Lock him up? Joe Biden's son becomes the right's new target - Polidicks

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/03/joe-biden-son-hunter-1300560 President Donald Trump’s political allies and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have begun mobilizing to cast a legal cloud over Joe Biden and demanding that the Justice Department should open an investigation that could ensnare the former vice president as he launches his 2020 presidential bid. The suggestion of illegal behavior and the specter of putting a political opponent behind bars sounded familiar to some senior campaign aides to Hillary Clinton, who believe Trump and his allies are running a version of their “Crooked Hillary” playbook from 2016. The attacks on Biden pivot off the lucrative business activities of his son Hunter during the Obama administration, most notably Hunter’s work on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings. As part of a long campaign to pressure Ukraine to combat corruption in 2015 and 2016, then-Vice President Biden leveraged financial aid to the country in order to persuade the government to fire the country’s top prosecutor. That prosecutor, who had been roundly criticized by the international community for corruption, had been investigating Burisma at the time. The unseemly optics of Biden’s son appearing to benefit financially from his father’s diplomacy were reported by the New York Times in 2015, though Biden’s office has long maintained that Hunter’s work had no bearing on the vice president’s approach to Ukraine. But the story has slowly reemerged over the past year — largely on the right and in conservative media — as a Biden presidential run appeared increasingly likely.

I mean, that story is actually pretty terrible and implies Biden was engaged in corruption himself.

but please Kushner, and Trump Jr, and Eric are not corrupt because biden jr!

I mean I'm sure both the right and the non-blind sections of the Democratic, liberal and leftist segments of this country are going to be calling him this type of bullshit all election season long. While the "DNC" (in its pejorative sense) mainstream do-nothing liberals will just scream "divisive partisanship!" at the right and "divisive Bernie Bros!" at the rest of us. I hope enough of the Democratic and independents voting in the Dem Primaries this year will realize how similar to 2016 this is shaping to be, and resolve to choose the alternative, instead of Clinton-lite with a (potentially) even worse record. It's probably a good thing that the Republican primaries probably won't matter. That means more independents voting in the Democratic primaries (in some states they make you choose one), and despite the "common sense" that "independents lean towards the center, meaning they LOVE milquetoast neoliberals with weakly liberal social stances and bland Bill Clinton free-market economic policies," it seems much more to be the case that independents are more likely to be fed up with this exact type of neoliberal economics and preservation of the status-quo, and vote for someone different like Bernie. You even heard from some Republicans and Republican-leaning independents during the 2016 season that they liked Bernie over Clinton because they felt like they could actually trust Bernie and know his intentions, when compared to "Queen Lizard's" insider-status and trustworthiness issues. This could just be anecdotal (don't know if any news reports came out on the trend), but I've seen this and heard accounts of it from others as well.

Biden threatened to withhold US Aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating Biden's son was fired? Unless he was just one of many people fired for corruption, there's just no way you can spin that positively.

I can't wait to give Republicans a taste of their own whataboutism.

It's been known for years and years that Biden's son was on that board, and that this was part of a wider trend of corrupt politics involving Ukraine's East-West divide. It really is a battle between factions of a ruling elite that the people have little real stake in, but bear the fratricidal results of.

I was really confused by the headline because I thought Biden's son died and the Republicans were literally beating a dead horse.

When he ran in the Obama era, I actually liked Ron Paul way more than the other repubs for this exact reason Look at old videos of him talking, he was consistent and made good arguments. Even in the face of shithead crowds he was stern and bold. Ever since then he's gone a bit uhh, more crazy than normal, however I could actually trust that he believed the shit he said at the time. I've not really followed him since then, and I'm sure you can find many reasons to shit on him, but seeing someone that isn't a flipflop was nice at the time.

The son in the article actually hooked up with his brother's widow, crackhead as well.

In Biden's defense, the prosector general mentioned in the article, Viktor Shokin, was regarded as a corrupt actor by most of the Western World. The United States demanding his removal in return for international aid isn't unreasonable by itself. The real question is: what happened to the probe into Burisma Holdings after Shokin was fired? Are there any signs that the probe was manipulated - an abrupt shutdown, a sudden "shortage" of resources to continue the investigation - or did it go ahead unaffected? If it was changed around the same time, what changed, and on whose orders? It's very possible that Biden and his son are caught in nothing greater than a case of bad optics. Regardless, there should be an independent investigation - not by the Republicans, nor the Democrats. If Biden is involved in this, then he deserves the consequences of his actions. If not, it will allow the Democrats to demonstrate they're committed to their principles, no matter who is being investigated.

whether or not anything immoral or illegal was done here, only choosing to chase for prosecution when it's politically convenient shows that the republicans don't actually care about those laws or morals

Biden will be a big factor in getting Trump re-elected. It's depressing, but there's hints of a 2nd term coming.

Oh is this the part where double standards and hypocrisy are applied? Neat

this really is just going to be a rerun of 2016 lmao

Can’t wait for people to shit on Bernie for being a sell out again /s No matter what happens this election it seems almost certain that actual Progressives will lose. Maybe we’ll have a chance once the baby boomers are all dead.