Goddammit Joe. Get a better answer. You’re killing yourself.
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Joe Biden’s reply in a nutshell:
“I don’t know what he was doing and I don’t want to know what he was doing, but I know he wasn’t doing anything wrong, so shut up.”
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The “no experience” thing isn’t actually true. Biden wasn’t brought in for industry expertise, but to help with “good governance” policy. But the question is…what is Joe’s conflict of interest. Joe Biden didn’t have any official position with regard to Ukraine. That’s why I asked where Hunter would be allowed to work.
Joe purportedly “played a major role in formulating Ukraine anti-corruption policy”. But that’s pretty vague. Biden wasn’t himself in charge of anything.
The highest level of corporate boards have this level of “appearance of conflict of interest” all the time. Problem is that the number of people at this level of society is small compared to the number of duties. So unless we have specific job responsibilities that came to Joe Biden that related to Hunter’s work at Burisma, I’m not seeing it. (And even if such matters came to head, Joe could always have recused himself.)
I mean, sure, it’s obvious that Burisma hired Hunter as a sop to Biden’s influence. But…is that a “conflict of interest”?
Would I prefer it if Hunter hadn’t taken a job in Ukraine? Sure. I don’t even prefer Joe Biden as a candidate - for a large number of reasons I think he’s one of the weakest choices. But I don’t think we should give oxygen to trumped up charges being peddled by the Trump/Putin axis of disinformation.
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it shouldn’t be an integral anything, because considering what we know now, if this story is really important, then what does it say, when Rudy’s actions / Ukrainian clientele makes Hunter Biden’s problems, very small.
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what defense is needed? That Iowa incident has already proved that only a concession will satisfy Biden’s critics.
???
Sure you did. Your argument is that Biden is going to be under attack and therefore in “defensive crouch” the entire election. I fail to see how that doesn’t befall the next candidate after you get your wish of removing Biden from the frontrunner spot. Moreover, you’ve provided no argument as to why it can’t or wouldn’t and no argument is really all that credible that it couldn’t or wouldn’t.
No, because the Dems/liberals selfishly see “opportunities” to use right wing talking points against him when something can be deliberately misconstrued as a “gaffe” or “misstatement” and their behavior is self-defeating and damaging to our common goal of getting Trump out of the WH.
You apparently think it’s a good argument to cherry-pick and ignore that Biden’s the one Dem candidate who has come out with the best attack ad on Trump and has been basing most of his strategy on attacking Trump the entire time…instead of pandering to Team Unicorn’s pie-in-the-sky impractical daydream wishlist that scares away millions of voters in key demographics and geographic areas that we need to be on our side in 2020.
If they weren’t using this they would’ve found something else. They’re all in for Trump,no matter what, because their own asses are on the line.
I’ve ‘errands’ to do, but question
Is age an important issue for a candidate and if so, why?
What has been the tireless focus of Trump/Giuliani/Barr/Graham/Nunes et alia? What else have they done than nurture this magot into a full blown shit eating fly?
It’s the Ukraine. It’s beyond Biden. No matter which other Democrat might be the frontrunner, the battle will already be lost in the Senate trial. Democrats must cease their hand wringing wimpiness. They must forcefully point out that this blanket the Republicans have imported from the Ukraine is all about covering Trump’s ass in the senate.
I can’t risk choosing as champion a candidate in decline of body or mind.
Who of us past 60 have not witnessed the sudden and surprising collapse of those around 80?
First, if one were to imagine a combined Sanders-Warren candidate (not realistic, I realize, but just as a point to demonstrate the strength of the progressive part of the party), he/she would come pretty close to a majority and clearly would best all of the other candidates’ percentages. Since I said nothing about purity or anything that implied such a demand, perhaps I might note that the scolding-type comments such as this one are a potential problem, as all they do is piss the progressives off, not to mention reveal the purity motives of the scolder. Do you really see that as a good, winning strategy? Also, as I mentioned upthread, I wasn’t at all speaking about Biden. Finally, who Sanders and Warren supporters might turn to if either one of them dropped out would probably depend a great deal on who their preferred candidate endorsed.
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We agree…
Not giving oxygen means Biden must pivot to a policy issue of national interest when asked about Hunter. Politicians do this all the time. Biden needs to work on that. What he cannot do is go into daddy mode & express how much he trust his son.
He can even delve in & ask what specifically they want to know.
Are you asking if I got my job the job? No, I did not.
Are you asking if I helped the company? No, I did not.
Are you asking if the investigation found I used my political office to support the company? No, I did not.
Then move on…
I don’t think we are giving oxygen to this smear campaign, the public is asking. Just as John McCain had to say his child was adopted & of Indian descent, not black American. Once he told the facts & addressed it head on, the public moved on.
Biden is not doing that.
Wrong.
Biden is in a defensive crouch, because of misstatements that Biden keeps making. That’s the point you steadfastly refuse to accept.
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Nope. The ONLY reason is because you legitimize the narrative of “gaffes” etc., when we should be saying “fuck that noise” and refusing to accept that it’s even a mistake or problem. Take a lesson from the GOP for once and learn from what clearly and undeniably works for them and beats us every time.
It’s way past time for team Dem/lib to learn how to be a cohesive, supportive, circle-the-wagons party or movement, instead of undermined by ideologues whose pious, myopic adherence to their high-horsed purist orthodoxy should triumph over practical reality. Instead, every time the right wing attacks the moderates those people derisively call “neoliberals”, as if the right wing’s use of “liberal” as a pejorative wasn’t fancy enough for them, they consider it chum in the water and join right in. It’s why we lose, why we lose, why we lose. “Oh but it’s our diversity and we have a big tent blah blah blah.” So what? We can be diverse and disagree, but the one thing we can’t disagree about is whether we defend each other, compromise with each other and develop a comprehensive overall identity and platform. No successful army marches the way the Dems/liberals have been marching, each to their own drum, everyone the smartest soldier on the squad, this brigade despising that brigade. It’s absolute nonsense, and instead of realizing and admitting the problems it causes, some are so hellbent on denying the problem that their answer to it is to double down. We’re going to hand Trump 2020 on a silver fucking platter if it continues.
Based on polls, either Warren or Sanders. Who I have concerns about as I don’t believe either can win a national race, each for different reasons.
Perhaps, Klobuchar can rise up?
Oh my, where’s my fainting couch, something “doesn’t look good”. Fuck that. If we’re going to repeat Republican talking points merely because something doesn’t look good or gives people the vapors then any battle we have against them is already lost. One day people on the “left” might stop punching themselves in the face when conservatives tell them to, appears today wasn’t that day.
It’s a personal question, but who are you voting for in '20?
She has to win down south and with minority voters.
Bernie faced the same problem in '16 and though Clinton didn’t get Florida in the general, it says a lot, that Sanders was thumped by her, in that state’s primary.
I’m voting for the Democratic nominee.
I’d prefer, in order:
Warren Sanders Buttiegieg Biden
I have none of the concerns about personal corruption with these candidates that I had with some in 2016.
I also see this group as genuinely empathetic people who have the needed political chops.
I do have fears about their individual vulnerabilities…but… Oh…well
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She’s seventy years old
He’s seventy eight and is (technically) recuperating from a heart attack.