Who's next?
Posted on 05/01/2019 3:19:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
Now that Creepy Joe Biden thinks he has put to rest all the cringy questions about his grabby hands, he has reverted to one of his old-time shticks: middle-class Joe. Champion of the masses. Hero of the hoi polloi. A six-term U.S. senator and two-term vice president, which equates to 44 back-slapping, log-rolling, favor-trading years in Washington, this decrepit Beltway swamp-dweller wants flyover Americans to believe that he's really just like you and me.
To which I can only reply with one hearty syllable: HA!
Reality-based reporting and informed commentary since the rollout of Biden 2020 has rightly focused on the Biden family's ideological and interest-conflicted dalliances with Ukraine and China. But let's first start with a reminder about elite Biden privilege closer to home.
Robert Hunter Biden, youngest son of the veep creep, secured a prestigious direct commission to the U.S. Naval Reserves in 2012 as a public affairs officer. The program recruits civilians without prior military service who have "special skills that are critical to sustaining military operations." Biden the younger's primary qualification for the cushy part-time job was his last name. The power of nepotism came in handy when Bidenspawn was forced to seek not one, but two waivers, to nail down the gig.
Ordinary applicants have to meet age restrictions (under 40 at the time he sought the position, now 42). He was 43. Then hapless Hunter needed a second waiver to get a pass for prior cocaine use. Granted! Only six public affairs officers received such direct appointments from the Navy Reserves that year. Amazing, isn't it, that there wasn't a single other applicant in America (population: 327 million) with a clean drug history and proper age eligibility to take the slot.
But for all that string-pulling effort, Hunter Biden barely served a year. After testing positive for -- wait for it -- cocaine during a random drug test, he was discharged quietly in February 2014. The hush-hush deal, undisclosed until a whistleblower told The Wall Street Journal eight months later, was yet another perk of Biden patronage. So was his immunity from any investigation or review of his law license by the Connecticut bar. And so, too, was his quick career bounce back.
A month after his humiliating discharge from our military, Biden's coke-abusing party boy was appointed to the board of director of Ukraine's largest private gas producer, Burisma Holdings, owned by a powerful Russian government sympathizer, who had fled to Russia that year. It's also the same company a top Ukranian prosecutor was investigating for corruption before he was fired -- at the behest of Papa Biden, according to Joe himself, who bragged about threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine during a Council of Foreign Relations speech in 2018.
After reporting earlier this month that Ukrainian officials are still probing the shady company and its dealings with Baby Biden, The Hill's John Solomon proposed pointed questions for the Democratic presidential front-runner: "Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work was performed for the money Hunter Biden's firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe... (and) should you have recused yourself?"
Similar queries apply to Hunter Biden's other position at investment firm Rosemont Seneca, which snagged a $1 billion deal in 2013 with the Commie-run Bank of China, first reported by investigative author Peter Schweizer, just days after Daddy B had met with China's president Xi Jinping.
As I catalogued in "Culture of Corruption" more than a decade ago, name-trading and favor-extracting are the story of Hunter the Privileged and Joe the Enabler's lives:
--Hunter's first job, acquired after Joe Biden won his 1996 Senate reelection bid in Delaware, was with MBNA, the credit card conglomerate and top campaign finance donor to then Sen. Biden. The elder Biden secured his custom-built, multimillion-dollar house in Delaware's ritziest Chateau Country with the help of a leading MBNA corporate executive. Biden went on to carry legislative water for MBNA in the Senate for years.
--Hunter became a "founding partner" in the lobbying firm of Oldaker, Biden and Belair in 2002. William Oldaker was Papa Biden's former fundraiser, campaign treasurer and general counsel. Under Oldaker's tutelage, Hunter lobbied for drug companies, universities and other deep-pocketed clients to the tune of nearly $4 million billed to the company by 2007.
--Hunter held a top position at Paradigm Global Advisors, a hedge fund holding company founded with the veep's brother, James, and marketed by convicted finance fraudster Allen Stanford. Hunter oversaw half a billion dollars of client money invested in hedge funds while remaining a D.C. lobbyist. The ill-fated venture went bust amid nasty fraud lawsuits.
--Hunter also served on the board of directors of taxpayer-subsidized Amtrak, for which his father secured a $53 billion high-speed train initiative.
I challenge middle-class Joe and his moocher son to find a rank-and-file union member's child who has enjoyed such spectacular career success and largesse.
The Beltway Bidens: Not just creepy but also crooked. And most definitely still not like us.
Who's next?
Biden’s time in politics and as a free man is shortly about to come to an end along with many of his partners in crime. The hammer of justice is about to fall hard.
Byedone.
During my career, I can’t tell you how many worthless, pot smoking scions of high ranking managers went from office boy to VP in less than two years. It’s just a feature of how hierarchical organizations work. Often times, those who were in a position to stop this instead collaborated. People who had worked hard and sacrificed for those positions either became damaged employees or left. In politics, as in physics, there is an equal and opposite reaction to every applied action.
Gropin’ Joe Biden - another democrat scam artist who became a millionaire on a government salary.
Biden was elected to Congress at the age of 29. Think about that. He’s spent practically his entire adult life sucking at the public teat in Washington.
Here he is (Hunter) at the funeral of his brother and walking next to his future wife, the widow.
Perhaps, when a family has so many sins, corruption, and money to hide, it's best to keep affairs and relations IN THE FAMILY. Sunglasses are also useful for filtering out red hot rays of Truth.
Kudos to Michelle Malkin for bringing these details to light.
Anyone else think Joe looks like a living corpse? Or should I say a creature from the crypt? He seems to have looked elderly and frail for decades along with some dementia. jmho
I think Joe will crumble when campaigning kicks into high gear. Can’t be an alky and keep up that tempo - ask Hillary.
Post your photos and MEMEs
Winner gets a gallon jug of bleach and a lifetime supply of rubber gloves.
.
I must have dozed off a bit...
When and how did that take place?
.
BOL........
James Biden isn’t a big name in the business of residential housing development, so what exactly qualifies him to work at a construction company and share in the winnings of a $1.5 billion project to build affordable homes in Iraq? If you said it has something to do with his last name, the one shared by his older brother Vice President Joe Biden, you wouldn’t be far off. At least that’s the guess of some Wall Street analysts who cover the Marlton, NJ-based company Hill International and think they’ve seen yet another sordid tale of crony capitalism.
Hill has been around for decades; its main business is managing construction projects in the Middle East and here in America. It’s built a good reputation over the years, as has the father-son team who run it, Irv and David Richter. But the bursting of the real-estate bubble took its toll; Hill shares are down 80 percent since 2008. Since 2011, the company has reported losses. Its Middle East business has also been stymied by the Arab Spring uprisings; in Libya alone, Hill is out $60 million in payments that it’s still trying to recover.
But it got some good news not long after its housing subsidiary hired James Biden as an executive vice president in late 2010. Just six months later, Hill won one of its biggest contracts ever, a $1.5 billion deal to build at least 100,000 affordable homes in Iraq. A good deal for Hill, a relative newcomer to building homes — and for James Biden, who as one partner will get a good share of that $1.5 billion.
The deal is contingent on the Iraqi government providing financing, which it has yet to do, but Hill execs tell analysts the money could start flowing by the end of the year. That’s when everyone involved, James Biden included, will start collecting on tens of millions of dollars in profits.
One friend of James Biden’s estimates his net worth at around $7 million, yet he seems to have a remarkable lack of concrete business experience. An attorney who’s done work for him called him a “serial entrepreneur,” but didn’t name the startups he was responsible for. Hill chief Irv Richter called Biden a “good salesman” and the firm’s Web site describes “40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally.”
(James Biden also had a relatively short and somewhat controversial run as a co-owner of a hedge-fund company with Joe’s son Hunter. The company, as it turns out, was marketed by companies controlled by now convicted Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford. Neither Biden was charged, but the fund company is now winding down its operations.)
No, James Biden’s obvious value comes from his connection to the Obama administration. Richter assures me that James’ ties to Joe played no part in landing the plum assignment in Iraq or any of the other government-related jobs Hill has received recently.
Really? Connect these dots: Both the Iraqi government and the Obama State Department played roles in helping Hill win the assignment, Richter concedes. And Joe Biden is President Obama’s point man on Iraq — a country where people expect politicians’ families to be “taken care of.”
Also key is TRAC Development, a South Korean firm that won the master contract for the Iraq work. And — huh! — James Biden and his wife were guests of President Obama and Michelle for last October’s state dinner honoring the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak. All one big coincidence?
Well, Richter insists that, while Biden’s name and connections might open doors when government business is on the line, that doesn’t guarantee success. “If he had the name Obama, he would get in the door easier,” Richter joked. During this month’s vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden told Americans to just ignore all that stimulus money that went to administration-connected failures like Solyndra. Crony capitalism, he insisted, hardly exists with Joe Biden and Barack Obama watching the store.
Maybe that’s why the veep, after making that dopey statement, was laughing so much that night.
Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.
"I bet Bill didnt get you this hot."
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and senior editor-at-large at Breitbart News, recalled how Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s second son, received millions of dollars from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings while his father directed $1.8 billion in aid money to Ukraine as vice president during the Obama administration. Schweizer joined Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak. Schweizer said, “I think a deeper problem that [Joe Biden] faces is — as has been reported on Breitbart and reported at the Hill, today — which I think is far deeper is the fact that his family, particularly his son, cashed in while he was vice president of the United States.”
John Solomon reported on Hunter Biden’s receiving millions of dollars from Burisma Holdings after being installed on the company’s board during his father’s vice presidential tenure: U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts – usually more than $166,000 a month – from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.”
The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe – shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials – shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money. Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, before he was fired as general prosecutor, he had made “specific plans” for the investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.” “We’ve talked before about the deals he procured with the government for China,” remembered Schweizer. “The other place [Joe Biden’s] son, Hunter Biden, procured a big deal was in Ukraine. In Ukraine, it involved an energy company called Burisma, which is a very corrupt organization headed by an oligarch named Mykola Zlochevsky who is very close to
ViktorYanukovich, the pro-Russian leader.” Schweizer asked, “There’s all kinds of questions and implications. Is there a Russian component to this, because Burisma is such a corrupt company?” “The bottom line is Joe Biden was the Obama administration’s point-person on policy towards Ukraine,” noted Schweizer. “He steered $1.8 billion in aid to that government and while he was doing so, his son got a sweetheart deal with this energy company – that we’ve been able to trace over just a 14-month period – paid $3.1 million into an account where Hunter Biden was getting paid.”
Schweizer highlighted Hunter Biden’s lack of professional or experiential bona fides in terms of his board position at Burisma Holdings.“Suffice to say, Hunter Biden has no background in Ukraine,” stated Schweizer. “He has no background in energy policy. There’s really no legitimate explanation as to why he got this deal with this energy company, other than the fact his father was responsible for doling out money in Ukraine itself.”
Schweizer went on, “It’s a huge problem, and it goes to this question of corruption and potential payoffs and bribes that these foreign entities were making to the Bidens in exchange for hopefully getting favorable treatment.” Despite the Robert Mueller-led operation’s ostensible pursuit of “collusion” between President Donald Trump and the Russian state, Schweizer noted actual financial dealings between the Biden family and foreign interests.
Schweizer said, “One of the phrases that has been tossed around as it relates to the Russian collusion hoax was ‘obstruction of justice’ by Trump, and there’s been no — at least in my mind — evidence that that ever happened, and it doesn’t seem that Mueller felt any charges should be brought on that count. But in this case, you would have a pretty clear-cut case of obstruction of justice, where Joe Biden is saying to Ukrainian officials, ‘We are not going to give you this billion-dollar loan guarantee unless you fire this guy.'”
Schweizer added, “There is far more evidence of collusion involving Joe Biden — or even involving the Clintons — of collusion with these foreign powers than there was with Donald Trump, because you actually have the transaction of money, you have very favorable policies that were carried out. I think ‘collusion’ is not too strong a word. I think it’s a pretty accurate word.” Schweizer added, “There’s no question. The Bidens got a lot of money — millions of dollars — from these foreign powers. Hunter Biden had no legitimate reasons to get the deal. He simply wasn’t qualified.”
Schweizer warned of politicians and officials monetizing their political influence.
Joe Biden monetized his vice presidential powers, says author Peter Schweizer.
“It’s pretty clear that the for-sale sign was open, and that a lot of foreign powers — including foreign governments — gave money to his son, Hunter Biden. “That demands investigation. Financial records from Morgan Stanley [are] very, very clear. It shows line after line after line of money going into an account that is marked ‘Robert H. Biden,’ (Hunter Biden’s legal name), and it shows huge sums of money coming in from Ukrainians, Chinese, Kazakhs, and anonymous LLCs. It’s all there in black and white.”
Hunter Biden sat on the board of Bohai Harvest RST — an obscure private equity firm — which secured a $1.5 billion investment from the Chinese government, noted Schweizer.
“The deal with China was the first financial deal with the Chinese government that allowed moving assets to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. J.P. Morgan didn’t have this kind of deal, Goldman Sachs didn’t have this kind of deal, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, the only firm that had this deal was Hunter’s small boutique firm started a couple of years ago.”
In March 2018, an aide of Joe Biden’s dismissed Schweizer’s investigations and research given Schweizer’s relationship with Breitbart News: “We aren’t going to engage on a politically motivated hit pieces based on a series of demonstrable, factual errors from a Breitbart-affiliated author and his financial backers.”
Schweizer responded, “So he can huff and puff and attack me personally all he wants. In part, he attacked me because of my role as an editor at Breitbart, but that doesn’t erase the facts.”
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