Biden walks back praise for Pence following criticism

Associated Press ^ | March 1, 2019 | Thomas Beaumont

[Olog-hai]

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s tendency to talk about his good relationships with Republicans landed him in trouble Thursday when he called his successor, Mike Pence, a “decent guy.”

The comment was quickly criticized by fellow Democrats, including actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, who tweeted that Biden had complimented “America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader,” forcing Biden to walk back his comment.

“You’re right, Cynthia. I was making a point in a foreign policy context, that under normal circumstances a Vice President wouldn’t be given a silent reaction on the world stage,” Biden tweeted. “But there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights, and that includes the Vice President.”

The episode shows one of the challenges the 76-year-old Biden will face as he considers a run for the presidency. In promoting his relationships with Republicans in a way that might appeal to general election voters, Biden also risks alienating the Democrats he would need to win a primary. …

[hinckley buzzard]

Goldwater changed over time and In his old age he moderated his views. This is a common phenomenon and should not be understood as a repudiation of the principles of his youth.

He lost in 1964 because a) he was demonized by the democrats and the press; b) he was opposed by the GOP establishment perhaps even more so than Trump was; and c) he ran in the traumatic shadow of grief over Kennedy’s assassination, and people irrationally viewed a vote for LBJ as a means of expressing continuity with Kennedy.

[PghBaldy]

Part of the problem is leadership does not want to address the issues, so the rank and file really cannot do anything.

[ManHunter]

I’m still waiting for Crazy Uncle Joe, the Family Pedophile, aka Chester the Molester to take Trump out behind the gym...

[Lurker]

“But it does mean that people didn’t think government was to be as limited as severely Goldwater assumed it should be.”

What “people” think is irrelevant. The plain text of the Constitution is what is relevant. If “people” want to change it there’s more than one way to do so. But to simply ignore it is wrong.

“It would have been a cheap shot if Goldwater accused his fellow Republicans (and by implication the public who voted for them) of having a totalitarian philosophy and it’s a cheap shot to do so now.”

It wasn’t a cheap shot then and it’s not a cheap shot now. Damn near half the electorate does indeed have a totalitarian philosophy. Just listen to what they’re saying.

L

[righttackle44]

Biden doesn’t have the integrity or character of a filthy dishrag. Neither do most lefty Democrats.

[Liz]

During the Obama Admin, then-VP Joe Biden took his son Hunter on an official trip to China.
China then gave Hunter a billion dollar check....making it likely that Biden sold out the United States to China.

And what was Obama's cut of the deal?

========================================

INSIDE THE SHADY PRIVATE EQUITY FUND OF BIDEN AND KERRY'S KIDS

EXCERPT--Peter Schweizer in his new book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” details a number of ethical violations on both sides of the political aisle. One example: the little-noticed private equity firm run by the sons of Democrats Joe Biden and John Kerry, as detailed in this exclusive first excerpt.

The two men became close while serving for several decades together in the US Senate. The two “often talked on matters of foreign policy,” says Jules Witcover in his Biden biography.So their sons going into business together in June 2009 was not exactly a bolt out of the blue. But with whom their sons cut lucrative deals while the elder two were steering the ship of state is more of a surprise.

What Hunter Biden, the son of America’s vice president, and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (later to be secretary of state), were creating was an international private equity firm. It was anchored by the multi-million Heinz family alternative investment fund, Rosemont Capital. The new firm would be populated by political loyalists and positioned to strike profitable deals overseas with foreign governments and officials with whom the US government was negotiating.

Hunter Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s youngest son, had gone through a series of jobs since graduating from Yale Law School in 1996, including the hedge-fund business. By the summer of 2009, the 39-year-old Hunter joined forces with the son of another powerful figure in American politics, Chris Heinz. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania had tragically died in a 1991 airplane crash when Chris was 18. Chris, his brothers, and his mother inherited a large chunk of the family’s vast ketchup fortune, including a network of investment funds and a Pennsylvania estate, among other properties. In May 1995, his mother, Teresa, married Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. That same year, Chris graduated from Yale, and then went on to get his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Joining them in the Rosemont venture was Devon Archer, a longtime Heinz and Kerry friend. The three friends established a series of related LLCs. The trunk of the tree was Rosemont Capital, the alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Office. Rosemont Farm is the name of the Heinz family’s 90-acre estate outside Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania.

The small fund grew quickly. According to an email revealed as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, Rosemont described themselves as “a $2.4 billion private equity firm co-owned by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz,” with Devon Archer as “Managing Partner.”The partners attached several branches to the Rosemont Capital trunk, including Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC, Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and Rosemont Realty. Of the various deals in which these Rosemont entities were involved, one of the largest and most troubling concerns was Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Rather than set up shop in New York City, the financial capital of the world, Rosemont Seneca leased space in Washington, DC. They occupied an all-brick building on Wisconsin Avenue, the main thoroughfare of exclusive Georgetown. Their offices would be less than a mile from John and Teresa Kerry’s 23-room Georgetown mansion, and just two miles from both Joe Biden’s office in the White House and his residence at the Naval Observatory. In short, the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers.

--SNIP--rest at source

Chris Heinz (left) with John Kerry at a campaign fundraiser,
April 16, 2004./ Dennis Van Tine

Hunter and Dad, Joe Biden.

SOURCE http://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/

[Liz]

Hunter Biden also had connections to jailed crook Allen Stanford
WSJ, By Susan Schmidt, Steve Stecklow and John R. Emshwiller, Feb. 24, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

A fund of hedge funds run by two members of Vice President Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by companies controlled by Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, who is facing Securities and Exchange Commission accusations of engaging in an $8 billion fraud.

The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund. Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors......--snip--rest at WSJ paywall

[Liz]

Speaking of politicians' hedge funds (above).......that reminds me......

Chelsea’s husband allegedly used Clinton Foundation ties to boost his failing Eaglevale hedge fund.
In a hacked email to Podesta, ex-Clinton aide Doug Band claims Marc Mezvinsky traded on family ties to help his fund.

By KENNETH P. VOGEL, Politico staff, 11/06/2016

Chelsea Clinton’s husband Marc Mezvinsky extended invitations to a Clinton Foundation poker event to rich Clinton supporters he was courting as investors in his hedge fund, and he also relied on a billionaire foundation donor to raise money for the fund, according to the WikiLeaks documents. They also assert that he had his wife Chelsea Clinton make calls to set up meetings with potential investors who support her family’s political and charitable endeavors.

The documents — a memo and an email — were written in late 2011 and early 2012, respectively, by ex-Clinton aide Doug Band. They were sent to family confidants including John Podesta, who is now serving as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, and Cheryl Mills, who was Clinton’s State Department chief of staff. They were hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account and made public Sunday in the latest batch of Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks.

At the time Band wrote them, Mezvinsky, who had been an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, was working with two partners to raise capital to launch a hedge fund of their own called Eaglevale Partners. The word among rich Clinton backers on Wall Street was that the family would look favorably on investments in Eaglevale, a major Manhattan investor told POLITICO.

That sentiment seems to be corroborated by the newly released WikiLeaks, which could provide fodder for critics, including Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump, who argue that the Clintons have used their charitable foundation to try to enrich themselves. Band did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, nor did representatives for Chelsea Clinton or the Clinton Foundation, while an Eaglevale spokesman declined to comment or to make Mezvinsky available for comment.

======================================
=====================================

THE PODESTA EMAILS----In a Jan. 2012 email to Podesta, Mills and current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Band wrote that Mezvinsky invited “several potential investors” for his hedge fund “and a few current business ones” to a foundation poker night fundraiser he had been planning. “I assume all are contributing to the foundation, which of course isn't the point,” Band wrote. “The entire plan of his has been to use this for his business.” In the same email, Band — referring to Chelsea Clinton by her initials — wrote that Mezvinsky “has CVC making some calls for him to get mtgs with some clinton people.” And, in a Nov. 2011 memo released Sunday, Band wrote that major Clinton Foundation donor Marc Lasry was “assisting Marc Mezvinsky – Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky’s husband – in raising money for his new fund.”

Lasry, who also employed Chelsea Clinton as a chemical industry analyst at his own hedge fund Avenue Capital Group from late 2006 until 2008, declined to comment. But Band, in his Jan. 2012 email, suggested that Mezvinsky needed to lean on his wealthy and well-connected in-laws because he wasn’t having much luck generating investor interest in his hedge fund on his own. “His raising money for his own fund hasn't been going well,” wrote Band, who at the time was engaged in something of a turf war with Chelsea Clinton. She had accused Band, who had worked closely for years with Bill Clinton at the foundation and on for-profit ventures, of using his foundation role to supplement his money-making ventures.

--SNIP--

SOURCE https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/chelsea-clinton-foundation-marc-husband-230859

================================
===============================

SECY OF STATE HILLARY USED BENGHAZI/STATE DEPT FOR CHELSEA'S HUSBAND'S BUSINESS

On Sept 15, in a telephone call with then-Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr, then-Secy Clinton emphatically portrayed the “stupid, very offensive film” as the root cause of the Benghazi violence.

“I have repeatedly, as has the President and other and murder of four Americans officials in our government, deplored not only the content of this stupid, very offensive film… But we have to exercise more self-discipline… otherwise we’ll be in a vicious downward circle against everyone who has ever felt offended, particularly on the internet….”

After referring to Benghazi, Secy Clinton’s telephone call with then-Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr also contained a curious reference to what the former secretary referred to as a “very successful investment visit led by my deputy Tom Nides,and on the very day they left, this series of incidents began to unfold.”

[Unam Sanctam]

The demonization of Christian believers by the Dems continues apace.

[x]

What “people” think is irrelevant. The plain text of the Constitution is what is relevant.

The plain text of the Constitution may not have supported Goldwater's interpretation either.

I get tired of all the "Everybody in Washington's a Communist" and "Civil War is Coming" and "Whites Get Together".

A little push back against all that isn't a bad thing.

One thing that doomed Goldwater was that he needed so much to be provocative that couldn't keep quiet when he needed to.

It's worse nowadays. A lot of people feel like they have to keep pushing to the extreme, when experience, logic and common sense ought to restrain them.

[RitaOK]

The radicals are quite done with their Establishment as we are with ours. AOC and the other two gals are giddy about destruction, and that includes their own Party and apparatus.

There will be no party structures if they have their way. It’s really time to press charges against that Somalian, Omar, who promotes “overthrow” of an American president. There is a limit to foul political discourse when it rolls into sedition.

I understand the word “Treason” is traditionally confined to the military, or to a war time universe of events like espionage, spies, etc., but who cares which word is applied. We know it when we hear it and see it.

[Liz]

It’s way past time to press charges against that rag-head Somalian, Omar, who promotes “overthrow”
of a duly-elected American president. There is a limit to foul political discourse when it rolls into sedition.

Could not agree more. Let's find out: who is she in collusion with?

Lookit how proud Nancy is of the creepy, evil-eyed, towel-head.
Pelosi obediently put the creep on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.....bowing to Omar's request.

DEMOCRATS FALL DEEPER INTO THE "WE HATE-AMERICA" PIT.

[Liz]

Be very careful w/ anything she does for Somalia——especially sending our tax dollars to this ****hole. She has a HUGE conflict of interest.

pjmedia.com

Ilhan Omar Endorsed Somalia’s New President. Four Days Later, Omar’s Brother-in-Law Had a Powerful Job in His Administration

BY DAVID STEINBERG JANUARY 24, 2019, PJ Media.com

Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MINN) became the first Somali-American legislator in United States’ history when Minnesota’s House District 60B elected her on November 8, 2016. The distinction won Omar immediate fame and influence in Somalia, which was entering the final stretch of a critical presidential election of its own.

According to prominent federal security clearance defense attorney Sean Bigley (read below), Omar’s documented actions in the weeks that followed would almost certainly prevent any applicant with such a background from obtaining or keeping a U.S. security clearance.

Ilhan Omar is now a U.S. congresswoman, however. Elected federal officials are exempted from the arduous security clearance process; they hold de facto clearances once sworn in to office. Further, Omar will likely be privy to a significant amount of classified national security information this term. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has granted Omar’s request for a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

---

“Corruption … affects virtually every aspect of the Somali society: from public officials’ misuse of public goods for private gain and the solicitation of bribes in exchange for basic services to the clan-based patronage networks used to obtain employment and political appointments.” — Transparency International, 2018

The common hyperbole for describing government corruption — “rampant,” or “endemic” — does not help adequately illustrate Somalia’s recent administrations. “As bad as it gets” does the job, literally: Transparency International, the massive NGO dedicated to exposing public-sector corruption, has placed Somalia dead-last among all nations on Earth in its annual “Corruption Perceptions Index” — for 11 consecutive years. Somalia has occasionally managed to tie, though never outrank, North Korea.

Any significant involvement by a U.S. citizen in Somalia’s election process would likely raise eyebrows at America’s intelligence agencies.

On December 20, 2016, just a few weeks after her election to Minnesota’s state legislature, Ilhan Omar was in Mogadishu with then-President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a favorite for re-election. He reportedly invited her to appear with him prior to the election taking place.

Omar likely met at least one other Somali presidential candidate on her trip. According to a speech by her soon-to-be husband Ahmed Hirsi, Ilhan had just flown from Nairobi to Mogadishu on a plane with former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as “Farmaajo” (“Cheese”).

Farmaajo — a U.S. citizen who, inconceivably, had boarded that plane as a Buffalo, NY, cubicle employee of the New York Department of Transportation — was the eventual surprise winner of Somalia’s presidency on February 8, 2017.

The New York Times deemed Farmaajo’s bribe-fueled win “one of the most fraudulent political events in Somalia’s history.” In the run-up, “some Parliament seats had gone for more than $1 million each”:

The entire process has been so bad, several analysts said, that the Shabab militant group, one of the deadliest Islamist organizations in the world, isn’t even trying to derail the vote because the corruption free-for-all almost makes the militants look upstanding by comparison.

[Liz]

Omar getting ready to cash in?

Just a few weeks after her election to Minnesota's state legislature, Ilhan Omar was in Mogadishu with then-President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a favorite for re-election. He reportedly invited her to appear with him prior to the election taking place.

Omar Endorsed Somalia’s New President. Four Days Later, Omar’s Brother-in-Law Had a Powerful Job in His Administration

[GOPJ]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/378629-breitbart-editor-biden-and-kerrys-sons-inked-deal-with-chinese

Hunter Biden controlled the Rosemont entities, which describes itself as “a $2.4 billion private equity firm.”

In 2011, Hunter Biden met with top Chinese government fund leaders alongside managing partner Devon Archer and James Bulger, the nephew of notorious mobster Whitey Bulger, who controls a Massachusetts-based consultancy firm. The meeting took place just hours before the vice president would meet with Hu Jintao, then China’s president, in Washington as part of a nuclear security summit.

---

Biden’s son made out like a bandit with Chinese deals... would fly over with Dad and come back with inked deals... Of course the press never cared - because Biden had a D by his name.

[Taxman]

Joe Biden has us confused with people who give a shit about what he has to say!

He is a loser, and needs to shuffle off the stage and leave us alone!

We got a country to run!

And he and his ilk are in our way!

GO AWAY PLUGS! GO AWAY!

[RitaOK]

Priceless!

Re: information on Omar.

Soro$ has got to be behind this. When it’s so obviously International preferences over American interests, I think of him. He has and wants to bring whole nation$ down. Pelosi and Omar must surely $lurp from the same Soro$ trough.

Truly, it’s show time on all these connections. Getting it to Unravel Soro$ Cabal must come.

[cymbeline]

“isn’t looking to elect a leader at all, but rather the best follower.”

Yes but they think their guys are leaders. Fortunately we elected Trump who is anything but a follower!