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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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  1. Your first mistake is using WaPo. That particular story has had to been corrected about a million times approximately. See https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/washington-post-quietly-updates-hunter-biden-story-after-devon-archer-testimony/

Contra your statement, Devon Archer testified Biden was there the entire dinner. The oligarch thanked Hunter for making the introduction afterwards. Archer could go to jail if proven to lie.

  1. The IRS wanted to investigate why Valerie Biden — Joe’s sister — received what appears to be a large sum from Hunter.

  2. No your standard is bullshit. The age of the allegation doesn’t matter. The only question is did participate in a bribery scheme. You can’t say the American people knew these facts and voted for it anyhow when (1) they didn’t know all of the facts and (2) the literal deep state colluded with Biden to unjustly and inaccurately label the info misinformation. If Joe participated in a bribery scheme, he cannot be president. This is basic stuff. Demanding absurd specifics (ie that Joe specifically directed money) is absurd. All that matters is that he knowingly participated.

Archer could go to jail if proven to lie

Devon Archer is going to jail anyway for trying to bilk an Indian tribe out of $60 million in an unrelated scam. If he is going to be the Republican's star witness at the impeachment trial, he is going to be testifying in an orange jumpsuit and the first question on cross is going to be "Has Trump promised you a pardon in exchange for this testimony?"

FWIW, I think Archer is mostly telling the truth. Joe Biden has gone above and beyond in support of Hunter (and James) Biden's sleazy-but-legal schemes since back when he was Senator for MBNA, and putting on a dog-and-pony show for the executives of a company which puts Hunter on the board would be SOP for him.

No no it doesn’t. First we aren’t limited to the statute’s definition. But the statute even states it can be directly or indirectly. What does indirectly mean? Well presumably if Joe knows Burisma is going to pay Hunter a bunch of money if Joe can deliver getting Shokin fired and Joe contrary to policy gets Shokin fired that seems to fit indirectly.

I simply don’t believe that.

I think it’s politically effective if you can establish:

  1. Burisma wanted Hunter to get Joe to fire Shokin.

  2. Policy at the time was not to fire Shokin.

  3. Joe went against policy and got Shokin fired.

  4. Burisma paid Hunter millions of dollars for services rendered.

You don’t need a video recording. It is obvious to everyone if you can establish those facts exactly what happened.

Of course, you want an impossible standard of proof. That’s absurd.

This post is spot on and needs to be promoted. If all 4 of these points were established, then Biden would be sunk. The Republicans' problem is that

  • although (1) is facially plausible, there are plenty of people willing to deny it publicly, and the best evidence is an anonymous FBI informant passing on hearsay from Zlochevsky that dated from long after Zlochevsky had ceased to control Burisma
  • the evidence on (2) is too complicated for the man in the street to understand - the only people who can make sense of it are rabid partisans who only listen to one side of the story
  1. If there is a recording, that might solve 1.

  2. If they can find more state department emails that Biden went rogue, that helps with 2.

If I was in the mob, I’d want you on my jury.