My uncle still has an unopened six pack of Billy
This is the only correct answer.
I mean, why were George Schultz and David Boies sitting on Theranosâ board? Because of their vast intellectual wealth of subject-matter knowledge about blood testing? Of course not. They were given seats because of their perceived connections outside the industry (and also because money). Iâm fine with calling it âcorruptâ but I wonât pretend it isnât a perfectly normal way of doing business in our society. Nuke em all from orbit.
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If people havenât noticed, I tend to be a bit of a contrarian, if in my own particular way. Was Hunterâs board seat corrupt? Well, heâs a 1996 graduate of Yale Law School and former executive VP of MBNA. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of directors of Amtrak, on which he served from 2006 to 2009. He also has high level lobbying experience in DC. I mean, this guy isnât some Eric, Ivanka, or Trump, jr. He has actual credentials and experience relevant to the work. Was he paid too much to potentially help a major oil and gas concern make inroads into the US market? Probably, but what would be the compensation of someone of similar background and experience that wasnât named Biden? $25k/mo?
Now, what are the actual facts and how much time and effort and expertise did he devote to the job? I have no idea. He probably did a better job than General Mattis did at Theranos. That is why, despite what Bill Barr or Trump may think, recusal is usually based on the appearance of conflicts as much as actual conflicts. Now, do I think Hunterâs gig was âcorruptâ? Probably a little, but you donât see me looking askance at Scarlett Johanssonâs pointy elbows when comparing her to to a 70 y/o toothless ground sloth. So, while Iâm âdeeply concernedâ about Hunter Biden, forgive me if I focus for the moment on the raging brush fire of corruption that is the Trump administration.
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Oh Hunter was a former executive VP of MBNA? Impressive! Iâm sure that it must just be a coincidence that Joe Biden was for decades known as Joe Biden, (D-MBNA). Iâm sure that Hunterâs position at that company was based solely on merit. And for that matter he gained admission into Yale Law based on his impressive academic record, why if his dad was a janitor he probably still would have gotten in.
I am not sure I would bet that Hunter Biden is even in the top half of most eyebrow raising board memberships or C-level employees in America, given the state of things. Other than tarnishing Joe, I donât see a reason to be upset with this one in particular.
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SK, do you think Donald J. Trump has committed any impeachable offenses? If so, name your top 5. If not, why not?
People actually had their lives ruined because of theranos and all of those people are still around and actually important in politics!
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John Kelly is on the board of one of the for profit prisons in charge of locking up children and separating familiesâŚa policy he was an advocate for while working in the administration.
Mattis became secretary of defense AFTER it was known he was a party to Theranosâs fraud
I donât care about people pretending to give a shit about this stuff
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Itâs insane how many of those people were still going to bat for her long after she was shown to be a complete fraud.
Whatâs wrong with tarnishing Biden? This sort of corruption should be pointed out and condemned. Hunterâs whole career has been based on cronyism and influence peddling. Undeserved admission to elite schools. Cushy no-work job for the company his dad was in the tank for. Lobbyist. Coked-up 43-year-old ensign in the Navy. Then going straight from being drummed out of the Navy for drug use to a 50k a month gig in the Ukraine? This is the sack of shit you people want to defend? Why? Just because Trump is attacking him? Well the play here is to acknowledge that Trump is a stopped clock here and Hunter is corrupt and doesnât deserve your defense. Trying to minimize and excuse Hunterâs corruption is playing right into Trumpâs hands.
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I donât really care whether it was or not. From the little Iâve read, the entire country is corrupt, so sure, why not. We donât know anything about his appointment, though. It is entirely possible that Hunter could have snagged the job trading on his dadâs influence and Joe had nothing to do with it. Or it could be that Joe personally called them and told them to hire him. Why does it matter? Itâs just a distraction to try to get people like you to focus on anything but the rampant corruption and criminality of the Trump Admin.
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I donât disagree with anything in this post. The entire system is absolutely riddled with corruption and needs to go. I expect that Hunter Biden probably didnât deserve the college he went to, the jobs he got, or anything else heâs ever had compared to the person whose slot he stole because his dad was a powerful politician.
How do I know? Heâs got an addiction problem that would have absolutely ruined my entire career/life. Heâs automatically had about 20x as many chances to succeed as any normal person and lo and behold heâs succeeded.
Itâs the entire system. All the eyebrow raising board members need to go. Every. Single. One.
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There is widespread corruption worldwide and basically always has been. Even stuff like our higher education system is basically legalized corruption to some extent.
And yes there are degrees of corruption. What Hunter Biden is guilty of is a lot less egregious than the top 1000 corrupt Trump&family offenses and I donât think that is up for debate.
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I think your missing the subtlety in my response. Was Hunterâs gig suspect, sure? Was he basically grifting a willingly grifted company? Likely. Should it be spoken of in the same paragraph with anything Trump has done? No.
Yes and?
If the rich donât want us to eat them they had better get ready to cooperate with the unrigging of the system. The meritocracy is a great big lie whose only purpose is bringing people like Hunter Biden into contact with the talented people whose work they are going to leach off of (in exchange for resources they inherited) for the rest of their lives so they can stay rich/powerful.
The corruption is bad. I am very much against it. It is the root problem of a lot of the evil in our system. I am just saying Hunter Biden level corruption vs. Trump and Co. who do the crimes and corruption on a daily basis and blatantly with zero qualms and then turn around and try and point the finger is ridiculous.
Ivanka and Jared who are both complete fuckups who bring nothing to the table made something like 80m last year. And yet 600k a year or whatever Hunter Biden made is outragous. Itâs a scale thing that should be taken into account when we look at the relative harm of these things.
Totally agreed. But itâs very hard to attack them when you yourself are guilty of a lesser crime. The first party to own its own BS and purge the people who give them a bad name will win the whole thing.
The Joe Bidenâs of the Democratic party are awful people and morally indistinguishable from rank and file GOP politicians. Biden in particular has been on the wrong side of basically every issue he ran into in the Senate. The bankruptcy bill was bad, the crime bill was bad, and Iâm sure that if I started digging I could find at least a dozen ugly corpses he buried for corporate interests over the years.
Elizabeth Warren was right about him.
Well Biden is a POS and I donât want him anywhere near the nomination. I mean my avatar is making fun of him so hopefully it is obvious I am not here to be some Biden stan. I just donât think we should be eating our own over what amounts to a tiny percentage of the corruption of the other side. (Although if we have to eat one of our own I would sacrifice Biden in a heartbeat. He is almost dead and basically a republican anyways).
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