How Democrats could steal the midterms
By now everyone with two working brain cells knows, or pretends not to know, that Democrats cheated on a colossal scale to get Whisperin' Joe into the White House. So it's safe to say that Republicans, having wised up to the Donks' stratagems and skullduggery, will capture both House and Senate in next year's midterms. Right? Yes. That is, assuming elections actually take place on November 8, 2022.
Who doubts that Democrats, with a death grip on power now, are capable of anything to keep Pelosi and Schumer on top and Biden's cabal in the White House calling the shots? Well, in a takeaway from those absconding Dem Texas legislators, you can't be defeated if you don't show up for the game.
Fixing a presidential election proved simple; given the number of candidates involved, rigging midterms would be a reach. An alternative? Regarding national contests, things get complicated, but here are two money quotes from a 2004 Congressional Research Service report on federal elections: Congress would have the power, by statute, to "postpone ... House and Senate elections," and "Congress could enact a statute delegating the authority to postpone an election to the Executive Branch." Justification for either action? "Terrorism," "calamitous events," and the ambiguous "national emergency" — such as, say, civil disorder on a massive scale leading up to Election Day.
Consider this scenario: on November 6, 2022, two days before federal elections, mayhem breaks out in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and other blue cities across the country. Masked provocateurs roam the streets, damaging property, assaulting innocents, fighting the police officers confronting them, and targeting polling stations for burning. To sow confusion, a few are wearing MAGA hats. Mayors and governors appear caught by surprise and announce that it will take days to get the National Guard in to quell disturbances.
The left and its allies in the media will highlight the disturbances and accuse white supremacists and Trump sympathizers of fomenting unrest in hopes of dissuading voters from leaving home to cast ballots for Democrat House and Senate candidates. The January 6, 2021 "insurrection" idiocy (with American citizens in custody for months for trespassing) will be revived by the MSM to muddy the waters.
The truth is that street agitators in the employ of Dem strategists would give cover to congressional Democrats to request that President Biden postpone elections until order can be restored. Republicans would scream bloody murder, but leftist newspapers, TV networks, and social media would mute the outrage and ridicule "conspiracy theories" about chaos in blue states' large cities.
The courts would become involved, but with lawyers battling it out, who knows how long it would take to even reschedule elections? Indefinitely? President Biden might say he cannot guarantee the sanctity of a delayed vote until affected states affirm they have established new voting venues and can keep them functioning. With a heavy heart, the president declares a national emergency and delays the vote. And delays it some more.
Raise your hand if you believe today's Marxist/Democratic Party would draw a line at employing sedition and violence to hold on to power. Raise it higher if you don't believe that the aim of this regime is to silence and eventually criminalize all opposition to its agenda.
Steve Grammatico is the author of You
THIS INVASION IS NO ACCIDENT! BIDEN HAS BEEN WORKING ON IT SINCE HE WAS PART OF THE BANKSTER REGIME OF LAWYER BARACK OBAMA, LAWYER JOE BIDEN AND LAWYER ERIC HOLDER. REMEMEBER, LAWS DO NOT APPLY TO THE LAWYER CLASS. THEY GAME THEM ALL!!!
Why Can't Biden Stop This Invasion?
Article IV of the Constitution addresses the obligations of the federal government to the state governments that were being asked to surrender aspects of their sovereignty to form our new Union.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," reads Article IV, "and shall protect each of them against Invasion."
Late in the War of 1812, U.S. forces held Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor through a nightlong attack but failed to stop an invading British army at Bladensburg, which marched on to Washington and burned the Capitol and White House.
To repel a British invasion and the capture of New Orleans, and a blockading of the Mississippi, Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson mustered a defending army that almost annihilated the invading British force.
Half a decade later, President James Monroe sent Jackson to halt the raids of marauding Indians out of Spanish Florida into Georgia.
Jackson stormed into Florida, crushed the Indian tribes, sent the Spanish governor packing to Cuba and hanged two British subjects for collaborating with the enemy.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams persuaded the Spanish to cede the "derelict province" they could not control — or Jackson might return, and we might just take it.
Madrid got the message. We got Florida.
When Pancho Villa sent a raiding party across the U.S. border in 1916 and killed Americans in Columbus, New Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson sent Gen. John Pershing and an army that grew to 12,000 into Mexico to run him down.
In 1954, after a million Mexicans had crossed over into the United States, President Dwight Eisenhower sent Gen. Joseph Swing to send them back. In the vernacular of the time, the mission was named Operation Wetback.
Mission accomplished. Problem solved. And the point:
America used to regard its southern border as sacrosanct and vulnerable, requiring constant vigilance and occasional action to secure.
And how is President Joe Biden handling his sworn presidential duty to defend the states of the Union from invasion?
This June, 188,800 illegals crossed into the United States — a rate of more than 6,000 a day. Nearly a million have arrived in the six months since Biden swore an oath to defend the Constitution that obligates him to protect the states against invasion.
As for "getaways," migrants who enter illegally but evade contact with the Border Patrol and other U.S. authorities and then vanish into our midst, their numbers have been running at about 30,000 a month.
If the present rate of illegal entries continues, Biden, by the end of his first year as President, will have failed to stop perhaps 2 million illegal aliens from having breached our southern border.
Biden is conducting the border policy of a failed state.
And U.S. immigration policy is being set by people from Third World nations who can find their way to the Rio Grande.
Why cannot we stop this invasion?
Vice President Kamala Harris was assigned to take charge of this task, but she redefined her mission as discovering what makes people leave their home countries and trek across Mexico — to come and live here.
Good question: Why are people from developing nations leaving their home countries and crossing Mexico to get into the USA?
After all, our academic, cultural and political elites have told the world that America is a place of "systemic racism," created by white supremacists, for the benefit of peoples of white privilege, where ethnic minorities remain oppressed.
Why would such a country, of all 193 nations in the U.N., be, far and away, the first choice of peoples migrating from the Global South?
Could it be that people from developing nations are not so ignorant as to believe this anti-American progressive propaganda?
They know America is free and full of opportunity. That even the poor here have access to 12 years of free education for their kids. That they will find better health care in America than they can find at home. That there are programs here to battle poverty, hunger and homelessness.
But from the standpoint of the nation to which they are coming, the illegal migrant millions present real problems. They consume far more in benefits than they pay in taxes. They are dead weight on the welfare state.
"Biden is in a vise on border," said The Washington Post Sunday headline, over a story describing the president's border problem.
But the only way Biden can have a political crisis on the border is if he is seen as failing in his duty to defend the states against invasion.
Why is he failing? Either he can't do what is needed to be done, or he won't do it.
America's border paralysis is induced by liberal ideology.
The left does not want the illegals coming here. "Do not come!" was the message Harris gave the Guatemalans. But when it comes to the necessary toughness to stop the invasion, they recoil.
Joe Biden is no Eisenhower, no Wilson, no Quincy Adams and certainly no Andrew Jackson.
(Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.")
Workers must draw the lessons of six months of the Biden administration. None of the problems confronting the working class, from the disastrous pandemic response to unparalleled levels of social inequality, to the danger of imperialist world war and fascist dictatorship, can be addressed without breaking the grip of the financial oligarchy over every aspect of society.
Six months of the Biden administration—A balance sheet
Six months ago, Joseph Biden was inaugurated president of the United States, under conditions of unprecedented crisis of US capitalism and the entire social and political order.
His predecessor, Donald Trump, did not attend the ceremony, signaling his refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election. Only two weeks before, on January 6, Trump’s supporters had stormed the Capitol and temporarily halted the congressional certification of state electoral votes. The aim of the attempted coup was to stop the transfer of power and establish a personalist dictatorship. In the words of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, it was Trump’s “Reichstag moment.”
When Biden took office, 400,000 people were dead from the COVID-19 pandemic, while millions were unemployed. Just months earlier, every city, town, and village in America had seen protests in opposition to police violence.
Biden marked the six-month anniversary with brief remarks presenting American society in glowing terms. “For all those predictions of doom and gloom six months in, here’s where things stand,” he said. “Record growth, record job creation, workers getting hard-earned breaks.” He added, “Put simply: Our economy is on the move, and we have COVID-19 on the run.”
Summing up his prognosis, the US president proclaimed: “It turns out capitalism is alive and very well.” The truth is that the policies of the Biden administration have entirely failed to resolve the social crisis in America and they cannot, because they are based on the framework of American capitalism.
The pandemic, far from being “on the run,” is undergoing a new resurgence. Since Biden took office, an additional 225,000 people have died from the pandemic. All indications are that by the winter, with the new surge accompanying the spread of the Delta variant, the death toll under Biden will have exceeded that under Trump.
The policies of the Biden administration have been driven by the interests of Wall Street and the super-rich. This is why, despite occasional criticisms of Trump’s callous and anti-scientific response to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden has pursued the same policy of restoring corporate profit-making by forcing workers back to work and children back to school as quickly as possible, regardless of the dangers to their lives and health.
Trump’s response to the economic depression that accompanied the onset of the pandemic was to pour trillions into bolstering the banks, hedge funds and corporations, with bipartisan bills like the CARES Act. Biden pursues essentially the same policy, although with less support from the Republicans than the Democrats gave Trump. He boasts of success on the economic front, although seven million fewer workers have jobs today than before the pandemic began, and millions face wage cuts, poverty, eviction and foreclosure.
Only in foreign policy is there a significant shift from Trump to Biden, and this in tactics only, not strategy. Biden has placed more emphasis on the US utilization of NATO and the “Quad,” a de facto alliance with Japan, Australia and India. Significant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus backed Biden against Trump because they sought a more effective mobilization of US power against Russia and China.
And if Biden’s statement that “capitalism is alive and very well” were true, it begs the question: Why is there a mounting fascist threat to American democracy?
In the six months since Biden’s inauguration, the Republican Party has maintained its intransigent opposition to any serious investigation into the events of January 6. Half-hearted Democratic proposals, first for an “independent” bipartisan commission to investigate the attack, then for a bipartisan congressional investigation, have been blocked outright or endlessly delayed.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to emerge of the central role played by Trump and his allies in Congress in seeking to carry out a political coup d’état to overturn the results of the election and maintain himself in office. But neither Trump nor his accomplices have even been questioned, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.
Instead, Trump has renewed his agitation against the election, seeking to transform the Republican Party into an openly fascistic movement subordinated to his personal authority. And his supporters in the Republican Party are using their control of state legislatures to enact unprecedented and sweeping attacks on the right to vote.
Biden himself acknowledged something of the reality of the crisis of American capitalism in a speech last week in Philadelphia, when he declared “We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” But he offered no way forward, except to appeal to “my Republican friends in the Congress, states and cities and counties to stand up” against this assault—although they are the very ones carrying it out.
In an effort to prop up illusions in the Democratic Party, the representatives of its “left” wing, portray Biden’s policies in extravagant terms. Last week Senator Bernie Sanders claimed that Biden’s “reconciliation” bill on social spending amounted to “the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the 1930s.” Or, like Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin, affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, they express disappointment in what has been achieved so far, but express the hope that “Biden has shown a willingness to think big,” and that additional pressure should be brought to bear on congressional Democrats.
For his part, Biden uses every possible occasion to make clear he has no intention of implementing any measures that challenge the interests of the financial oligarchy, declaring last weekend, “Communism is a failed system, universally failed system. I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute.”
The truth is that the Biden administration is based on Wall Street and the military, mobilizing behind it sections of the upper middle class through the utilization of identity politics. Well aware of the explosive social conditions developing in America, moreover, the administration supports the union “organization” campaign at Amazon and the PRO Act, to make it easier to install unions at work locations where they otherwise would have difficulty convincing workers to pay dues for the privilege of having their wages and benefits cut.
It is telling that when workers engage in genuine anti-corporate struggles, like the strikes waged by autoworkers against Volvo Trucks in Dublin, Virginia, the supposedly “pro-labor” president falls completely silent. Biden is for the unions, not for the workers, because he correctly sees the unions as an instrument of the US ruling class in policing the working class.
Workers must draw the lessons of six months of the Biden administration. None of the problems confronting the working class, from the disastrous pandemic response to unparalleled levels of social inequality, to the danger of imperialist world war and fascist dictatorship, can be addressed without breaking the grip of the financial oligarchy over every aspect of society.
Master of Misinformation: Joe Biden’s 10 Worst Lies
President Joe Biden is pushing social media companies to suppress what he calls “misinformation” about coronavirus vaccines, blaming it for stalling the administration’s rollout and claiming that bad information is “killing people.”
Yet Biden has been assisted by deliberate misinformation by social media companies, who suppressed the (true) story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and he has also produced misinformation, for political advantage, that has damaged the country.
1. Misinformation about neo-Nazis. Biden launched his presidential campaign in April 2019 by claiming that President Donald Trump had referred to neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, as “very fine people.” In fact, Trump had said they should be “condemned totally.” Biden did not invent the lie, but by repeating it, he convinced many Americans that their president was a Nazi sympathizer, and stoked racial tensions that fed nationwide unrest.
2. Misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine. In August 2020, then-candidate Biden told Americans they could not trust a vaccine that was being produced by Trump’s Operation Warp Speed. “It’s not likely to go through all the tests and the trials that are needed to be done,” Biden said, slandering the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He also said Trump was “moving it quicker than the scientists think it should be moved,” falsely claiming the authority of science.
3. Misinformation about officer-involved shootings. When police shot Jacob Blake Jr. in Kenosha last August, Biden called Blake “a victim of excessive force” and said that “the officers must be held accountable.” In fact, Blake was armed with a knife; had fought with officers; and was wanted on an outstanding warrant for sexual assault. A subsequent investigation exonerated the officers. Biden’s lie fueled outrage that had already exploded into riots on Kenosha’s streets.
4. Misinformation about Antifa and riots. As violent radicals affiliated with the Antifa movement attacked a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, for several months, firing incendiary devices and shooting laser beams at federal law enforcement officers, Biden claimed that the feds were “brutally attacking peaceful protesters.” His demonstrably false claim gave political cover to the radicals, who continued their destruction — in Portland, Kenosha, and elsewhere.
5. Misinformation about China’s threat to the U.S. Biden consistently downplayed the threat that China poses to the U.S. and the free world in general. In January 2020, he dismissed President Trump’s coronavirus travel ban on China as “hysterical xenophobia.” On the campaign trail, he continued to ridicule the idea that China was an economic competitor to the U.S. Today, the Biden administration is struggling to deal with Chinese (and Russian) cyberattacks on the U.S.
6. Misinformation about military deaths. Biden claimed on the campaign trail last year that there had been 6,114 military deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, for which he blamed President Trump. The real number was seven. Biden also repeated debunked claims that Trump had referred to American soldiers as “suckers” and “losers.” Ironically, once he was president, Biden failed to recognize the anniversary of D-Day, dishonoring the troops he promised to honor.
7. Misinformation about economic re-openings. Biden claims credit for the ongoing economic recovery. But when several Republican-led states opted to drop their mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions in March, Biden accused them of “Neanderthal thinking,” saying that their decision to drop mandates was “a big mistake.” Instead of going up, coronavirus cases in those states declined — and jobs also soared, for which Biden has falsely taken credit.
8. Misinformation about Trump and Lafayette Square. Biden claimed repeatedly that President Trump used tear gas to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square last June so that he could have a “photo-op” at which he held a Bible upside-down. Not one bit of that was true, but Biden repeated it again in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot, stoking divisions that led to Trump’s second failed impeachment. In June, an inspector general’s report cleared Trump entirely.
9. Misinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop and Russian “misinformation.” The Biden campaign told reporters that stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop were “Russian misinformation.” In fact, the stories turned out to be true, showing that Hunter Biden had set up meetings with his father and his foreign business partners, and that he had sought overseas business opportunities using his father’s name. Biden’s claims were “misinformation” designed to mislead the electorate.
10. Misinformation about Republicans and “Jim Crow.” Biden has repeatedly referred to Republican-backed ballot integrity legislation as the new “Jim Crow,” accusing states like Georgia and Texas of trying to disenfranchise black voters. In fact, many of these new voting laws expand opportunities to vote, and are more liberal than the restrictive voting laws in Biden’s home state of Delaware. Biden’s slander is designed to stoke racial tensions for political gain.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
LAWYERS ARE A PROTECTED CRIMINAL CLASS. THE LAWS DO NOT APPLY TO THEM AND ARE ALWAYS GAMED. JOE HAS BEEN GAMING THE LAWS AND FILLING HIS POCKETS FOR 50 YEARS.
'The federal prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s potential tax law violations and sketchy business dealings overseas last summer decided to keep the public in the dark about the probe until after the 2020 presidential election to avoid impacting the race’s outcome, Politico revealed Friday.
Report: Prosecutor Delayed Advancing Hunter Biden Probe Until After Election
The federal prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s potential tax law violations and sketchy business dealings overseas last summer decided to keep the public in the dark about the probe until after the 2020 presidential election to avoid impacting the race’s outcome, Politico revealed Friday.
According to the news outlet, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials led by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Biden family’s home state of Delaware, delayed the Hunter probe last summer, postponing their pursuit of search warrants and issuing grand jury subpoenas.
Politico explained:
[Weiss] decided to delay taking any actions that were likely to make the existence of the Hunter Biden probe public. Concerns about affecting the presidential election loomed large when Weiss entertained arguments about advancing the probe, according to the person involved in the discussions. No matter what he did, the decision was sure to come under scrutiny for signs of politicization.
Weiss ultimately sided with DOJ colleagues who convinced him it was best to err on the side of caution and wait to advance the probe until after the presidential race.
“They advised [Weiss] to avoid taking any actions that could alert the public to the existence of the case in the middle of a presidential election,” Politico noted.
The U.S. attorney ignored other officials involved in the case who wanted to move forward with the investigation last summer despite the presidential race.
Politico conceded that advancing the Hunter probe amid the presidential election may have benefitted former President Donald Trump’s campaign, noting:
Weiss’s decision to avoid revealing the investigation in a highly charged political atmosphere — a move that might have boosted Donald Trump’s campaign, even at the cost of politicizing the probe — was consistent with his sober-minded approach to his job, said people familiar with Weiss’s career. But so too, they said, is the fact that the probe continues, with most expecting that Weiss will not drop the case until making a full assessment of Hunter Biden’s culpability.
Weiss continues to serve as Delaware’s U.S. attorney under Biden, a sensitive DOJ position that will allow him to decide how to handle the probe into the president’s son.
Former President Donald Trump appointed Weiss to the U.S. attorney position in 2017 at the recommendation of Delaware’s two Democrat senators.
By 2018, the attorney’s office began investigating Hunter in response to various leads, including some linked to his business dealings with business associates from China.
Initially, investigators sought to go after the president’s son over money laundering and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
However, the criminal investigation evolved into examining possible tax law violations and Hunter’s shady business transactions overseas, Politico learned from an unnamed source.
After Joe secured his election victory, Hunter announced on December 9 that he was under a federal investigation for tax issues, insisting he is innocent.
The existence of the Hunter probe came to light weeks before the election amid the controversy over incriminating files found in a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter.
In October 2020, the New York Post first reported the contents of the so-called “laptop from hell” that was confiscated by the FBI, which covered Hunter’s business dealings with China and Ukraine.
According to the newspaper, one email suggested Joe lied about not knowing of his son’s shady business dealings abroad. Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, made similar accusations after the Post‘s exposé.
Some Republicans have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to protect Weiss’s investigation from the Biden administration influence.
Citing an anonymous source last December, when Hunter announced he was the target of a federal investigation, CNN acknowledged the probe had resumed after a hiatus during the elections, adding:
Federal prosecutors in Delaware, working with the IRS Criminal Investigation agency and the FBI, are taking overt steps such as issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, the person with knowledge said.
Activity in the investigation had gone covert in recent months due to Justice Department guidelines prohibiting overt actions that could affect an election, the person said.
The FBI reportedly expressed counterintelligence concerns with some of the business transactions Hunter made with officials from China, a U.S. strategic rival.
President Joe Biden has vowed not to interfere in the DOJ’s probe into his son.
Peter Schweizer: Hunter Biden Selling Art to Anonymous Buyers Is Genius-Level Corruption
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), said on this week’s broadcast of “Sunday Morning Futures” that President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s sale of his art to anonymous buyers is “genius” in a very corrupt way.
Partial transcript as follows:
BARTIROMO: So, Peter, right now, Hunter is getting ready to sell art. He has told us that this is his new job. He is a first-time artist, no training, of course. The pieces are being priced between $75,000 and a half-a-million dollars apiece. You call this scheme genius. Why?
SCHWEIZER: It is genius because — in a very corrupt way, because what was the criticism of Hunter’s previous moneymaking schemes? When he worked went to work for Burisma, the energy company, the criticism was he was getting a million dollars a year. He had no background in Ukrainian energy regulation, no background in energy. Well, art is different than the business world. It’s entirely subjective.
So, if somebody is prepared to send half-a-million dollars to an artist for a piece of art, who can question it? So, in that sense, it’s very genius. But this opens the gateway to massive corruption, Maria, because the art owner, the art partner that he has that’s going to be marketing his art has been very clear that he’s going to market these things overseas. He’s been wanting to break into the Chinese art market for years. And the Senate, actually, in 2019 issued a report talking about how the art world is rife with money laundering and corruption involving foreign oligarchs, because it’s so hard to trace. So it’s a massively troublesome problem. And their explanations simply don’t carry any weight.
BARTIROMO: Well, the White House is saying that, in an effort to be — quote, unquote — “transparent,” they are not going to tell anybody who’s ponying up half-a-million dollars to buy Hunter Biden’s art. What’s to stop a Chinese company, or an Iranian company, a Chinese company tied to the Chinese military and the Communist Party to pay half-a-million dollars for art, and then say, wink, wink, take this company off the blacklist, further my efforts here, further my efforts there, I just bought your art for half-a-million bucks?
SCHWEIZER: Maria, let me underline and underscore what you just said. That’s absolutely correct. There’s nothing stopping them from doing it. And, in fact, the White House’s proposed ethics solution —I will put that in quotation marks — is the exact opposite of what’s called for here. Their solution of transparency is to actually hide who is engaged in the transaction. It’s ludicrous.
Look, I have been critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their foreign deals over the years. You have to give them credit. When Hillary Clinton was in the Senate and later as secretary of state, Bill Clinton was collecting a lot of speaking fees from foreign entities. They disclosed those. And to their credit, they disclosed those. In this case, I don’t think Hunter Biden should be doing this to begin with. But if he’s going to do it, they need to disclose and have an independent party verify who is actually paying him for this artwork.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
The Strange New Career of Hunter Biden - Artiste
Something seems amiss.
Hunter Biden appears to have everything a materialistic narcissist would want. Wealth. Power. Fame (Infamy, actually, but why quibble?). Sex. Drugs. Connections to more of the same. A battalion of enablers ranging from his family to a dominant political party to a nation's corporate news industry.
Yet something appears to be missing. Apparently, the son of the virtual President has been choking his inner muse. Why else would this most fortunate son take up art at the ripe old age of 51?
Well, making a little extra money never hurts. Biden's paintings, drawings and collages will sell for between $75,000 and $500,000, said his art dealer, Georges Berges.
That can buy a lot of crack and hookers.
Yet something seems amiss. Only anonymous and confidential buyers will be eligible to purchase pieces from Biden's oeuvre.
What? You mean no respectable art connoisseur or benefactor wants to be associated with an up-and-coming Picasso, Rembrandt or even Warhol? Or does the precocious artiste refuse to have the work of his innermost soul exposed to some of art's more influential patrons?
Sarcasm aside, Biden's foray into art is anything but humorous. Not only does it reflect the Biden penchant for selling influence; it could enable some of the family's more noxious associates to avoid sanctions or launder money.
The Daily Mail's Geoff Earle discussed those dangers while writing about the impending auction of young Biden's work.
"Experts are already warning of the risks of influence peddling or at least the appearance of ethical conflict," Earle wrote, "when people buy paintings by the president's son in a market where sales are already murky and prices extremely difficult to evaluate in an industry that can be used for money laundering."
One of those experts is Richard Painter, the chief ethics counsel for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. Painter told the Washington Post that two groups of buyers could provide a lucrative market for Biden's art: lobbyists who want to earn favor with the virtual president, and surreptitious representatives of foreign governments that want to evade economic sanctions.
The Treasury Department specifically addressed those dangers. In October, it warned that individuals, groups or governments could use "high-value art transactions" to avoid sanctions and gain access to American markets and financial institutions. Bad actors could exploit inherent weaknesses in the art market, such as "a lack of transparency and a high degree of anonymity and confidentiality, especially with respect to the sale and purchase of high-value artworks," the department's release warned.
"Shell companies and intermediaries are also frequently used to purchase, hold, or sell such artworks, as well as to remit and receive payments," it continued. "These avenues for maintaining anonymity allow blocked persons and other illicit actors to obscure their true identities from other market participants, and help to hide prohibited conduct from law enforcement and regulators. The mobility, concealability, and subjective value of artwork further exacerbate its vulnerability to sanctions evasion."
The expensive price range for work from a middle-aged artist with no previous track record also raises questions.
"There has to be a résumé that reasonably supports when you get that high," said Marc Straus, who owns a gallery in Manhattan. "To me, it’s pure ‘How good is it and what’s this artist’s potential? What’s the résumé?' On that basis, it would be an entirely different price. But you give it a name like Hunter Biden, maybe they’ll get the price."
Scott Indrisek, Modern Painters magazine's former editor-in-chief and Artsy's former deputy editor, believes that mere name recognition is the point.
"If he wanted to be judged on his work alone," Indrisek said, "he’d show them under the name Hunter Wilson or something."
By contrast, Andy Warhol's "Endangered Species," a series of 10 screenprints he produced in 1983, sold for $725,000 in 2015. That figure constituted a record for a numbered series.
Two other facts increase suspicion. First, the Justice Department has been investigating the younger Biden since 2019 for money laundering. Second, Peter Schweizer, who runs the Government Accountability Institute and has written extensively about government corruption, said on Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show July 12 that Joe Biden "was a direct beneficiary" of his son's business arrangements.
Nevertheless, the White House contacted young Biden's lawyers to devise an arrangement that allows any buyers to remain anonymous. Ostensibly, such a plan would satisfy any ethical concerns by preventing Biden from knowing the identities of anyone buying or even expressing interest in his work. The plan also would allow Berges to reject suspicious offers.
But Berges, like his famous client, has ties to China. He has traveled to Beijing and Shanghai to purchase work from Chinese artists, regularly exhibits modern Chinese art, and even considered opening galleries in both cities. "The question that I always had was, 'How’s China changing the world in terms of art and culture?' " Berges said in 2014 to China Daily, which the Chinese Communist Party publishes.
Walter Shaub, former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, expressed his disgust on Twitter.
"So instead of disclosing who is paying outrageous sums for Hunter Biden’s artwork so that we could monitor whether the purchasers are gaining access to government, the WH tried to make sure we will never know who they are," Shaub tweeted. "That’s very disappointing.
"The idea’s that even Hunter won’t know, but the WH has outsourced government ethics to a private art dealer. We’re supposed to trust a merchant in an industry that’s fertile ground for money laundering, as well as unknown buyers who could tell Hunter or WH officials? No thanks."
If nothing else, the arrangement provides a similar kind of protective veneer Tony Bobulinski mentioned to the New York Post in October. Bobulinski, one of the Biden family's former business associates, told the Post about Joe Biden's pivotal role in helping Hunter secure lucrative overseas contracts, despite the elder Biden's denials.
Jim Biden, Joe's brother, described that protective veneer in 2017, when Bobulinski asked whether Joe's involvement could sabotage Presidential ambitions.
"I said, 'Jim, how are you guys doing this? This seems crazy,’ " Bobulinski said. "He looks at me and kind of chuckles and says, 'Plausible deniability.' "
Joseph Hippolito is a free-lance writer and a regular contributor to FrontPage Magazine. His commentaries have appeared in The Federalist, The Stream, Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post and National Post.
Peter Schweizer: Our Copy of Hunter Biden’s Laptop Confirms ‘Joe Biden Was a Direct Beneficiary’ of His Son’s Deals
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), said on Monday that his organization had confirmed that President Joe Biden “was a direct beneficiary” of Hunter Biden’s financial deals with foreign interests.
“We do have a copy, by the way, here at GAI of [Hunter Biden’s] laptop and all the files,” Schweizer said on the Sean Hannity Show. “It confirms that Joe Biden was a direct beneficiary.”
LISTEN (interview begins at 1:05:05):
Schweizer explained how GAI cross-referenced Secret Service travel logs during Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president to corroborate the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s emails.
He remarked:
GAI asked, “How can we demonstrate whether the emails are real?” … We already have, for example, Hunter Biden’s Secret Service travel records. They were released by Senator [Ron] Johnson’s committee. These are the official records that say the Secret Service traveled with Hunter to this location, to that location, etcetera.
So we asked, “Do the emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop correspond with the travel records? If our email references that [Hunter] is in Dubai on a certain date, does that line up with the Secret Service travel records? Absolutely, 100 percent.
…
So there is no question. Of course Hunter Biden hasn’t denied it. But there’s no question that the laptop emails that we have possession of are 100 percent accurate and correspond directly with existing material, and the information is devastating.
GAI is in the process of investigating its copy of files found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Schweizer shared. He said GAI’s forthcoming reports on the laptop’s contents will expose disastrous dimensions of the Biden family.
“We’re in the middle of the investigation now, but by the end of the year it will be completed, and it will take on a far more sinister tone than it has even now in terms of what it says about the Biden family and the vulnerabilities of the Biden family,” Schweizer stated. “It’s that bad.”
Hannity asked, “On a scale of one to ten, how bad are the coming revelations from this laptop?”
He added, “The coming revelations [from our investigation] based on what we are in the middle of right now, on a scale of one to ten — and you know Sean, I’m pretty cautious about this stuff — frankly are an eleven. It’s that bad.”
Hunter Biden claimed to not know whether the laptop in question was his. Asked in April of the laptop’s authenticity, he replied, “For real, I don’t know.”
Carlson: Hunter Biden ‘Can Do Literally Whatever He Wants — As We’ve Seen, He Definitely Has’
On Friday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson reminded viewers of now-first son Hunter Biden’s alleged indiscretions that came to light near the end of the 2020 presidential campaign.
According to Carlson, under the Biden Department of Justice, Hunter Biden was able to “do literally whatever he wants.”
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: So much happens in the final weeks of a presidential campaign that it’s easy to lose track of it. Whatever happened to this or that — development in the news. You can’t remember. A lot falls between the cracks. There’s overload.
Politicians know this, obviously, and they take advantage of it. If they can derail a story until after Election Day, often that story goes away forever. No one really remembers. And that was precisely the thinking behind the Democrats’ response to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
They knew from the first day that the contents of that laptop were in fact genuine. Look at what’s on there, it may be theoretically possible that some foreign Intel service would Photoshop a picture of Hunter Biden’s crotch mostly for self-amusement, but a hundred pictures of Hunter Biden’s crotch adorned with M&Ms? No. No Russian did that. Those pictures were real.
And so are the huge numbers of e-mails and texts from Hunter Biden explaining how he was selling access to his father, then the Vice President and how his father was helping him do it.
So, in order to enrich his family, Joe Biden changed this country’s foreign policy. That happened and it was the real crime that Hunter Biden’s laptop revealed. That was the real scandal.
If voters had understood that, if someone had told them, it might have affected the results of the election, so they couldn’t know. The permanent bureaucracy hid that from the country.
In October, a group of corrupt Intelligence officials, 50 of them whose names will live forever in shame, signed a letter blaming Vladimir Putin for the laptop. “Hunter Biden’s story is Russian disinformation, dozens of former Intel official say,” that was the headline in Politico. That was a lie from top to bottom. It was totally unsupported by evidence or Intelligence.
But it came just in time for the presidential debate. That was the point. And Joe Biden picked it up and wielded it like a club from the stage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), THEN-CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are in a situation where we have foreign company — countries trying to interfere in the outcome of our election. His own national security adviser told him that what is happening with his buddy, well, gosh, I will — his buddy Rudy Giuliani, he is being used as a Russian pawn. He is being fed information that is Russian — that is not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “His own national security adviser.” That’s probably right, but it was a lie. And just two months after that debate, the truth began to leak out. According once again to Politico, the Intel world’s favorite media tool, quote, “A person with firsthand knowledge of the investigation conceded that actually Hunter Biden’s laptop was not a Russian fabrication.” It was real, real enough to be used as evidence in an ongoing investigation into, quote, “potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties.”
Hunter Biden, we learned was facing possible indictment for what was on the laptop. The DOJ was looking into the Ukrainian and Chinese businessmen who had been paying Hunter to get close to his father. And they wanted to know why his father was apparently getting 10 percent of those deals. That’s what we learned.
And that’s all we learned. For six months we heard nothing more.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden got a lot richer. He sold a book that no one read for millions of dollars. Simon & Schuster paid him off. He sold paintings you would never hang anywhere for possibly even more than that. We don’t know because the identities of the people who bought them are still secret. But what you do know for certain is that Hunter Biden was never charged with anything. Why is that?
It’s kind of weird if you think about it, given that Biden himself — Hunter Biden admitted on television, that the laptop actually didn’t come from the Kremlin. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACY SMITH, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Was that your laptop?
HUNTER BIDEN, JOE BIDEN’S SON: For real, I don’t know.
SMITH: I know, but you that’s — this is —
H. BIDEN: I really don’t know.
SMITH: Okay, you don’t know. Yes or no if the laptop was yours?
H. BIDEN: I don’t have any idea. I have no idea.
SMITH: So could have been yours.
H. BIDEN: Of course. Certainly. There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was — that it was Russian Intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, so you’d think a clip like that where he admits it, the 50 Intel officials were all lying. Do you think that clip would be a key piece of evidence in the probe into Hunter Biden’s finances? Where did all this money come from? Why are foreign governments sending him millions of dollars?
E-mails on that laptop directly implicate Hunter Biden in his family’s foreign influence peddling operation. Joe Biden, his brother, son — so, why have we heard anything to this day about any of this from the Department of Justice?
Good question, and today we got our answer, and actually it came from Politico. The magazine reported, meaning it was told likely for complex reasons, we can never really know, that the U.S. Attorney in the State of Delaware, a man called David Weiss had, in fact, buried the Hunter Biden case and done so on purpose because he was asked to do it.
David Weiss decided to do all of this, Politico told us because he wanted, quote, “to avoid taking any actions that could alert the public to the existence of the case in the middle of a presidential election.”
Well, they’re just saying it out loud now. He didn’t want to hurt Joe Biden, in other words, and he did this at the request of the Biden family and their lawyers. We learned that from a Politico piece, too. It includes this quote, “To Weiss’s credit, ‘he listened,’ said a person involved in the discussions.” In other words, he listened to the Biden’s and their lawyers, and because he did that, apparently, David Weiss has kept his job as a Federal prosecutor.
Now, Ben Schreckinger of Politico needless to say strongly approves of this. It’s not a subversion of justice, it is the right thing, quote, “Weiss’s decision to avoid revealing the investigation, a move that might have boosted Donald Trump’s campaign, even at the cost of politicizing the probe was consistent with his sober-minded approach to the job.”
Atta boy. Got that?
When you cover for a Democratic presidential campaign, you are, according to Politico and Ben Schreckinger, a sober-minded prosecutor. You did the right thing. Good job, David Weiss. You used our justice system to get the right team into the White House. I hope you get rewarded.
And in case you have any doubt that that’s exactly what happened and had nothing to do with the timeframe before the election, you should know and you may already know that the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop for an entire year before the election. We know they made a forensic copy of the hard drive in 2019. But they did nothing and they still haven’t, now they don’t have time. They’re too busy hunting down senior citizens who talk about election integrity, the fabled insurrectionists.
They can’t do anything about the subversion of American foreign policy by the Bidens, because they are busy with the insurrectionists.
Maybe someday, when it no longer matters, Politico will tell us that story.
In the meantime, we can look forward to more treatment like this for dissidents who oppose the regime in any way. As a reminder, here’s what happens to any American who mocks the people in power.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Exclusive footage that you’re looking at right now from CNN as the FBI arrives at Roger Stone’s residence in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, taking him into custody.
They arrived before dawn there, before 6:00 a.m. or just after 6:00 a.m., a dozen officers we are told.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: That was Roger Stone, of course. They rousted him and his wife, both of them senior citizens, by the way, because he made the mistake of texting unflattering things about Federal prosecutors and the government read his texts.
But Hunter Biden doesn’t have to worry about any of that, he doesn’t have to worry about the SWAT team showing up at his house at dawn with a CNN camera crew in tow. Hunter Biden can violate all the Federal gun laws he wants — and he has and he knows they’ll never be charged.
Merrick Garland works for his dad, so he’s fine. He can do literally whatever he wants, and as we’ve seen, he definitely has.
Report: Prosecutor Delayed Advancing Hunter Biden Probe Until After Election
The federal prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s potential tax law violations and sketchy business dealings overseas last summer decided to keep the public in the dark about the probe until after the 2020 presidential election to avoid impacting the race’s outcome, Politico revealed Friday.
According to the news outlet, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials led by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Biden family’s home state of Delaware, delayed the Hunter probe last summer, postponing their pursuit of search warrants and issuing grand jury subpoenas.
Politico explained:
[Weiss] decided to delay taking any actions that were likely to make the existence of the Hunter Biden probe public. Concerns about affecting the presidential election loomed large when Weiss entertained arguments about advancing the probe, according to the person involved in the discussions. No matter what he did, the decision was sure to come under scrutiny for signs of politicization.
Weiss ultimately sided with DOJ colleagues who convinced him it was best to err on the side of caution and wait to advance the probe until after the presidential race.
“They advised [Weiss] to avoid taking any actions that could alert the public to the existence of the case in the middle of a presidential election,” Politico noted.
The U.S. attorney ignored other officials involved in the case who wanted to move forward with the investigation last summer despite the presidential race.
Politico conceded that advancing the Hunter probe amid the presidential election may have benefitted former President Donald Trump’s campaign, noting:
Weiss’s decision to avoid revealing the investigation in a highly charged political atmosphere — a move that might have boosted Donald Trump’s campaign, even at the cost of politicizing the probe — was consistent with his sober-minded approach to his job, said people familiar with Weiss’s career. But so too, they said, is the fact that the probe continues, with most expecting that Weiss will not drop the case until making a full assessment of Hunter Biden’s culpability.
Weiss continues to serve as Delaware’s U.S. attorney under Biden, a sensitive DOJ position that will allow him to decide how to handle the probe into the president’s son.
Former President Donald Trump appointed Weiss to the U.S. attorney position in 2017 at the recommendation of Delaware’s two Democrat senators.
By 2018, the attorney’s office began investigating Hunter in response to various leads, including some linked to his business dealings with business associates from China.
Initially, investigators sought to go after the president’s son over money laundering and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
However, the criminal investigation evolved into examining possible tax law violations and Hunter’s shady business transactions overseas, Politico learned from an unnamed source.
After Joe secured his election victory, Hunter announced on December 9 that he was under a federal investigation for tax issues, insisting he is innocent.
The existence of the Hunter probe came to light weeks before the election amid the controversy over incriminating files found in a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter.
In October 2020, the New York Post first reported the contents of the so-called “laptop from hell” that was confiscated by the FBI, which covered Hunter’s business dealings with China and Ukraine.
According to the newspaper, one email suggested Joe lied about not knowing of his son’s shady business dealings abroad. Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, made similar accusations after the Post‘s exposé.
Some Republicans have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to protect Weiss’s investigation from the Biden administration influence.
Citing an anonymous source last December, when Hunter announced he was the target of a federal investigation, CNN acknowledged the probe had resumed after a hiatus during the elections, adding:
Federal prosecutors in Delaware, working with the IRS Criminal Investigation agency and the FBI, are taking overt steps such as issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, the person with knowledge said.
Activity in the investigation had gone covert in recent months due to Justice Department guidelines prohibiting overt actions that could affect an election, the person said.
The FBI reportedly expressed counterintelligence concerns with some of the business transactions Hunter made with officials from China, a U.S. strategic rival.
President Joe Biden has vowed not to interfere in the DOJ’s probe into his son.
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
Bidens of all sorts are under federal investigation for tax evasion, money-laundering, and unregistered agent foreign ties, as this Politico report citing Hunter notes.
Schweizer: ‘It’s Going to Be Business as Usual’
for Hunter’s Dealings
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), ranking member on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, tweeted, “The Biden family is treating the White House as their own personal cash cow. Who would pay 500K for Hunter’s art if his last name wasn’t Biden?”
Welcome to the Biden-Harris administration: where politics is a family business, and business is booming
The Clinton Project Presents: ‘Nepotism’
Welcome to the Biden-Harris administration: where politics is a family business, and business is booming
Andrew Stiles and Thaleigha Rampersad - FEBRUARY 10, 2021 5:00 PM
The Clinton Project is a coalition of disgruntled Democrats, vulture capitalists, Saudi princes, disgraced journalists, and ex-cons who are dedicated to raising as much money as possible for the nominal purpose of defeating President Joe Biden at the ballot box.
The group's most recent ad takes aim at Biden's family members, as well as the family of Vice President Kamala Harris. Hunter Biden, for example, continues to thrive despite the ongoing federal investigation into his shady business ventures in China and Ukraine. He recently moved into a $5.4 million mansion in Venice, Calif., where he is pursuing a career as an artist while "working to unwind" his 10 percent stake in a Chinese investment firm.
The president's younger brother, Frank Biden, has been touting his White House connections in his (presumably well-compensated) role as a "non-attorney senior adviser" to a Florida law firm. The president's son-in-law, Howard Krein, has ties to a software firm seeking government contracts to assist in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Kamala, who got her start in politics by dating Willie Brown, the former speaker of the California state assembly, must be proud of the success her relatives have enjoyed since Biden chose her as his running mate in 2020.
Her niece, Meena Harris, wrote two bestselling children's books inspired by her famous aunty and launched a #Resistance-themed clothing line that sells Ruth Bader Ginsburg bathing suits for $55. Biden's lawyers reportedly warned Meena, who recently partnered with Beats by Dre on a special collection of headphones, about continuing to profit from Kamala's image. LOL!
Kamala's 21-year-old stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, scored a modeling contract with IMG Models after she wore a weird coat to the inauguration ceremony. Though many cheered Emhoff as an "unconventional" model, others argued that there wasn't anything particularly revolutionary about being a rich, white, tall, thin, female Brooklyn "artist" with tattoos and armpit hair.
Nevertheless, when your daddy is president or your "Momala" is the vice president, things just seem to work out in your favor. Just ask Hunter, who'd probably tell you that politics is a family business.
Welcome to the Biden-Harris administration, where business is booming.
GOP Launches Investigation of Biden Family’s Political Profiteering
Hunter Biden’s sales of artwork may be an avenue for procuring political influence from President Joe Biden, some House Republicans warned while launching a probe on Wednesday into what they described as “Biden family’s efforts to profit from proximity to the White House.”
In a statement titled “Oversight Republicans Raise Concerns About Biden Family Profiting Off White House,” 12 Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform requested information from the president’s counsel and the chief administrator of the federal government’s chief archivist.
The Republican lawmakers wrote:
Reports regarding President Biden’s family members attempting to profit from their proximity to the White House have been disturbing and recurring. Unfortunately, these reports of President Biden using his former official positions of public trust to swell the coffers of his family members are widespread, and any hope the pattern of family self-dealing would finally stop when he assumed the presidency has been dashed,” wrote Ranking Member Comer and the Republican lawmakers.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), ranking member on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, tweeted, “The Biden family is treating the White House as their own personal cash cow. Who would pay 500K for Hunter’s art if his last name wasn’t Biden?”:
The Republicans’ statement included a request for the following communications and documents:
- Communications and documents surrounding two international trips from the Obama-Biden Administration in which Biden family members and associates seemingly took advantage of a connection to the Oval Office;
- A list of all past and ongoing foreign business interests and relations for Biden family members;
- All documents and communications regarding Hunter Biden’s artwork;
- All Biden family members’ appearance in advertisements, public speaking, or in any nature to solicit business/investments/awareness; and
- All policies and procedures the White House has to prevent the Biden family from profiting off the presidency.
“Prices [for Hunter Biden’s artwork] range from $75,000 for works on paper to $500,000 for large-scale paintings,” according to the Georges Bergès Gallery, which represents the president’s second son, revealed.
Buyers of Hunter Biden’s art will remain anonymous.
Among other sources, the Republicans cited a 2018 report from Peter Schweizer’s examination of a private equity firm run by Hunter Biden and John Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz.
In a letter to Dana Remus, counsel to the president, Republicans wrote:
Reports regarding President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s family members attempting to profit from their proximity to the White House have been disturbing and recurring. Unfortunately, these reports of President Biden using his former official positions of public trust to swell the coffers of his family members are widespread, and any hope the pattern of family self-dealing would finally stop when he assumed the presidency has been dashed.
Republicans considered if the anonymity of buyers of Hunter Biden’s paintings allows for “money laundering, “fraud,” “other illicit activities,” or other forms of monetizing Joe Biden’s political influence.
In January, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “It’s the White House’s policy that the president’s name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest or in any way, in any way they could reasonably be understood to imply his endorsement or support.”
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