Trump Versus Biden

[Hydra009]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iildYXuo4hY

Much improved work environment!

[Cassia]

Glad Dr. Fauci hung in there. That had to be pretty bad having that pumpkin-head for a boss.

[Hydra009]

Nevermind, I guess she did file impeachment after all.  No specified charges, which is telling.

She's the genius who decided that a mass shhoting didn't really happen because it was politically inconvenient and there have been calls for her to quit Congress due to her obvious mental impairment.

[drunkenshoe]

Nevermind, I guess she did file impeachment after all.   No specified charges, which is telling.

She's the genius who decided that a mass shhoting didn't really happen because it was politically inconvenient and there have been calls for her to quit Congress due to her obvious mental impairment.

I don't get it. The article says something like this:

An investigation by Senate Republicans last year into corruption allegations against the Bidens found no evidence of wrongdoing by the current president.

The report, released last September, also did not find evidence that Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian company, Burisma, influenced U.S. foreign policy.

The bolded part is a link to that invenstigation.

Top GOP senators say Hunter Biden's work 'cast a shadow' over Obama Ukraine policy.

...The GOP senators acknowledge in their report it is "not clear" how much U.S. policy was impacted because of Hunter Biden's work for Ukraine gas company Burisma Holdings, but they argue that it created an "awkwardness" for the Obama-era State Department. The report does not appear to include an example of a decision in which U.S. foreign policy was changed due to Hunter Biden%u2019s work on Burisma. ...

...What the Chairmen discovered during the course of this investigation is that the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden%u2019s position on Burisma%u2019s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine," the GOP chairmen wrote in their report. ...

Two officials %u2014 George Kent, who is currently serving as deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, and Amos Hochstein, a senior Obama-era State Department official %u2014 both told the committee that they raised concerns about Hunter Biden's work and the potential conflict of interest with U.S.-Ukraine policy, according to the GOP report.

"Kent%u2019s concerns went unaddressed, and in September 2016, he emphasized in an email to his colleagues, 'Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine,'" the report says.

But Kent's concerns were previously made public last year, when The Washington Post reported that he raised concerns that Hunter Biden's work for Burisma Holdings could undercut U.S. policy in Ukraine.

Hochstein previously told associates that Burisma never factored into a change in U.S. policy, and he was expected to tell committee staff working on the GOP probe that the Obama administration sought to punish Burisma rather than protect it. ...

The report sparked fierce backlash from both Democrats and the Biden campaign, who have been deeply skeptical of the investigation and warn it could spread Russian misinformation. Johnson has also faced public scrutiny from GOP members of his committee, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), in particular, has warned the probe looks like a political exercise.

Peters and Wyden released their own report on Wednesday, countering the GOP investigation, stating that %u201Cevery witness interviewed for this investigation testified that Vice President Biden did not alter United States foreign policy to benefit his son Hunter Biden, and that Hunter Biden%u2019s presence on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma had no affect on U.S. foreign policy.%u201D ...

... No evidence has indicated criminal wrongdoing by the Bidens. A narrative, seized on by Trump, that Joe Biden worked to oust Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin to protect his son has been widely discredited, though Hunter Biden has said joining the board was %u201Cpoor judgment.%u201D

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as part of a vote earlier this month, agreed to release transcripts from the closed-door depositions simultaneously with the GOP report.

Part of the depositions were released on Wednesday. But a Democratic aide noted that transcripts from key officials, including two current ambassadors, had not yet been released. ...

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the committee, warned that releasing the GOP report without the transcripts violated the agreement to release the transcripts, which passed the committee on a voice vote.

"Your release of a report without the simultaneous release of all witness interview transcripts, in direct violation of this committee's rules, would further weaken the committee's ability to effectively carry out its responsibilities on behalf of the public in the future," he said.

LOL How can she even file impeachment on the same issue after a completed investigation that has gone for months and criticised by Republican senators no less. I mean, legally, besides the obvious.

I have no idea why can't they do anything legal about a senator who's been openly supporting a group like QAnon in the first place.

[Unbeliever]

Apparently GOP senators have carte blanche to say or do or believe anything at all without any repercussions at all. The problem isn't the senators but the voters who put them there.

[Hydra009]

LOL How can she even file impeachment on the same issue after a completed investigation that has gone for months and criticised by Republican senators no less. I mean, legally, besides the obvious.

There's no real logical basis and unlikely to go anywhere, just a political stunt.  And besides, I doubt her thought process was anything more complex than "you go after my guy, I'll go after your guy!".

You know how these people say "orange man bad" when Trump is criticized as if Trump did nothing to merit criticism and he's just being persecuted for this political affiliation?  Well, I'm starting to think that's really their thought process when it comes to the dems and they just assume everyone thinks in such stark and simple terms.

I have no idea why can't they do anything legal about a senator who's been openly supporting a group like QAnon in the first place.

Well, there is an attempt to strip their security clearance.  Really, it's aimed at removing the security clearance from anyone who participated in the failed coup (which makes intuitive sense) or subscribes those sort of anti-democracy ideas, and Qanon just happens to be exhibit A.  Dunno how they expect to enforce that since a lot of these people (people who didn't already make the stupid mistake of going public) can just keep it under their hat.

[Hydra009]

Biden signs executive order mandating masks at  planes, buses, trains and at airports

It's amazing to me that we weren't already doing this.  This is the sort of thing we should've been doing on day 1 of the pandemic.

And a big upside is that it'll filter out people who aren't smart enough to figure out how to use a mask, like Senator Zodiac Killer.  I'd rather them have their infantile meltdowns at the front gate, not spitting and screaming in the cabin.

[Blackleaf]

Biden signs executive order mandating masks at  planes, buses, trains and at airports

It's amazing to me that we weren't already doing this.  This is the sort of thing we should've been doing on day 1 of the pandemic.

And a big upside is that it'll filter out people who aren't smart enough to figure out how to use a mask, like Senator Zodiac Killer.  I'd rather them have their infantile meltdowns at the front gate, not spitting and screaming in the cabin.

It didn't happen because Trump decided to make it into a political issue. I still have no fucking clue why he did that. If he hadn't said anything, his millions of braindead sheep wouldn't have had a problem with it either.

[Hydra009]

He "didn't want people to panic"
*smash cut to roving gangs in the Capitol building*

[Blackleaf]

He "didn't want people to panic"
*smash cut to roving gangs in the Capitol building*

More like he didn't want his final year to be associated with a pandemic, and so swept it under the rug until it was too late.

[SGOS]

More like he didn't want his final year to be associated with a pandemic, and so swept it under the rug until it was too late.

I can see his reasoning.  Well, it's more like I can see his intention.  I see the reasoning too, but it wasn't good reasoning, because you can't sweep a pandemic under the rug.  People die, people get sick and have lasting complications, and it slowly accelerates, then faster and faster, as more and more people, people you know, start dying.  And what's the media supposed to do?  Ignore it?  If the pandemic had first been identified two months ago, he maybe could have made it to the next election fooling people into not taking health precautions, but that may not have worked.  The fact that he ran the country like a ten year old didn't help things either.  He probably would have lost the election without the pandemic.  But yeah, pretending like the pandemic is not a serious issue was the wrong thing to do both for his own political future and ethically as well.

[drunkenshoe]

Yeah, no. It really doesn't look like he was just trying to avoid a political situation. I bet the initial reports on first covid-19 wave hitting black and brown and democrat communities especially hard didn't hurt his and Kushner board's 'reasoning' either. There are tons of reports out there about nonwhite groups, it is not a rumour.

What happened to the expert from Kushner's team who claimed:

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner's team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. "The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy," said the expert.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-ignore-blue-state-covid-19-testing-deaths-ncna1235707

Just type 'Trump CDC'. Reports from May, July to September...

Trump administration cuts CDC out of data collection on hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The move has immediate effect.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/15/trump-administration-orders-hospitals-not-send-covid-19-data-cdc/5441730002/

Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809

Probe: Trump officials attacked CDC virus reports

https://news.yahoo.com/probe-trump-officials-attacked-cdc-150312688.html

Despair at CDC after Trump influence: 'I have never seen morale this low'

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/517708-despair-at-cdc-after-trump-influence-i-have-never-seen-morale-this-low

Don't you think this looks like more than trying to avoid a political situation and going with no plan? Everything has been clear since around March 2020.

It seems to me that Trump and whoever is there with him and his group REALLY thought/think that they are above and out of the reach of the virus and only the 'undesirables' would die. Yeah exactly like in scripture tales. That actually looks like the first plan. Do nothing, we are safe. And then naturally when things started to go bad they made certain moves to cover anything possible to stop any kind of information about the pandemic in general.

I wouldn't think this way a very short time ago. But after realising that these people and this man are actually mentally ill, this fits. Because they could have gone to the 'we are trying, but country should have been prepared before us, it is a bad disease' path too. They didn't. They really do think they are some special people of gawd above everything.

[Mr.Obvious]

My two cents on the matter.

It was election time, coming up. Trump need desperately to cling to power. He is facing criminal charges, bankrupcy and is in deep with some bad people. Staying president was his only ticket, his only one, to keeping a good standard of living. Maybe even living. Definitely being certain he keeps out of jail.
He knew he had his die hard fanbase but that alone could never get him elected for a second term. Not with his already questionable popularity waning and knowing he'd never get the popular vote. In his mind, the economy was the only thing he could hold as a Trump card, a good economy was his only ticket to self preservation. And with Covid, that became impossible. He knew the appropriate responses, but caving into them would, in his mind, spell definite loss come election time. So he tried to swipe it under the rug and bet all his chips on 'herd immunity', hoped it would rush by in a rush that was hell, but give him time to rebuild sooner than any country because he wouldn't have to wait for a vaccine that way. Perhaps he thought it was actually what was best for the nation. But I would sooner venture that he knew this way would cost way more lives. But he didn't care, because he has never cared about America or the rest of the world for that matter. He willfully threw all those people under the bus, if I'm right, in a desperate long shot at remaining in power. Hundreds of thousands of lives knowingly sacrificed, many more ruined, all for a mere chance to save his own sociopathic skin.

[Mike Cl]

My take on this.  Trump was/is and always will be a mob boss.  He has used chaos for early on. He created chaos, never let it settle down.  He created it every day, all day and used it as a smoke screen to cover what he really wanted to do.  From the beginning he aimed at taking over the govt. and line his/family pockets with the countries money and material.  He cared nothing for the law nor social norms nor the truth or anything that did not serve his purposes--which was to rape this country.  He wanted power and did not care how he got it--or kept it.  He and his family going way back were racist and white supremists.  It is interesting in how he did not try to hide any of this--not ever.  He fired those who would not follow his orders and replaced them (in all of the bureaus); he gutted them and replaced, from to bottom, with his minions.  When he could not do that, he simply left those positions unfilled--that way he could dictate what that bureau did and how they did it.  This was especially true of the judicial system.  He groomed the white nationalist organizations from day one.  He groomed the fundamentalist's as well. 

He felt he could read the pulse of this country, which he indicated he could do in many interviews even before he was a candidate.  And he was right.  He gave the very deep racism in this country a voice and told them it was okay--a virtue, to hate.  That that was strong and not a weakness.  He was made into a cult leader by the christians and he made sure to stay on their side.  He cared nothing for them nor any of his followers or minions, but he had tapped into their feelings and kept do anything and everything to maintain control.  I think the Jan. 6th attack was meant to be the actual revolt.  He was and still is, desperate to maintain power as much as he can. 

He has only cared for himself and secondly his family.  That's it.  A truly evil man.

[Hydra009]

In positive news, we have Jessica Rosenworcel is replacing Ajit Pai as acting FCC chair.  She supports net neutrality.  There is now a 2-2 split between Democrats and Republicans in the FCC, so we'll have to wait and see if Biden gets in another nominee to break partisan deadlock.