The line of events you just gave provides Joe with a perfect cover for why he did what he did lol No corruption needed.

Again, I don't like that we do these things, but taking out Russia aligned foreign governments and installing U.S. friendly ones is not a scandal because it's normal U.S. foreign relations.

Ok but Burisma isn't in this paragraph. These emails suggest Hunter hooked Burisma up with Joe, correct?

i realize in that region large companies and the govt oligarchs are never more than a few steps away, im just missing the connection here.

so far i see US makes cold war era move to push Russia out of Ukraine, then gets guy fired to stop him from exposing it.

It's fairly obvious to anyone with a little common sense that Hunter is magically spawning on foreign company boards making millions not because he's some shrewd business man but because he's the son of one of the most powerful politicians in the US.

Like not sure what you're expecting. You think there's going to be some paperwork with Joe signing his name to a list of favors he'll fulfill? These are things that happen over golf games or over some fine dinner with some fine whisky at some country club, that's why the guy was asking for in person meeting and wanted to follow up.

I don't think such CIA puppetry been 'normal' since the end of the cold war, and we're supposed to have been raised to scorn the old imperialist legacy of corrupt American interventionalism
that said, what makes it damning wasn't just the geopolitical schemes, it was the personal corruption and profiteering

Look at Iran Contra. That scandal wasn't about corrupt politicians seeking to make a profit for themselves. It was about secret geopolitical maneuvers to prop up supposedly moderate Iranian factions and get hostages released. Their goals were what they thought were in our nation's interests, not our own. Reagan wasn't getting millions in kickbacks for Ron Jr. Whereas Joe Biden's geopolitical maneuvers in Ukraine mirrored his own family's corrupt interests, as they do in China, that goes well beyond a mere 'conflict of interest'.

There's a strategic argument that Euromaidan and the aggression in Ukraine and strained relations with Russia are all contrary to America's national interests, when we should have been aligning the world against the real threat, China. Obama said as much when he was running to get re-elected in 2012, and made it formal policy. And yet a lot of neoliberal hawks sought NATO expansion and sabre rattling with Russia and they won out. I think its arrogant to dismiss out of hand either possibility as the better one, even if I think everything history has taught us points to the former being wiser. But how can we have a debate over what's good foreign policy if instead of being guided by our nation's interests, we're guided by whoever's pocket Hunter Biden is in?

Maybe he will spawn in the white house like somebody else's spawn has.

Since both of these men are corrupt nepotist, who are you endorsing at this time?

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 15 2020 08:53am

no, i think the children of politicians are on boards across the globe numbering in the hundreds or more. and i think we should prosecute people when there is a clear pathway from "kid hired for potential influence" and "influence was successful".

If Eric Trump was paid a few million to do nothing at a company in China i'd roll my eyes, if he was caught specifically trying to get tariffs removed for the goods that company produces and then it actually happened, then that's bad, although im still not sure if it's illegal given international jurisdiction.

a lot has changed since Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, top level politics and influence are one. if we find it crosses into illegality or unethical behavior then we do something.

The clintons got paid absurd money to do speeches for wall street, after office Trump will get paid a shit load to do NRA speeches as will his kids. the law cant or wont keep up with these gray areas.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Oct 15 2020 08:55am

That's exactly the standard that the right established with Russia and Trump lol

But you're right that it isn't realistic, I just wish it didn't take Biden having a scandal for everybody in the Trump cult to acknowledge that isn't a legitimate expectation.

We all acknowledged already that Hunter isn't a business wizard and was being paid for his connections. That's absolutely normal for connected individuals in both public and private service. Again, not good that this kind of thing is totally normal, but the fact is it's not a scandal.

The thing we need is where Biden comes into this and how his actions intersect with Burisma specifically.




The Iran Contra scandal was caused by Reagan illegally laundering money for a project that congress had explicitly denied funding for by illegally selling arms, not our playing fast and loose with morals on foreign affairs.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Oct 15 2020 08:58am

No one is talking about prosecution but I don't think we shouldn't care about just because its the standard of the world, especially considering how for the last 4 years we've read about a billion stories how Trump is compromised by Russia and we literally had an actual investigation costing millions.

You don't find this double standard pretty hypocritical?

i find it incredibly hypocritical, but still the DNC is torn between a pragmatic moderate in Biden and a radical anticorruption messiah in Bernie. the party seems at least half interested in moving in a direction with less political influence. i do not see the same duality in the GOP, despite the "Drain the swamp" chants I see a future landscape of swamp expansion or at least preservation. hell, trump's plan to rid DC of swamp creatures was to place business CEOs in cabinet positions. he can sell this as wanting their skills, and that's fine, but their influence grows all the same. i'd love to see a graph of the stock prices on the CEOs companies pre and post announcement of their cabinet position.

on that same note Dick Cheney and the Haliburton windfalls from Iraqi rebuilding should have ended with his head on a spike.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Oct 15 2020 09:07am

Yes- an illegal project for his foreign policy agenda. Which he thought was a good idea for the country
Again, I'm drawing the distinction between "serving America's interests" and "serving one's own interests"

I think there's a very obvious difference between politicians who follow the rules, politicians who break the rules to advance a political agenda, and politicians who break the rules to get rich while tens of thousands of people die in the fighting