Friday, June 21, 2019

MONICA SHOWALTER - HUNTER BIDEN'S ELITE AND STORIED LIFE OF PRIVILEGE

Hunter Biden's elite and storied life of privilege



It's easy to dismiss the latest revelations about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, what with the wife, the ex-wife, the love child, the paternity suit, as exclusively Page Six material, not relevant to Biden's presidential campaign. After all, hasn't President Trump had a rather tumultous private life, too? Hasn't Trump said some embarrassing things off the record? And how can anyone blame a parent for the misdeeds of a kid? Lots of good people have bad kids....
Here's the latest revelations, from none other than Page Six itself, which later on in the piece expertly strings together all the other Hunter Biden scandals:
President wannabe Joe Biden’s son — who recently married a South African beauty just 10 days after they first met — has been hit with a paternity suit by a woman in Arkansas.
Lunden Alexis Roberts, 28, filed a petition for child support against Hunter Biden, claiming that she gave birth to “Baby Doe” last August, according to court papers filed last month.
The two-page suit was filed in Independence County, Ark., on May 28, nearly two weeks after Hunter’s surprise marriage to South African native Melissa Cohen.
“The parties were in a relationship and a child, Baby Doe … was born as a result of that relationship,” said the filing, which lists Hunter’s legal name, Robert Hunter
Biden.
The mom is asking that the court “establish paternity of the child, finding that the defendant is the child’s biological father.”
Here's a nice microcosm timeline from a writer at the Washington Free Beacon:


Hunter Biden timeline:

'15: Wife kicks him out, he says a Ashley Madison account isn't his
'17: Dating dead brother's wife, ex-wife says he spent all their $ on drugs/prostitutes
'18: Impregnates Arkansas woman?
'19: Breaks up with brother's wife, marries woman he just met

1,520 people are talking about this


And Nick Gillespie at Reason magazine sums up why this Hunter Biden picture matters to Biden politically as well:
It seems as if every day brings a new crisis or controversy, such as Biden's warm statements toward segregationists in the 1970s, his eulogy of racist Sen. Strom Thurmond in 2003, and the emerging narrative that his son Hunter, whose personal life is a total shitshow, appears to be an international grifter who allegedly used dad's connections to make shady deals with Chinese and Ukrainian interests. Whether such charges are true in a serious way is a lot less important than the fact that Biden will be facing such attacks from now through at least the end of the primary process. Even if he manages to win the nomination, he will emerge bloodied as hell.
We have Hunter apparently two-timing his girlfriend/ex-sister-in-law and if so, running out on his tab for child support. Pretty irresponsible if found to be true.
To follow the Page Six catalogue from the Life of Hunter, then we have the divorce from the wife over spending money on hookers and drugs. Irresponsible? No doubt about it.
Then we have the earlier story of Hunter Biden getting dismissed from the U.S. Naval Academy for cocaine use. Question one: Why wasn't he busted? Question two: Who the heck let him in there anyway, it sure as heck couldn't have been merit. Suddenly, irresponsibility is starting to look like coddling and privilege.
But wait, there's more: Now we get to Hunter Biden's post-Navy career, which to say the least, has been lucrative. According to Page Six:
In addition to Hunter’s love life, his overseas business dealings have come under scrutiny as his father continues his high-profile run for the White House.
While Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter conducted business in two countries where his father was conducting diplomacy.
The two business deals, in Ukraine and China, have raised ethics concerns about conflicts of interest.
Joe Biden, seen as a Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 presidential race, led a US delegation to Kiev in 2014. Weeks after the visit, Hunter was appointed to the board of Ukraine’s largest energy producer.
Hunter was also doing business in China when he traveled with his father there in December 2013.
There's probably a lot more out there. But it's possible from these incidents to see a pattern emerging - that of a rich kid whose life never has any consequences, no matter what he does. It's not exactly because he's started out rich, although he's certainly rich now. It's that he's leveraged old pop's connections as a lifestyle choice and eventually came to the conclusion that he could do anything he wanted and nothing would ever happen to him.
Sound like Hillary Clinton? Sound like a privileged elite? This is exactly why Americans chose to elect Trump - that irresponsibility, that unaccountability, that lifestyle so unlike what ordinary Americans who pay bills and support kids, normally do. Biden's connections and absence of any consequences in his life are undoubtedly what made him think he could skip child support or play marital shenanigans. For him, it's just the way he lives.
For the rest of us, not so much, normal Americans could land in jail for quite a few of the same transgressions Hunter Biden has gotten away with. Maybe that's a problem for voters as Old Joe comes calling to seek their vote. 

Watch: ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ Presents Deep Dive into Hunter Biden’s Ukraine, China Dealings

JEFF POOR
 5,810
0:51

Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” ABC’s chief national correspondent Tom Llamas laid out some of the issues concerning some of former Vice President Joe Biden son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which appear to have coincided with certain events during the elder Biden’s term as VP.
Joe Biden, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, refused to answer questions about that topic when confronted on camera.
The report focuses on China and Ukraine, two places where the then-vice president was conducting diplomatic work, and the younger Biden.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor



Ticking gets louder on Biden's corruption time bomb




People who think Joe Biden is the most likely contender to win the Democrats' presidential nomination must believe that the mainstream media will remain silent about the way his son Hunter scored lucrative business deals with foreign governments after accompanying his dad on overseas missions during the latter's vice presidency.  (They also must believe that his stupid gaffes will somehow end, but that's a separate issue.)
But as I predicted more than a month ago, neither of these is going to happen.
ABC News is pressing the issue of Hunter Biden's remarkable luck with foreign governments.

Smell something bad?  (ABC News screen grab.)
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declined to answer questions on the campaign trail this week about his son's overseas business dealings in countries where the then-vice president was conducting diplomatic work, an issue his political opponents have already begun to wield against him as he wades into the 2020 presidential campaign.
More than once, after his father engaged in diplomacy on behalf of the United States in foreign countries, Hunter Biden conducted business in the same country. At two separate campaign stops on Monday, Biden avoided questions about his son while his staff blocked reporters from approaching the candidate.
Biden's campaign did provide ABC News with a statement saying the former vice president has always adhered to "well-established executive branch ethics standards," adding that if Biden wins the White House he will issue an executive order to "address conflicts of interest of any kind."
"This process will be set out in detail in the executive order," the statement reads, "that President Biden would issue on his first day in office."
The ethics pledge follows renewed questions about a pair of overseas business opportunities involving Hunter Biden – one in Ukraine, another in China – that already have begun to generate political attacks from Joe Biden's conservative critics. Ethics experts interviewed by ABC News said these are legitimate questions about possible past and future conflicts of interest.
Imagine that: ABC is taking up issues that until now have been the exclusive province of "conservative critics"!  It must be sheer coincidence that this follows the broadcast of interviews of Trump done by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, having been granted an extraordinary amount of access to Trump.
You can watch the video segment ABC broadcast yesterday below:
Hat tip: Roger Luchs.



Watch: ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ Presents Deep Dive into Hunter Biden’s Ukraine, China Dealings



JEFF POOR
  20 Jun 20193,561
0:51
Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” ABC’s chief national correspondent Tom Llamas laid out some of the issues concerning some of former Vice President Joe Biden son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which appear to have coincided with certain events during the elder Biden’s term as VP.
Joe Biden, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, refused to answer questions about that topic when confronted on camera.
The report focuses on China and Ukraine, two places where the then-vice president was conducting diplomatic work, and the younger Biden.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

 

 

Pollak: Joe Biden’s Fifty Years of Flip-Flops



Alex Wong / Getty
JOEL B. POLLAK
 28 May 20192,058
5:40

Former vice president Joe Biden faces an opponent possibly even more formidable than President Donald Trump: himself.

In a half-century in Washington — spanning 36 years in the Senate and eight in the Obama administration — Biden has flip-flopped on most major issues. On other issues, his former positions are no longer viable within the Democratic Party.
Here is a list of Biden’s reversals:
1. Abortion: Biden used to pride himself on a “middle of the road” approach, supporting the pro-choice movement but maintaining that Roe v. Wade went too far. He also supported the Hyde amendment, which prevents federal funding for abortion, and voted to ban partial-birth abortions. He even voted to allow states to overturn Roe. Recently, however, Biden reversed his position on the Hyde amendment, and condemned efforts by states like Alabama to overturn Roe.
2. Iraq War: Biden voted against the Gulf War in 1991, but voted in favor of the Iraq War in 2002. Like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Biden regretted that vote later. Rather than backing a U.S. troop “surge” — which ultimately worked — Biden’s proposed alternative for Iraq was to partition the country into separate religious enclaves.
3. Immigration: As recently as 2006, Biden told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardballthat the U.S. should not grant “amnesty” to illegal aliens in the country, and that aspiring immigrants ought to be required to learn English. He also voted for a border fence — and told voters that he was proud of it. All of these positions are now broadly described as “racist” by Democrats, and Biden has revised his positions on amnesty (it is unclear where he stands on a border wall).
4. Women: Biden has taken criticism from Anita Hill and other women about how he treated her during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Though he said privately at the time that he believed she was lying, he has now tried to make amends. Biden is also trying to change a pattern of behavior in which he touched, kissed, or sniffed women at public events — unacceptable conduct in the post-#MeToo era.
5. Desegregation: Early in his Senate career, Biden opposed “busing” to integrate schools. Biden also worked closely with Senators who opposed civil rights and delivered a eulogy for former segregationist Strom Thurmond. His initial comments on Barack Obama’s campaign were tinged with racial condescension. Later, as vice president, he warned black voters Republicans would “put y’all back in chains.” Now he is running as a uniter, casting Trump as a racist.
6. Guns. In 1986, Biden voted with the National Rifle Association (NRA) on a bill called the “Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA),” which the Second Amendment lobby calls“the law that saved gun rights” because it rolled back onerous regulations. As NBC News notes, Biden was key to the law’s passage. In the 1990s, however, Biden began backing aggressive gun control laws. (He still offers bizarre advice on the use of shotguns for self-defense).
7. Drugs: As Politico 
noted recently, Biden was one of the leaders of the war on drugs — which he now says went too far. His policies on crack led to racial disparities in sentencing; other legislation he pushed has made it harder to treat opioid addiction, or to report overdoses. The Free Beacon notes that Biden used to call marijuana a “gateway drug,” but shifted suddenly toward backing “decriminalization” — just days before a fundraiser with a pro-legalization donor.
8. Gay marriage: In 1996, Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Later in 2012, he shifted positions, in effect forcing President Obama to do the same (though many suspected Obama already backed same-sex marriage despite his public opposition and support for a traditional Christian view.) Biden now says that the movement for transgender rights is the “civil rights issue of our time.”
And here are issues on which Biden’s views are too moderate for his party:
1. Coal: Biden told voters in West Virginia in 2008 that he and then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) were in favor of “clean coal.” That was before the election, and before President Obama began taking regulatory steps designed to put the coal industry out of business. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates embrace the “Green New Deal,” which calls for removing coal — “clean” or otherwise” — and other fossil fuels from the American economy within 12 years.
2. Entitlement reform: Biden once proposed freezing or cutting entitlements like Medicare and Social Security. As recently as 2018, he supported means testing for Social Security. Democrats routinely run “Mediscare” campaigns against Republicans who propose even mild reforms to the nation’s entitlements, and the party’s young “progressives” — who now drive its policy agenda — question whether the federal government needs to balance its budget at all.
3. Trade: Biden was a staunch supporter of free trade agreements throughout his career. As Politico noted recently: “In the Senate, Biden voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] and permanent normal trade relations with China. As then-President Barack Obama’s No. 2, he supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP].” The article also pointed out that Biden rarely mentions trade, and that his Democratic rivals are “itching” to attack his record on it.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 

Why Biden won’t get the Dem nomination


Yes, he’s really, really old, thus removing the opportunity to attack President Trump on the basis of his age.
And yes, he says really stupid stuff -- and they are usually incorrectly called “gaffes,” which Michael Kinsley correctly defined as a politician accidentally telling the truth. Biden’s mouth just runs faster than his brain (not much of a feat) and he utters nonsense. Often, mean-spirited nonsense  like “They’ll put y’all back in chains.”
But the real reason why Biden won’t get the nomination is that he and his family are corrupt, enriching themselves courtesy of foreign governments. Normally, that would not be a problem for a Democrat because the dominant mainstream media is not interested in scandals affecting powerful Democrats. But with 22 Democrats running for president, some of them with MSM allies, and with grave doubts about Biden’s ability to defeat Trump (their overriding goal), these scandals will not be suppressed. Especially because they involve collusion with a foreign power.
Vanity Fair and the New York Times, which are nobody’s idea of right wing publications, are onto the story of Biden helping his son make a huge fortune via deals with China. Breitbart summarizes:
A $1.5 billion sweetheart deal Hunter Biden’s private equity firm secured from the state-owned Bank of China is “looming on the horizon” as a potential line of attack against his father’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen.
This comes days after a New York Times article renewed interest in the revelations exposed in Peter Schweizer’s 2018 bestseller Secret Empires concerning the sweetheart deals Hunter Biden’s private equity firm secured while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president.
But the Times’ article “may be just the first volley in what is likely to become a broader war over Joe Biden’s conduct and record,” Vanity Fair’s Nguyen writes:
Past speculation about Biden family drama has centered on Hunter’s documented struggle with drug use and his recently ended relationship with his late brother’s widow. But the bigger threat might actually be Hunter’s past business enterprises. Already, there’s another attack line looming on the horizon: in his latest book, Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, Breitbart editor-at-large Peter Schweizer describes how a private-equity firm managed by Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, negotiated a $1.5 billion investment deal with the state-owned Bank of China at the same time that his father, then the vice president, was conducting high-level diplomacy with Beijing. (On one of his trips, Hunter allegedly made use of Air Force Two.) Whether or not the Chinese hoped to curry favor with Hunter’s father, Trump allies are sure to make note of the issue, especially given Joe Biden’s controversial remark this week downplaying China as an economic competitor. (A spokesman for Hunter Biden disputed Schweizer’s claims to the Journal.)
In a March interview with Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham, Peter Schweizer explained the troubling circumstances surrounding Hunter Biden’s lucrative deal with the Chinese government at a time when his father was negotiating U.S. policy with the regime.
“In December of 2013, Hunter Biden flies on Air Force 2 to Beijing, China, with his father,” Schweizer said. “His father meets with Chinese officials, he’s very soft on Beijing. The most important thing that happens [is] 10 days after they return. And that’s when Hunter Biden’s small, private equity firm called Rosemont Seneca Partners gets a $1 billion private equity deal with the Chinese government, not with the Chinese corporation, with the government. And what people need to realize is Hunter Biden has no background in China. He has no background in private equity. The deal he got in the Shanghai free-trade zone, nobody else had — Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Blackstone, nobody had this deal.”
“There’s no question when you chart what Joe Biden is doing with China — the meetings he’s having and the deals that his son is procuring at the same time — that they are buying off Biden through his son. I think it’s crystal clear,” Schweizer added.
Then there is the matter of the Biden clan’s dealing with Ukraine, as Jeff Carlson explains in The Epoch Times:
As 
Ukraine underwent dramatic changes in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama administration’s involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign, information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.
Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed Biden’s son, Hunter, as a board member.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, “Keep your eye on Ukraine.” In his comments to the Washington Examiner, Giuliani highlighted the “plot to create an investigation of President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 elections.”
Both scandals are grave and complicated. But there is a year and a half ahead in which they can be excavated and explained. Media-connected rival Democrats are going to make sure that both scandals are explored.
Biden is the 2016 Jeb! of the Democrats’ 2020 field. He looks like a shoe-in to many, but he will fade.
Of course as my favorite Yogi, Yogi Berra, warned us, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But I will be very surprised if Biden is the Dems’ nominee.
Photo credit: Ancho

 

 

Obama Adviser Downplays Biden’s Ukraine Corruption as ‘Conservative Oppo’ by Peter Schweizer



NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
MATTHEW BOYLE
 2 May 2019Washington, D.C.68
3:35

One of former President Barack Obama’s most senior advisers, Dan Pfeiffer, is downplaying reporting by the New York Times on former Vice President Joe Biden’s Ukraine corruption, as the scandal widens and severely threatens Biden’s 2020 White House chances.

On Wednesday, the Times published a piece that details how Biden faces “conflict of interest questions” with regard to the Ukraine that President Donald Trump and his allies are promoting as political attacks on Biden.
The Times’ Ken Vogel and Iuliia Mendel wrote on Wednesday:
It was a foreign policy role Joseph R. Biden Jr. enthusiastically embraced during his vice presidency: browbeating Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt government to clean up its act. And one of his most memorable performances came on a trip to Kiev in March 2016, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.
The pressure campaign worked. The prosecutor general, long a target of criticism from other Western nations and international lenders, was soon voted out by the Ukrainian Parliament. Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor general.”
In response to the report, former New York City Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tweeted it out, calling for an investigation into Biden’s activities in Ukraine.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share  via @nytimes. Biden conflicts are too apparent to be ignored and should be investigated quickly and expeditiously. But the more important question is how deep and how high did the alleged Ukraine conspiracy go?

Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies



In response to someone else highlighting that tweet, Pfeiffer tweeted out a dismissive message of the contents of the report from the Times.


It's happening all over again

Peter Schweizer does oppo research funded by conservative interests --> NYT credulously writes it up --> Trump and his allies bully the DOJ into investigating --> Trump claims his opponent is corrupt


He specifically suggested that the entire report is based on “oppo research funded by conservative interests” put together by Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer–the president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI)–and then published by the New York Times and pushed by Trump’s team.
“It’s happening all over again,” Pfeiffer said, a reference to how a lot of the information in Clinton Cash came out in the 2016 presidential election demonstrating corruption by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Notably, however, Pfeiffer did not address the actual facts in the Times story or the facts about Biden’s push as vice president to engage in activities in Ukraine that benefited his son’s business interests.
Vogel and Mendel wrote in the Times:
The broad outlines of how the Bidens’ roles intersected in Ukraine have been known for some time. The former vice president’s campaign said that he had always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, that he had never discussed the matter with Hunter Biden and that he learned of his son’s role with the Ukrainian energy company from news reports. But new details about Hunter Biden’s involvement, and a decision this year by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general to reverse himself and reopen an investigation into Burisma, have pushed the issue back into the spotlight just as the senior Mr. Biden is beginning his 2020 presidential campaign. They show how Hunter Biden and his American business partners were part of a broad effort by Burisma to bring in well-connected Democrats during a period when the company was facing investigations backed not just by domestic Ukrainian forces but by officials in the Obama administration. Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma prompted concerns among State Department officials at the time that the connection could complicate Vice President Biden’s diplomacy in Ukraine, former officials said.
Vogel made clear in his own tweets on the matter that the Times has been investigating Biden’s corruption in Ukraine for many years, and has published stories on it dating back to 2015.

 · 22h

JUST POSTED: @RudyGiuliani solicited information from Ukrainian officials that he intended to use to undermine the MUELLER report, & to try to damage @JoeBiden.
Rudy briefed TRUMP on the effort.

Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies



TO BE CLEAR: Independent of @RudyGiuliani's efforts, the intersection of @JoeBiden & HUNTER BIDEN in Ukraine warrants scrutiny.
The @NYTimes 1st noted the intersection in '15 (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html ), & today's story reveals OBAMA admin officials were concerned about a conflict.

Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch



Schweizer, too, told Breitbart News that while he is glad the New York Times is following up on this and investigating the Bidens, he had no contact with the Times reporters on it ahead of publication–and they did this investigation on their own.
“This is a story—corruption that must not be ignored–not oppo research,” Schweizer said. “Very glad to see the New York Times is reporting on this, but I had no contact with Vogel while he was working on this story and we never discussed it.”

1. it's called investigative journalism not oppo research. What facts to do dispute?
3. I had no contact with @kenvogel on this story--get your facts straight. He did his own reporting
4. Next time @ me ;)



Schweizer has been working on exposing the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine and in China and elsewhere for years. He has uncovered many details, and provided many reports on it–including his latest book Secret Empires.

 

 

 

‘C’mon Man!’ Joe Biden Scoffs at China Threat



Scott Olson/Getty Images
CHARLIE SPIERING
 1 May 20194,267
2:01

Former Vice President Joe Biden dismissed the threat from China during a 2020 campaign rally in Iowa City, Iowa on Wednesday.

He said: 
China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west, They can’t figure out how they are going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.
Biden’s remarks echo similar speeches he has delivered in his career about the strength of the American ideal and the economic and educational power of the United States that ultimately would beat foreign countries in Asia.
“We have the wealthiest and most prosperous economy in the world in the history of the world including China, we have the most powerful military in the history of the world,” he told Delaware Democrats in March before launching his campaign.
In the same speech, he boasted about the productivity of the American worker versus workers in Asia.
“I hear these stories about how China is going to eat our lunch. Give me a break!” he said.
During his campaign speech on Wednesday, Biden boasted that he had met with “virtually” every leader of the world throughout his political career, suggesting they were envious of the status of the United States.
“I don’t know a single solitary one who would not change places with the problems the president of the United States versus the problems they have,” he said.
The economic and military competition with China remains a focal point for President Donald Trump, as he continues negotiating a better trade deal for the American worker.
Former Vice President Biden has not detailed specific policies to handle the ballooning trade deficit with China, the rise of their military or talked about reforming trade deals with China since launching his 2020 campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

No scandals? Biden repeats an old Obama whopper





Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden's out and about, repeating the old, tired saws of the Obama administration. 
According to Fox News:
Former vice president and newly-minted 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Bidenappeared on "The View" on Friday morning and told hosts that his proudest moment of serving with President Barack Obama was that there was "not one whisper" of scandal during the time they served together in the White House.
Biden said that, coincidentally, he and Obama both told press on the same day while in different parts of the country that the thing they were most proud of while in the White House was that there was "not one whisper of a scandal."
"Not one," Biden said. "And that's because of Barack."
So let's get this straight here: The Benghazi coverup never happened. The IRS targeting of dissidents never happened, either. The Gold River pollution on traditional Native American lands by the EPA never happened. Solyndra never happened. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never had an illegal private server in some guy's bathroom. She never sold 20% of the U.S. uranium supply to Russia, and her bleachbitting of her subpoenaed emails was perfectly scandal-free, as well as her smashing of Blackberries with hammers. The fact that top-secret emails turned up in Anthony Weiner's perverted computer, for the New York cops to read, was a nothingburger. And if you like your doctor...
Actually, the Obama administration was probably the most scandal-plagued of all administrations, and for one important reason: There was never any housecleaning. Do a bad act and let your Democratic Party affiliation be your protection. I have always suspected that former FBI director James Comey's exoneration of Hillary Clinton for her private email legal violations was the big thing that made voters break for Donald Trump in 2016. The one set of laws for one elite, and the second set for everyone else, was what got Obama's team thrown out.
Now we are coming off more Obama scandals from the Mueller report - with President Obama in possession of Clinton's deleted emails, and questions raised about unmaskings and bad uses of FISA warrants, and Joe Biden brings up the years-old baloney about Obama being scandal free?
Something tells me this is about trying to reset a 'narrative' now that the walls are closing in on Obama. Sound like old Joe may be singing for his supper, still trying to get that coveted Obama endorsement.

 

Flashback–Biden Cozied Up to General Motors CEO Mary Barra: ‘GM is Alive!’



JOHN BINDER
26 Apr 2019387
4:42

Following former President Obama’s billion-dollar American taxpayer bailout of multinational automaker General Motors (GM), then-Vice President Joe Biden (D) cozied up to CEO Mary Barra, who has since laid off thousands of American workers and outsourced their jobs to Mexico and China.

Throughout the 2012 presidential election cycle, Biden routinely claimed that “General Motors is alive” following the Obama administration’s $11 billion taxpayer bailout of the company in 2009.
Years after the bailout, Biden and officials with the Obama administration not only touted Barra’s leadership at GM but invited her to the State of the Union Address in 2014 and took photo-ops with the executive.
Today, Barra is overseeing the layoff of thousands of American workers as GM shifts and increases production in Mexico and China. Barra’s mass layoff effort is stopping production at four of its U.S. plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland.
While GM was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, the Obama-Biden scheme came with no commitments for the corporation to stop outsourcing Americans’ jobs overseas.
In 2011, Hoover Institution at Stanford University research fellow Paul Gregory noted that despite the Obama-Biden bailout for GM, the company continued outsourcing American jobs abroad. A 2011 report detailed GM had less than 75,000 jobs left in the U.S. while employing more than 122,000 foreign workers overseas. At the time, nearly two-thirds of GM’s workforce was located abroad.
Rather than stopping GM’s outsourcing, the Obama-Biden scheme focused much of their attention on subsidizing and promoting electric, plug-in cars like the Chevy Volt. Last year, Barra announced that production for the Volt, as well as the Chevy Cruze, would end.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra talks about the company’s Corvette Stingray with Vice President Joe Biden during a tour of the North American International Auto in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. Biden said the U.S. auto industry’s resurgence since the 2009 federal bailout provides a strong basis for a Motor City recovery. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
General Motors CEO Mary Barra talks with Vice President Joe Biden during a tour of the North American International Auto in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. Biden said the U.S. auto industry’s resurgence since the 2009 federal bailout provides a strong basis for a Motor City recovery. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Last month, Barra closed the Lordstown plant, a decision expected to result in the layoff of more than 8,000 American workers in the area, and allegedly blamed the United Auto Workers (UAW) for the plant’s closure. Closing the Lordstown plant resulted in the immediate layoff of about 1,600 American workers and since 2017, GM has laid off about 4,500 American workers in Ohio. Another 900 American workers in supporting industries have been put of out work as well.
After all four plant closures, GM’s Barra is expected to have laid off 14,700 of its workers in the U.S. and Canada.
As Breitbart News has chronicled, American workers and UAW officials have debunked Barra’s claim that the union is at fault for the Lordstown plant closure. Details emerged this month revealing that the UAW accepted nearly $120 million a year in concessions to keep the Lordstown plant open. When workers and UAW officials heard of Barra’s announcement last year, they say they were stunned.
“We did everything they want,” longtime GM worker Sonja Smith told Bloomberg News. “This is their payback.”
Simultaneously, UAW officials have voiced support for Trump in his effort to reopen the Lordstown plant and keep open GM’s other three plants slated for closure by Barra.
Experts have called on Trump to implement a 25 percent auto tariff to protect American auto worker jobs and the U.S. auto industry from Chinese domination. Likewise, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), vying for the Democrat nomination for president, has told Trump to immediately ban GM from receiving federal contracts for their outsourcing, offshoring, and mass layoff scheme.
While GM lays off thousands of American workers this year, its production in Mexico and China is ramping up. Specifically, GM is looking to manufacture an electric Cadillac in China and continue manufacturing its Envision compact vehicle in China.
The made-in-Mexico Chevrolet Blazer will soon arrive in U.S. markets. Last year, GM became the largest automaker in Mexico as it has cut jobs in America and increased production in Mexico.
Offshoring production to Mexico has proven cheaper for GM executives because American workers earn about $30 an hour while Mexican workers earn about $3 an hour, a 90 percent cut to wages that widens the corporation’s profit margins. Meanwhile, Barra continues to earn a salary of about $22 million.
Biden’s first fundraiser for his 2020 presidential primary campaign was hosted by a slew of wealthy donors, including attorney Steve Cozen whose law firm specializes in helping corporations bust up labor unions, as Breitbart News’ Matt Boyle reported.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.