Biden wages war on Hunter-Ukraine reporting

[JoeOtterbein]

[link:https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/23/biden-ukraine-hunter-trump-1508677|

‘You saw what happened to Hillary in 2016 with all of the ridiculous coverage about her emails. That’s not going to happen with us. We learned.’

By NATASHA KORECKI, MARC CAPUTO and MICHAEL CALDERONE 09/23/2019 07:17 PM EDT

Disparaging the press as Donald Trump’s “unwitting accomplice.” Shaming journalists for spending too much time on Twitter. Pointedly telling a reporter to “ask the right question.”

Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign is waging a media offensive to control the Ukraine narrative, a display of targeted force designed to head off a repeat of what the campaign refers to as “Hillary 2.0.”

Since Friday alone, Biden’s team has adopted a new in-your-face approach, including repeatedly singling out journalists behind unfavorable coverage, tweeting out taunts that accuse reporters of carrying Trump’s water and rolling out a series of fact-checking memos.

It’s all designed to focus coverage squarely on allegations that Trump asked a foreign leader to investigate the Biden family — and away from the president’s attempts to highlight Biden’s son Hunter’s business activities in Ukraine. Biden himself has taken on a more confrontational tone in addressing the subject, including in a fiery, finger-pointing exchange with a Fox News reporter caught on camera.

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more at link

[BootinUp]

1. K&R

[highplainsdem]

2. Good for them. Honest, smart journalists are reporting that Biden did nothing wrong,

that this is a smear by Trump and the GOP. More foolish or dishonest journalists are carrying Trump's water if they don't report the facts and instead just repeat Trump's lies.

The focus of this story SHOULD be what Trump is doing, and what an abuse of power it is.

[Blue_true]

3. I am glad to see him fighting in this way.

I really think that Hillary and her team let the Press get away with too much lopsided reporting.

[Thunderbeast]

4. Is anyone else troubled by the appearance of corruption?

Don't get me wrong....I want to see the whole Trump crime family in jail...NOW!

I have to wonder, however, what special skills or talents Hunter Biden offered a Ukranian gas company that was worth $50k per month. Did he have experience in eastern european energy markets? Did he speak the language? The VP seems to have had no entanglements, but do we REALLY believe that Hunter would land that lucrative gig if his Dad were NOT the sitting vice president?

Critical thinking is required here..even if FOX likes it. While probably not criminal, it is also not a nothingburger. It looks like Billy Carter on steroids.

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. It's not "nothing"...

...in the sense that Americans prefer a little more distance between business and politics. Is it anything illegal? Probably not.

Look at Hunter Biden's résumé. It's obvious what's most important to him. You could run down Main Street in Wilmington with a dollar on a fishing line and you're bound to catch him.

[highplainsdem]

11. LOL at this looking "like Billy Carter on steroids."

About Billy Carter, per Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Carter

Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, to James Earl Carter Sr. and Lillian Gordy Carter. He was named after his paternal grandfather and great-grandfather, William Carter Sr. and William Archibald Carter Jr. respectively. He attended Emory University in Atlanta but did not complete a degree. He served four years in the United States Marine Corps, then returned to Plains to work with his brother in the family business of growing peanuts. In 1955, at the age of 18, he married Sybil Spires (b. 1939), also of Plains. They were the parents of six children: Kim, Jana, William "Buddy" Carter IV, Marle, Mandy, and Earl, who was 12 years old when his father died. His siblings were Jimmy Carter, Gloria Carter-Spann and Ruth Carter

In 1972, Billy Carter purchased a gas and service station in Plains. He owned and operated it for most of the decade.[2]

Carter ran for mayor of Plains in 1976, but lost the election by a few votes.[3]

In the 1970s Billy Carter was the official spokesperson for Peanut Lolita liqueur while his brother, Jimmy Carter held presidential office.[4]

In 1977, he endorsed Billy Beer, introduced by the Falls City Brewing Company, who wished to capitalize upon his colorful image as a beer-drinking Southern good ol' boy that developed in the press when his brother ran for President. Billy Carter's name was occasionally used as a gag answer for a Washington, D.C., trouble-maker on 1970s episodes of Match Game. He was known for his outlandish public behavior; he once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press and dignitaries.[5]

Wikipedia on Hunter Biden:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden

Biden received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.[8] After graduating from college, he was a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest,[2] where he met his first wife.[1]

He is a member of the bar in the state of Connecticut.[citation needed]

Hunter Biden was appointed by Bill Clinton to serve in the United States Department of Commerce[8] under Secretaries Norman Mineta and William M. Daley. He was director of E-commerce policy issues in the Department of Commerce,[8] a position he held from 1998 to 2001.[9]

From 2001 to 2008, Biden was a founding partner of Oldaker, Biden, and Belair, LLP, a Washington DC-based lobbyist firm [10] and law firm.[11]

During this period, He also served as a partner and board member of the mergers and acquisitions firm Eudora Global. Biden was chief executive officer, and later chairman, of the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors, founded in 1991 by Dr. James Park. At MBNA, a major US bank, Biden was employed as a senior vice president.[8]

See the difference in their education and work experience? Including Biden's years of experience at the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration?

[Gothmog]

5. Fact-checking President Trump's wild jabs at Joe Biden

Link to tweet

[trueblue2007]

6. We learned,,,,, and we will persevere

[oasis]

7. Joe's not going for the MSM "okey doke". They'd better get it right.

[aikoaiko]

8. Good luck. Nothing like a politician loudly saying there is nothing there....

... to pique their interest.

[riverwalker]

9. I bet GOP was holding back

on the Hunter Biden thing, planning to whip it out right before the election. But Trump got cocky after Mueller Report and showed their hand too soon.

[highplainsdem]

12. No, they tried to make a big deal of this last spring when Giuliani was starting to pressure Ukraine

and also fed story lines to Ken Vogel at the NY Times as well as RW media.

Then Bloomberg reported on a Ukrainian official saying there was nothing to the story.

But Giuliani kept trying despite that, and then Trump decided withholding military aid would give him leverage to force Ukraine to come up with some fake dirt on the Bidens...

[Gothmog]

13. Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden "did not violate anything"

Link to tweet

A former top Ukrainian prosecutor, whose allegations were at the heart of the dirt-digging effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Thursday he believed that Hunter Biden did not run afoul of any laws in Ukraine.

“From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,” former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko told The Washington Post in his first interview since the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint alleging pressure by President Trump on Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky.

Lutsenko’s comments about Hunter Biden — which echo what he told Bloomberg News in May — were significant, because Trump and his personal attorney Giuliani have sought to stir up suspicions about both Hunter and former vice president Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in recent weeks. Joe Biden is leading Trump in many opinion polls ahead of the 2020 election.

Hunter Biden has denied any wrongdoing, and there is no evidence he was involved in any lawbreaking in his work in Ukraine with the country’s largest private gas company.