guessing you're familiar with that Dr. von Hayek character quoted.

 

[kellyb]

The real point though is the quote comes from an "unnamed source". I don't take those very seriously even if it supports my position.

Is this the quote from the NR article with an unnamed source you're referring to, that they attribute (without a link, of course, because you're right about how even the crème de la crème of conservative media really is dog **** compared to actual good journalism) to Politico?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019...MF1UhQuMPQFiKVWlQClsb793vPh885CTkgBK8R7x2CL6o

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.

Here's the politico link, in case you want it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The wiki says (I don't have access to the NYT articles they reference, but I think this is accurate):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Shokin



eta: I definitely agree that "It definitely had nothing to do with anyone investigating Hunter B". I'm just saying if it had been Joe Biden's wife instead of his son sitting on the board of Bursima, Joe Biden's involvement with any of it would have been illegal under this law.

The important point is, J Biden was working toward an investigation, he was not in any way trying to stop one. And that is where the Democrats should be putting their talking points, not putting them into defending Hunter or Joe.