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Did Trump Park in the Wrong Spot?
I was doing work in a government building once and I parked my vehicle, and it created a huge fuss. The reaction was ridiculous, it was a personal affront. It wasn’t that someone had to walk a couple feet further, I had devalued them as a person.
It was rather enlightening, and amusing if I’m honest. This person had worked for years diligently and carefully, moving up the ladder, getting better pay and finally, recognition by getting a choice parking spot. In Canada, this is a taxable benefit. It was a measure of importance and stature. I had insulted them, devalued them. It was indeed personal.
This whole impeachment fuss comes down to something quite ridiculous. Trump had the temerity to expose the Biden Family influence-peddling scheme. We have been instructed, not told that the arrangement wasn’t illegal, what Trump did was illegal, immoral, a threat to the Constitutional order. He must be removed from office.
Interestingly, if you poke around a little, not a lot, just a smidgen of curiosity some interesting tidbits fall out into the open. Kerry. Where have I heard that name before? Oh yes, John Kerry’s son was involved with Biden’s son. Hmm. Then we learn that Romney has someone on his staff that is connected somehow to this as well.
Nothing illegal of course. Illegal, meaning it violated a law passed by Congress, the Senate and signed by a President.
How common are these arrangements? If someone did a deep dive, wrote an article with the title All the Useless Sons of Washington, what would we learn?
I have some suspicions. That these arrangements are considered one of the natural perks of office, that they are very very common. That U.S. foreign policy isn’t conducted by Ambassadors or the President, but in fact by these connections where influence is gained by paying a useless son of Washington. That much of the animosity towards the US in other countries stem from this corrupt and demeaning practice of having to listen to these idiots to get favorable treatment by the US Government.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the guy simply had a bad day, a fight with his wife or something like that. It wasn’t about the parking spot.
I’ve been instructed by everyone from the media, politicians and esteemed conservative voices that is isn’t about the parking spot.
Published in Foreign Policy
And then our congress signs over millions (billions?) Of taxpayer dollars to those governments.
Is our congress robbing us blind, enriching themselves by laundering tax payer dollars through “financial aid” that comes back to them through outrageous payments to US contractors conveniently related/connected to those same congressmen?
There was an article a long time ago about congressional insider trading. That basically everybody does it.
It wouldn’t surprise me that there are a bunch of political scions who have weird positions on boards of this or that.
Bob McDonnell got rung through the wringer for a heck of a lot less than the bidens, which boiled down to having long time family friends and a basic-bro gift.
I think there is a lot of what you find suggested here. This is the swamp.
I think the swamp rats, many of whom are in other ways patriotic Americans, are compounding their mistakes here by standing with those we once referred to as Communists against President Trump. Romney wrapped himself in his religious convictions to vote in honor of his long established posture of big government/big corporate support. The Constitution is taking a beating.
The SOTU was well received by those who call themselves Independents. The President’s action dealing with Ukraine has raised the visibility of the manner in which Americans’ taxes are making the roundtrip through corruption that is rampant in the Defense Department, State Department, and Intelligence Agencies.
Children or other relatives of famous or powerful people are always in a position of benefitting from family ties, whether they earn the benefit by merit or not. In the case of the Bidens, it clearly looks as if Good Old Joe had a hand in and knew about his son’s do-nothing job in the Ukraine. This is based on his statement about how he got the Ulkrainian prosecutor looking into his son fired with a threat to withhold aid (sound familiar?).
So yes, I think the Bidens are the latest poster children for influence peddling . . .
Senators Grassley and Johnson are asking for official government travel records involving Hunter Biden traveling on government provided transportation for personal business. Hmmm?
I like how you get to the heart of the matter.
Influence wasn’t what was being gained by having Hunter Biden at Burisma. He was a conduit to receive the kickbacks from our foreign aid paid to the Ukraine by our State Department. The aid was supposed to be for a grant to teach the Ukraine oil and gas industry how to explore and drill . Burisma for all intents is the Ukraine oil and gas industry. About the only money that reached Burisma was the money paid to Hunter Biden. The rest was siphoned off by the oligarch that owns the bank where the money was first deposited. He also owns Burisma. Remember who was in charge at State, Kerry. And before him Hillary. This kind of arrangement doesn’t work just anywhere but it does in one of the most corrupt countries in the world,the Ukraine. That’s why Joe Biden wanted to be in charge of US foreign policy for the Ukraine.
Derek, I like your post, but I think that this part is unfair.
About Kerry’s son — actually stepson — it is my understanding that he ceased his association with Hunter Biden when he learned that Hunter was involved with Burisma.
About Romney, it’s my understanding that a guy who was a foreign policy adviser to Romney’s campaign in 2011-2012 later joined the Burisma board in 2017. This provides no meaningful connection, at all, between Romney and Burisma.
If you have additional facts, I’d be happy to consider them. I might be wrong. But this small portion of your post looks like inappropriate, vaguely slanderous innuendos directed at Kerry and Romney.
You might be right. There may be nothing there for these connected people. But the additional facts needed are not easy pickin’ – after all, the POTUS was just impeached for trying.
If someone were to look into it? Peter Schweizer has, a couple of times.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RC557SQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
I read Secret Empires when it came out in 2018. There is a chapter on the Bidens in Ukraine. I couldn’t believe that I was sitting here reading this, so everyone must be aware of it. Why was no one doing anything about it??
When Trump finally mentioned it the the Ukrainian president, I said Wahoo, finally! Joe didn’t HAVE to throw his hat in the ring, knowing this skeleton in his closet would undoubedly be discovered. I thought he’d quietly drop out of the race and hire a lawyer.
Imagine my surprise when instead he simply denied everything and joined the sudden crazy frenetic pressure to put all the attention on Trump for even mentioning it. So much scrutiny of Trump for what he did out in the open with 30 people listening, zero scrutiny of what Biden has been up to all these years.
Then I read Schweizer’s latest book
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006289790X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
which just came out last month. He details the depth of the Biden crime family activities – Ukraine is just one of many ongoing schemes. The whole family is involved, Joe is the rainmaker.
The book left me sad and reluctantly cynical about the whole place (Washington). I know I know, I’m not naive. I just had no idea it was this bad.
What is slanderous about that? He was a partner with Biden when his father was secretary of state and Biden’s father was vice President. He had some sense, Biden is a rather unsavory character.
I am currently reading this – in the chapter about Biden and his family (not just sons) – and it is truly both infuriating and saddening.
Do you know, I am coming out of this book thinking that the only reason Biden can so brazenly operate like this and not be called out by the law, or at least his political opponents, is because this sort of stuff is common – everybody there is doing it to one degree or another. Or if they’re not, too many people important to their careers are, so they look away.
I thought of Serpico; maybe that’s really the way things work in Washington. There are some who actively churn their position for dollars, and some who dont want to upset the apple cart, so they take small graft – just keeping quiet.
The ones who stay the longest are the ones most successful at working the system to protect and enrich their families. “Public service” really doesn’t come into it, it was never about that. The appearance of it, being able to gas on about it, is the skill, the thing the “successful” politician brings to the operation. Biden is pretty much nothing but a set of grinning teeth and a lot of hard-won connections to set his family up in the green.
The guy who comes in from outside, who looks like he might upset the established order of corruption and graft, is targeted by the venal and the cowed alike, because all of this is in danger of having a light shone upon it. What else can explain the absurd amount of vitriole aimed at Trump?
Eddie Murphy once famously said to some bar patrons that he was “…your worst nightmare – a ni***r with a badge!” Maybe Trump is Washington’s worst nightmare, a billionaire who doesn’t need your money and who loves America and hates corrupt politicians. (Who he may have had to bribe all through his career – who else would hold them in such delicious contempt?)
Excellent post.
How stupid do they think we are that they think we don’t see this?
It’s like they were all, for the longest time, very relaxed and very much themselves around Trump, because they didn’t really think he would ever turn on them by running for President.
Is it possible that it might all start to change, to fall apart? If so, who knew that it would take a Donald J. Trump to do it? Somebody with all of his “faults” – impenetrable skin, big ego, immense drive, contempt for the elite class. Whatever HIS secret motive for taking this job, his psychological need, it seems to have come at the 11th hour, just when I thought Obama’s efforts would have finally driven us past the point of no return.
Not sure if it’s enough, I guess we’ll see.