The Joe Biden-friendly Establishment media has mounted a full-court press to “prove” that Biden is, well, not a crook.
The stakes are extremely high, Biden is vulnerable, and media players are using to a faretheewell the old adage about the best defense being a good offense. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are desperately trying to steal the ball and get ahead in the publicity game. But time is about to run out, and preemptive propaganda is unlikely to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. IF the facts do come out and IF they are reported, Biden’s presidential hopes may suffer a mortal blow.
When the corruption in which the former Vice President and his son Hunter were involved in Ukraine becomes more widely known, the press wants to be in position to “show” that it’s all the fault of President Donald Trump and his lawyers for trying to derail Biden’s candidacy by exposing him. If past is precedent, the media will largely succeed. The question is whether enough people will, nevertheless, be able to see through this all-too-familiar charade.
In an interview with The National Interest, Joe Lauria put this episode in context:
“It was in February [2014] when Yanukovych was overthrown, and just a few months later (in May), Joe Biden’s son and a close friend of John Kerry’s stepson, they both join the board of this Ukrainian gas company. And the name of that was Burisma Holdings,” said Joe Lauria, editor of Consortium News and a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. “So just after an American-backed coup, you have Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and this John Kerry family friend joining the board of probably the largest private gas producer in Ukraine. They installed the new government, and as the bounty of this coup, Joe Biden’s son personally profited. He would not have gotten that job if Yanukovych was still in power,” Lauria told The National Interest.
Will U.S. voters have any way of putting these dots together, and also in discerning, for example, how much truth there may be in charges that Vice President Biden pressed hard for the ouster of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who was canned after investigating corruption at Burisma Holdings Ukrainian gas company of which Hunter Biden was a board member? If the truth does come out, no one will have to rely on remarks from the likes of Rudy Giulinai, one of Trump’s lawyers, who has called the episode “an astounding scandal of major proportions.” That may be hyperbole but, still, the damage to Biden could be fatal.
And so, damage control is in full swing today at the Times, the Post, the Journal and other “usual suspects,” with the Times winning the laurels with its Editorial Board, no less, weighing in with “What did Trump tell Ukraine’s president?” There have also been op-eds by Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, Anne Applebaum, Greg Sargent and (my favorite), George T. Conway III and Neal Katyal at the Post, whose headline is: “Trump has done plenty to warrant impeachment. But the Ukraine allegations are over the top.”
That title is correct.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at RayMcGovern.com.
Impeach everybody and send them to the bonfire they set in Ukraine to live among the Banderist hordes. If Biden wins, do the same thing again.
The proof is here, from Biden himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA–dj2-CY
Ah thanks, I had forgotten about that one!
Well I know how this is sold in Belgium , flemish news: Trump has ‘admitted’ talking to Ukrainian president and is under attack for pressuring Zelenski in an attempt to damage Biden. Also IMF, worldbank and EU insisted on firing Viktor Shokin because he refused to tackle corruption. Well I’ve read the opposite of this story and consider it more credible but I’m not sure of my facts.
Funnily Hans Mahncke points out that the story on wikipedia got turned upside down sept 20th, how it’s turned into a fight: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Viktor_Shokin&action=history
I can’t believe that the Establishment Democrats are that stupid again and again…they have the “winning candidate” in Bernie or Elizabeth and yet they insist upon running some dirt-bag like Biden. The Establishment hates and fears the Progressives. They hate and fear what this country needs – higher wages, higher taxes, less military, less fossil fuels, etc.
I was expecting Biden, Warren, or a Biden/Warren ticket. But I think Biden is pretty much being taken off the table now. Warren/Buttigieg, perhaps?
Warren certainly seems to fear higher taxes. Or at least admitting that her health care plan would require them.
Mr. Knapp,
As a fanatic Progressive, let me admit the open secret about the cost of Medicare for All. It will costs about what the current system costs a trillion dollars, but that cost will not be borne equally and it will cost some folks their careers.
Those who will pay the most will be those executives In the medical insurance industry – some CEOs will lose their whole $50 Million/year salary. Others who will lose big will be the Pharma Boys who buy obscure drug manufacturers and then raise the prices by factors of hundreds and thousands. Doctors who gouge the system for million-of-dollars per year will also take it in the butt.
The beneficiaries of Medicare for All will be the average citizens – their costs will actually go down. But – Oh – the suffering of those crooks bleeding the current system will be heralded by every hired, right-wing voice in the land.
I’m willing to stipulate, for the sake of argument, to Medicare For All costing the same, or even less than, the current system.
Warren wants to brag about the overall supposed cost savings but doesn’t want to admit that the middle class will be paying — for example — $5 more dollars in taxes for every $10 in cost savings elsewhere. They’ll pay less to Insurance Company X and more to Uncle Sam. At least Sanders admits it.
But trying to drag everyone into a 50-year-old program is no more “progressive” than sticking with the newer (post-1972) system. “Progressive” would be something like actual single-payer.
Mr. Knapp,
This is what Medicare for All will do – it will f–k the crooks who are making our present crony capitalist system cost so damned much! Our present system costs about 18% of our GDP; whereas, European countries spend about one half of that. Under a national health care system, any additional cost (and how in the hell can you spend more than 18% of your GDP on it?) will come out of the asses of the 1% who are ripping off the system.
Quit evading the main point!
The crony capitalists make big bank on Medicare, both within the actual system and by supplementing it (I don’t know any Medicare patients who don’t buy Part C and/or D supplements, and I know some who defer Part B in favor of better “private” coverage).
As far as a “national health care system” is concerned, I am on public record as expecting that actual single-payer would probably be no worse than the existing crazy quilt of “public” (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) and “private” (PPO/HMO) coverage. Medicare For All seems custom-written to not fix the problems.
If the US government manages to flog the costs of Medicare For All or for an actual single-payer system out of the 1%, it will be the first nation to do so. The Scandinavian nations, often pointed to as the model, tax the hell out of their middle class to pay for their welfare state.
Mr. Knapp,
True – the Scandinavian nations do tax the hell out of their middle class to pay for their welfare state – and the Scandinavian middle classes are glad to pay it, because they have a welfare system that truly serves the middle class. Here in America, we have a warfare state which serves the 1%. And the rich are not taxed (taxes are not high on anyone), because everything is paid for by debt and the printing of phony money.
The problem with national debt is that it makes budgeting needless and eventually causes the whole system to collapse.
National health care has the additional benefit in that it would undoubtedly only come about under a Progressive government – one which would also implement fairer taxation in place of debt.
We seem to be arguing about nothing here.
I have specifically NOT objected to higher taxes on the middle class to pay for a different health system (I probably will object to that other health system, and to the taxes; I’m just not doing so HERE).
All I did was point out that Warren doesn’t want to discuss the fact that yes, higher taxes on the middle class will be needed to pay for a government-operated health system (in theory, those tax increases might be more than compensated for by the spending that system saves the taxpayer).
And I pointed that out in response to your claim that it is “the Establishment,” not “the progressives,” who don’t want to talk about that.
Is Warren a “progressive?” Or is she “the Establishment?” Or is she both, or neither? Whatever she is, she obviously fears talking about raising taxes.
Mr. Knapp – OK – short arguments. Is Warren progressive? Maybe, but more important -she is honest. That is the difference between her and that dirt-bag, Hillary – or any of Hillary’s followers. Warren will talk about taxes as soon as she quits having to fear a Pelosian or Clintonian knife in her back. The rich Democratic Establishment don’t want to pay taxes any than the remaining Koch Brother wants to.
Medicare for All will cost the middle class more taxes but it will cost the present system parasites a lot more, thereby allowing universal coverage at a minimum of new cost.
“Maybe, but more important -she is honest.”
Also, the word “gullible” is written on the ceiling.
Did you look up?
Nobody who has gone through the political chairs all of the way up to US Senator should be called “gullible”. Also, anyone who comes up from poverty, and winds up with the privileged ones has to be very honest or as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. She seemingly shares few qualities with Hillary so I assume that she must be honest.
I wasn’t calling Warren gullible. I was calling you gullible.
You should have got on to her when she proposed the corporate “swear jar” bill that exempted her top campaign contributors.
And not even she claims that she “came up from poverty.” She says her family was middle class.
She was a house-flipper before she was against house-flipping. She argued that public utilities are over-regulated and was a “laissez faire conservative” and a Republican until she smelled the possibility of personal power in being a “progressive Democrat.”
She used every trick including not telling the truth They don’t call her pocahonis or Elisabeth two tales for no reason
Have you noticed that Republicans rail against taxes, but always increase them and the debt? That’s because most taxes go to the military and the war industry.
“That’s because most taxes go to the military and the war industry.”
Not exclusively that, but the MIC and large banks and corporations definitely. And how could it be otherwise? Once granted the legal authority to plunder, this power of the State is bought lock, stock, and barrel by certain segments of the wealthy, as they are in the best position to control it. It didn’t change under Clinton or Obama, and I don’t see anything changing fundamentally until the State is denied much of their currently existing power to plunder and control the economy.
What Joe Biden did disqualifies him from being a candidate
What Donald Trump did disqualifies him from the Presidency
The Obama Administration was fully involved in the installation of he Poroshenko regime after they overthrew the elected government and helped the new mob for five years. Biden was part of it. Trump has enough crimes if they really want to impeach him-this is nothing.
“Trump has enough crimes if they really want to impeach him-this is nothing.”
Both parties want impeachment to be about “nothing.” That’s why with Clinton it was over perjuring himself about an affair with an intern, rather than the numerous impeachable offenses he committed.
Every US Representative and US Senator sees a future president in the bathroom mirror each morning. They aren’t going to go after a president very hard for doing something they want to do themselves some day.
They want to find a personal, preferably venal, peccadillo of which the sitting president is indisputably guilty and which they’ve convinced themselves they’d never be stupid enough to do, or at least not stupid enough to get caught doing, themselves. Not something that would end up limiting their own potential future powers.
This particular offense has the virtue of falling into that category, of being indisputably true at the most basic level, and of removing a Democratic primary candidate from the board who is similarly vulnerable to it before the Republicans could get him on it either late in the election game or during his actual presidency.