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I don't think so, no, but... if it bothers you (does it bother you?), why engage in it?
Trump cannot seem to do anything at all without the corporate news media screaming that it is a sign of "scandals and corruption" and most of the time it turns out to be nothing. As a direct consequence, when it does look like something, I feel like the best response available to me is to wait and see. The news media has repeatedly turned out to be a bunch of shrill partisans who spread misinformation without hesitation and then run a retraction three months later at the bottom of page B17.
Particularly the New York Times--it's awfully hard to overlook their reluctance to write clearly about it when a (D) is involved. Book and film deals happen all the time, including with sitting members of SCOTUS. I still haven't seen any really convincing evidence, either way, that the Qatari plane deal is out of the ordinary (and apparently it may have been discussed with the previous administration). I'm more concerned about the cryptocurrency and influence peddling, but the only people crying wolf about it have been crying wolf for so long, that I don't feel any urgency at their alarm.
That, really, is why an era of "negative partisanship only" bothers me--because at this point, if we really did have a deeply corrupt politician in office, how would I know? I can't trust the corporate news media. I can't trust its openly partisan competitors. I can't trust the government itself, clearly. The moment journalists and FBI agents and every lawyer and judge to the left of Neil Gorsuch took it upon themselves--often, explicitly--to defeat Trump no matter what, every story, every press release, every speech and investigation and judicial declaration, became just another piece of culture war ammunition. Trump's first term was routinely prophesied to end with concentration camps for Muslims, war with North Korea, and the total economic collapse of the United States. Those prophesies were clearly idiotic at the time (at least to me), but at least they were happening in the absence of fixed priors on what a Trump presidency would tend to look like. People today lack that excuse.
I don't like Trump, I've never been a Trump supporter, I think he is perhaps the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party in living memory. But that doesn't justify the New York Times functioning as the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. If you want to live in an era where negative partisanship isn't the only political force that matters, you're not going to get there by writing posts in the Motte consisting entirely of negative partisanship.
Just because the outgroup is spamming untrue attacks doesn't abrogate responsibility for one side. I'm reading through Original Sin right now, and the fact that Republicans constantly made incorrect attacks against Biden and Democrats more broadly was a big part of why the Dems ignored Biden's mental decline -- they could treat it as just another desperate attempt to smear Biden in the long gish gallop that was always going on. To them, the "Biden is senile" line could be treated as just another "Obama was born in Kenya" or "Joe is pocketing bribes from Hunter" line. If the Dems had a responsibility to actually report Biden's decline (and they absolutely did, IMO), then Republicans have a responsibility to clean up their side too, no matter what the other side is saying or how untrustworthy they are.
I'm not claiming one scandal was worse than the other (MAGA will always claim anything Biden and co. did was infinitely worse than what Trump is doing), I'm demonstrating the principle.
There's no "if-then". The responsibility for corruption doesn't come from other guys being perfect, and a presence of other corrupt guys, true or imagined, can not excuse your own corruption. Dems lied voluminously about just every aspect of Biden's presidency, bar none, and they are responsible for this, and will be responsible forever and ever, and for all harm that it has done to the country, absolutely regardless of what Republicans ever did or will do.
P.S. And yes, Joe was totally and undoubtedly pocketing bribes from (or through, however you want to present it) Hunter. Stop living in denial, it happened. And there's really no reason to pretend otherwise anymore, Joe Biden is spent goods for the party. Relieve you conscience and accept the facts, at least in this small matter. Believing the truth is always easier than compounding lies. No lie can survive forever anyway, especially not in our age.
I fully agree with this.
Strongly disagree with this. I've yet to see anyone present any compelling evidence despite the massive Republican fishing expedition on the topic. Incredulity and demands to "stop living in denial" are not arguments.
I wasn't trying to bring new evidence. If the mass of evidence already widely available on the topic did not convince you, it's the matter of choice, not the quality of evidence. It's like O.J Simpson looking for the "real killer", or Jussie Smollett still claiming MAGA thugs assaulted him. It's not about quantity or quality of evidence by this point. More evidence will inevitably appear, as it always does, but nothing prevents people who do not want to believe it from rejecting it too. Frankly, I do not see any way available for me - or anyone - to convince anybody who has decided on not being convinced. There must be a voluntary act of opening oneself to this possibility.
I see it as quite analogous to the Trump-Russia investigation, i.e. there was plenty of smoke, and several people under the President were up to no good. However, there was no fire despite extensive searching by the opposition party. The connection incriminating the President himself was always missing.
Come on. Literally his son met with his business partners in his presence. He also complained privately about having to share with Joe. Sure, there's no fire. The whole family lived off this grift for years, and it's obvious to any non-partisan observer. I mean, why the heck did Burisma paid Hunter, for his artistic talents? What could he deliver to them but the link to his father? Please, live in denial as long as you want, this is really not the case I'm willing to spend any time on, it's just ridiculous by now.
Nope, in that investigation there was no "smoke" beyond the infamous Steele dossier, which as we know now was wholly manufactured and paid for by Clinton campaign and promoted by the same campaign operatives, either official or de-facto. Trump has some dirt on him (like Trump University, or $TRUMP, or some of other deals which can reasonably raise some eyebrows) but the whole Russia thing is a pile of pure shit. And, as I said, these things eventually come out - we now know who invented this shit, who paid to whom for this shit, who promoted this shit and who operated the whole shit farm. We will, eventually, also know who operated the shit farm and who paid to whom and how much for the Biden RICO family too. Until then, feel free to deny it.
Hunter wanted to make it seem like Joe was in on it so Hunter could plausibly "sell access", but no money ever made it to Joe. Hunter was obviously corrupt, but there wasn't a link to Joe. Joe even agreeing to make small talk with Hunter's associates was bad no matter how Hunter lied and said they were just his "friends", but far worse was the pardon he gave his son. That's a clear example of corruption. Basically all Presidents have abused the pardon power and it would be better if it was simply abolished outright.
For the Trump-Russia investigation, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Roger Stone were all engaged in a bunch of shady stuff. What they were doing was by no means a "pile of pure shit". The issue for Dems is what those individuals did didn't really reach up to Trump.
Right. Joe Biden knew his son is a corrupt degenerate who is selling access to him, and let his business partners, who Joe knew expect benefits from him and pay his son for this, to meet him, but he totally wasn't in on the deal. And this kept repeating for years on and he wasn't even curious about what's up with that. And for some reason Hunter, in private communications, felt the need to falsely complain about having to pay Joe off because he foresaw all of it being published one day and wanted to create a false impression in advance. And also he somehow convinced other people to lie about it, for absolutely no benefit to them. And the partners, getting absolutely no benefits from Joe and actually nothing at all as a return for their money, kept coming back to Hunter for years, and paying him enormous sums, because he was just that good. Because that's how bribes usually work - you give somebody a bribe, he does absolutely nothing for you, you give another one, same thing, and then more and more people come and give you millions of dollars, for nothing at all. Just how dumb do you think one should be to buy it? I'm afraid I can't.
Dated from the date he started dealing with Burisma (and Romanians, and Kazakhs, and China, and Russians, and...). Come on, man. I mean, you can in as deep denial as you want but I feel very uncomfortable being expected to seriously address stuff like this. It's like trying to prove the Nigerian prince doesn't really want to share his wealth with you. By this point, if you want to believe he is, I really shouldn't.
That's not what the claim was. The claim wasn't "certain people in Trump campaign did some ''shady stuff''". The claim was Trump personally is a Russian asset, who was in direct and active cooperation with Russia, or as members of Party of Civility and Decency pungently expressed it, "Putin's cock holster". And multiple prominent Democrat figures swore they personally saw ample proof of that, with their own eye. They all brazenly lied of course, there was no such proof in existence (and none of them by the way suffered any consequences for it). Manafort et all may have been a bunch of shady assholes, but the claim wasn't "Trump sometimes hires assholes". That claim would never fly because everybody in politics sometimes hires assholes. Democrat operatives ranks are full of ginormous assholes, as are Republican ones. But the claim was Trump campaign and he personally has been directly collaborating with Russian government - and that was a very specific claim, not some vague ill-defined "shady stuff". And that claim has been completely false, and literally every single person involved in its creation knew it was false from the very start - we now have evidence that describe how this idea to create this claim was originated and who and how produced the whole show. It wasn't some honest mistake that they thought Trump is bad but they got carried away. They created the whole thing on purpose. So please do not motte-and-bailey me here - it wasn't about Manafort's "shady stuff".
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