"the pissant deals that Hunter Biden made to keep his family fed while fighting a crippling drug addiction"
No.
Please.
Stop.
We really can't be making it our argument that he was so impaired that his trading on his name wasn't just that or that he was Jean Valjean stealing bread for his starving family.
And James Biden wasn't on Bolivian marching powder when he lined his pockets.
Hunter and James are going to be real problems for Joe, in many ways moreso than family grifting was for Trump because Trump has always been seen as a deals guy who takes advantage of opportunities while Joe runs on being a kitchen table guy who takes the train.
And when we are doing Trump whataboutism we are conceding that this situation is, in fact, Trump-like...which is not what winning looks like here...
I'm a lawyer and even I started to zone out on the minutiae in just this limited slice of the story and it is as certain as gravity making things fall down that average voters are not going to be parsing who got what check and when.
Meanwhile, the RW spin machine is already there with a workable version: that Jared and Vanky already had profitable buinesses when they got nice deals but that Hunter's only business was in being Joe's son. In our fishbowl we may not like it, but to the drive-by voter or the bothsideist voter that makes kinda sense.
So, yeah, sure, we should note all the dumbness and the bad faith...but we should also remember that the "scandal" that cost Hillary a Presidency began about a routinely ignored archiving rule at the State Department.
We need to treat this as though it will pack an electoral wallop and respond to it as such. If it turns out not to because the MAGAts are incompent to take it across the finish line then we will just be happier.
An adult has no control over what their adult son or other brother does. If you have any suggestions, let's hear it. This has been a complaint for decades with any relatives of a president, and there are no legal ways to prevent it to my knowledge unless you can prove a president was personally benefiting from it, and even then you would likely have to show how it impacted his decisions. Something made more difficult by the Supreme Court overturning a bribery conviction of a former Virginia governor even though he received some fairly lavish gifts and perks from a guy who was obviously trying to curry favor.
It's getting ridiculous to keep hearing Joe Biden should have done something about Hunter. What, pray tell. The same with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everyone blames him but I have yet to hear a rational policy that would have ended up any better. Including some idiot general who said we should have held on to Bagram base and the Kabul airport, locations covering a lot of territory with just one runway over 2 miles long. All with only 2,500 troops left by Trump, not all of them combat troops. Who would have had to patrol miles of border 24 hours a day 7 days a week while air traffic was blocked by Taliban soldiers a mile or two away with shoulder fired rockets and mortar and sniper fire a daily event. Unless we sent in about 50,000 more troops. Anyone with a better solution should feel free to contact the Chief of Staff for our military. I'm sure they would like to hear it.
Imagine "Hey- whadduyah gonna do?" spoken about a Republican with a relative making bank on their name. Does it satisfy you then?
My point is that in the world outside Wonkette this is gonna leave a mark. We should prep to deal with that, not scoff at it.
And when Joe is talking about his grifty relatives then he is not talking about protecting Medicare and Social Securiety and repairing infrastructure and cheap insulin and bringing back child tax credits. So there is also that.
I read the phrase "Hayseed dipshit" and Comer's face popped right into my brain. Too bad there are more than one or we could just start calling him that.
It’s all they have. Democrats are human, and they are fallible. But we are almost without exception kinder, more tolerant, honest and decent than the average raving wingnut. Republicans can’t usually find real liberal scandals to point to, so they make them up, calling us vile names and making baseless stories about “grooming” and whatever else they think will hurt us. The Trump crime family used every lever they could pull to enrich themselves from inside the White House, while working for Americans and while holding high-level security clearances. The risk of corruption, influence, blackmail, and a crapload of ethics and financial violations were obvious then and now. Hunter has a famous, powerful father. He’s traded on that just like most connected people in America do. But he doesn’t work in the White House, and just imagine for a moment if he did. So keep at it, Gippers. You’ll find that smoking dick.
I agree we shouldn’t try to paint Hunter’s nepotism as an addict simply trying to “feed his family.” (That reminds me of former NBA star Latrell Sprewell scoffing at a 3-year, $30 million contract offer because he “had a family to feed.” Sprewell was never offered another contract and never played another game in the nba). Hunter is an addict, hopefully in recovery, like so many people in America. Nearly 10% of Americans abuse alcohol, and 7-8% have experienced drug abuse. I would have expected those figures to be even higher. In any event, Hunter trading on his father’s name and proximity to power isn’t a surprise, it’s not unusual and it’s not a crime. The GOP can’t really hurt Joe Biden any more than they already do by characterizing him as confused, elderly, suffering from dementia, but also a dangerous socialist and radical leftist with an extreme agenda. It’s the daily chatter on Fox, Newsmax and the other rags. Unless Joe used his position in Congress to either accept bribes, promise to influence policy or threaten people if they didn’t pay Hunter, this is low-level muckraking. My brother was an alcoholic, drug-abuser who struggled to keep a job. He lost his teeth in his 40’s and died at age 51. I’m his younger brother, and I’m healthy, with a 23-year legal career and my own family. I’m no less a person because my brother struggled, and neither was my dad. The MAGA crowd know very well about families having a black sheep. I’ll wager few MAGAs don’t have one of their own. It’s Joe’s behavior that is important, not Hunter’s. It’s the GOP who look uglier and uglier in this crusade.
Biden doesn’t really make public speaking a priority anyway, so it’s not something that distracts his agenda. He deliberately refuses to be a cult of personality, which is all Trump wants to be. Biden isn’t potus because he needs money or power or attention or protection from prosecution. He’s been serving in government for 50 years. I only wish he were 20 or even 10 years younger. Nobody escapes mortality, and Joe is asking a lot of his body. The stress and weight of being potus must be indescribable.
But be glad and rejoice. Should a neutron star jump up beside earth, your troubles would be over.
Since Kimberly G. was well known at Faux "News" for showing dix pix to one and all - there had better be.
So the best the GNoP can come up with is that pathetic drug-addled Hunter was peddling influence? And somebody paid him for that? #seriously?
What makes you think it will get rolling?
"the pissant deals that Hunter Biden made to keep his family fed while fighting a crippling drug addiction"
No.
Please.
Stop.
We really can't be making it our argument that he was so impaired that his trading on his name wasn't just that or that he was Jean Valjean stealing bread for his starving family.
And James Biden wasn't on Bolivian marching powder when he lined his pockets.
Hunter and James are going to be real problems for Joe, in many ways moreso than family grifting was for Trump because Trump has always been seen as a deals guy who takes advantage of opportunities while Joe runs on being a kitchen table guy who takes the train.
And when we are doing Trump whataboutism we are conceding that this situation is, in fact, Trump-like...which is not what winning looks like here...
I'm a lawyer and even I started to zone out on the minutiae in just this limited slice of the story and it is as certain as gravity making things fall down that average voters are not going to be parsing who got what check and when.
Meanwhile, the RW spin machine is already there with a workable version: that Jared and Vanky already had profitable buinesses when they got nice deals but that Hunter's only business was in being Joe's son. In our fishbowl we may not like it, but to the drive-by voter or the bothsideist voter that makes kinda sense.
So, yeah, sure, we should note all the dumbness and the bad faith...but we should also remember that the "scandal" that cost Hillary a Presidency began about a routinely ignored archiving rule at the State Department.
We need to treat this as though it will pack an electoral wallop and respond to it as such. If it turns out not to because the MAGAts are incompent to take it across the finish line then we will just be happier.
A million here, a Billion there… pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Oh, KellyAnne.
If there are dick pics on DJTJ’s phone, you can bet Kimberly has shared them with an intern without consent.
An adult has no control over what their adult son or other brother does. If you have any suggestions, let's hear it. This has been a complaint for decades with any relatives of a president, and there are no legal ways to prevent it to my knowledge unless you can prove a president was personally benefiting from it, and even then you would likely have to show how it impacted his decisions. Something made more difficult by the Supreme Court overturning a bribery conviction of a former Virginia governor even though he received some fairly lavish gifts and perks from a guy who was obviously trying to curry favor.
It's getting ridiculous to keep hearing Joe Biden should have done something about Hunter. What, pray tell. The same with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everyone blames him but I have yet to hear a rational policy that would have ended up any better. Including some idiot general who said we should have held on to Bagram base and the Kabul airport, locations covering a lot of territory with just one runway over 2 miles long. All with only 2,500 troops left by Trump, not all of them combat troops. Who would have had to patrol miles of border 24 hours a day 7 days a week while air traffic was blocked by Taliban soldiers a mile or two away with shoulder fired rockets and mortar and sniper fire a daily event. Unless we sent in about 50,000 more troops. Anyone with a better solution should feel free to contact the Chief of Staff for our military. I'm sure they would like to hear it.
Imagine "Hey- whadduyah gonna do?" spoken about a Republican with a relative making bank on their name. Does it satisfy you then?
My point is that in the world outside Wonkette this is gonna leave a mark. We should prep to deal with that, not scoff at it.
And when Joe is talking about his grifty relatives then he is not talking about protecting Medicare and Social Securiety and repairing infrastructure and cheap insulin and bringing back child tax credits. So there is also that.
I read the phrase "Hayseed dipshit" and Comer's face popped right into my brain. Too bad there are more than one or we could just start calling him that.
Good lord, what universe do you need to live in that makes, "My dad is the vice president!" a relevant statement
It’s all they have. Democrats are human, and they are fallible. But we are almost without exception kinder, more tolerant, honest and decent than the average raving wingnut. Republicans can’t usually find real liberal scandals to point to, so they make them up, calling us vile names and making baseless stories about “grooming” and whatever else they think will hurt us. The Trump crime family used every lever they could pull to enrich themselves from inside the White House, while working for Americans and while holding high-level security clearances. The risk of corruption, influence, blackmail, and a crapload of ethics and financial violations were obvious then and now. Hunter has a famous, powerful father. He’s traded on that just like most connected people in America do. But he doesn’t work in the White House, and just imagine for a moment if he did. So keep at it, Gippers. You’ll find that smoking dick.
I agree we shouldn’t try to paint Hunter’s nepotism as an addict simply trying to “feed his family.” (That reminds me of former NBA star Latrell Sprewell scoffing at a 3-year, $30 million contract offer because he “had a family to feed.” Sprewell was never offered another contract and never played another game in the nba). Hunter is an addict, hopefully in recovery, like so many people in America. Nearly 10% of Americans abuse alcohol, and 7-8% have experienced drug abuse. I would have expected those figures to be even higher. In any event, Hunter trading on his father’s name and proximity to power isn’t a surprise, it’s not unusual and it’s not a crime. The GOP can’t really hurt Joe Biden any more than they already do by characterizing him as confused, elderly, suffering from dementia, but also a dangerous socialist and radical leftist with an extreme agenda. It’s the daily chatter on Fox, Newsmax and the other rags. Unless Joe used his position in Congress to either accept bribes, promise to influence policy or threaten people if they didn’t pay Hunter, this is low-level muckraking. My brother was an alcoholic, drug-abuser who struggled to keep a job. He lost his teeth in his 40’s and died at age 51. I’m his younger brother, and I’m healthy, with a 23-year legal career and my own family. I’m no less a person because my brother struggled, and neither was my dad. The MAGA crowd know very well about families having a black sheep. I’ll wager few MAGAs don’t have one of their own. It’s Joe’s behavior that is important, not Hunter’s. It’s the GOP who look uglier and uglier in this crusade.
IMO Kelleyanne is Trump's #1 pick for a running mate. If he can make it that far...
Biden doesn’t really make public speaking a priority anyway, so it’s not something that distracts his agenda. He deliberately refuses to be a cult of personality, which is all Trump wants to be. Biden isn’t potus because he needs money or power or attention or protection from prosecution. He’s been serving in government for 50 years. I only wish he were 20 or even 10 years younger. Nobody escapes mortality, and Joe is asking a lot of his body. The stress and weight of being potus must be indescribable.