Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Peter McLennan]

Why should the Sierra CLub which is not a person be allowed to petition congress but corporations are not allowed?

That's more specious avoidance, Alan. You've failed to gain traction with that argument over and over.

We're not talking about "petitioning congress" for changes to legislation. That should of course be permitted by both individuals and groups.

We're talking about corporations directly, corruptly, contributing to both parties and individual politicians.

If you think that PACs and SuperPACs eliminate this problem, you're practicing recreational ignorance.

You conveniently ignore the fact that corporations have assembledd for themselves all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities.

[Alan Klein]

That's more specious avoidance, Alan. You've failed to gain traction with that argument over and over.

We're not talking about "petitioning congress" for changes to legislation. That should of course be permitted by both individuals and groups.

We're talking about corporations directly, corruptly, contributing to both parties and individual politicians.

If you think that PACs and SuperPACs eliminate this problem, you're practicing recreational ignorance.

You conveniently ignore the fact that corporations have assembledd for themselves all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities.

How much can a for-profit corporation contribute to individual candidates directly or through a PAC?

What do you mean by "none of their responsibilities? : .."You conveniently ignore the fact that corporations have assembled for themselves all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities."

[Alan Klein]

That's more specious avoidance, Alan. You've failed to gain traction with that argument over and over.

We're not talking about "petitioning congress" for changes to legislation. That should of course be permitted by both individuals and groups.

We're talking about corporations directly, corruptly, contributing to both parties and individual politicians.

If you think that PACs and SuperPACs eliminate this problem, you're practicing recreational ignorance.

You conveniently ignore the fact that corporations have assembledd for themselves all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities.

Petitioning Congress also can mean spending millions for lobbyists and advertisements where your position is proclaimed in advertising campaigns.  So if you're the Sierra Club, and want Congress to support climate change legislation, you spend millions on ads depicting polar bears floating alone on ice flows.  You spend millions more hiring lobbyists in Washington DC who personally stop by congressmen and senators' offices to urge them to support climate control legislation. 

Would you also agree that oil companies like Exxon should have the same rights as the Sierra Club can and should be allowed to spend millions for ads and lobbyists to support drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico? 

[LesPalenik]

My biggest complaint about American elections is that they never seem to end.  Before one campaign ends, they're already arguing about the next.

One difference between US and Cdn elections is that in Canada they don't give you a few years to prepare for elections. They announce elections a month or so prior to the actual election and before you know, it's over. I almost missed the last one.

[Alan Klein]

One difference between US and Cdn elections is that in Canada they don't give you a few years to prepare for elections. They announce elections a month or so prior to the actual election and before you know, it's over. I almost missed the last one.

I assume you're referring to national elections for parliament and PM.  What about other elections for provinces and local jurisdictions, cities, etc? Are those predetermined?

[Peter McLennan]

Petitioning Congress also can mean spending millions for lobbyists and advertisements where your position is proclaimed in advertising campaigns.  So if you're the Sierra Club, and want Congress to support climate change legislation, you spend millions on ads depicting polar bears floating alone on ice flows.  You spend millions more hiring lobbyists in Washington DC who personally stop by congressmen and senators' offices to urge them to support climate control legislation. 

Would you also agree that oil companies like Exxon should have the same rights as the Sierra Club can and should be allowed to spend millions for ads and lobbyists to support drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico?

It's quit snowing. This is a waste of time. I'm done.

[digitaldog]

This is a waste of time. I'm done.

So true.
“If you want to teach fools, I say don't waste your time! If you say I will learn something from fools then I say you are a fool!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Fools waste your energy, so when you see a fool, it's wise to change your path as if you've seen a wild bear in the forest!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

[LesPalenik]

I assume you're referring to national elections for parliament and PM.  What about other elections for provinces and local jurisdictions, cities, etc? Are those predetermined?

Yes, the provincial election dates are fixed. But the actual election campaigns don't last very long.

[PeterAit]

What do you mean by "none of their responsibilities? : .."You conveniently ignore the fact that corporations have assembled for themselves all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities."

Corporations cannot be put in prison. And the high-level executives who are, or should be, responsible for the corp's action are never put in prison (or extremely rarely). And while corps can be fined, the fines are never paid by the responsible individuals.

[Alan Klein]

Corporations cannot be put in prison. And the high-level executives who are, or should be, responsible for the corp's action are never put in prison (or extremely rarely). And while corps can be fined, the fines are never paid by the responsible individuals.

In smaller corporations, which make up most of them in the country, if the corporation gets fined or sued, the few or one person who owns the corp suffers plenty.  After all, his assets are tied up in the corporation.  So the penalties come out of his pocket.  He's the stockholder who owns a majority share or even 100%. If the officer of the corporation did something criminal, he could very well go to jail as well.  Think of Madoff and his Ponzi scheme. Look how the CFO of the Trump Organization is under indictments for NYS tax code violations. They're still looking into Trump's end but nothing yet.  He's not only CEO but the ex-President of the country.  Of course, this is all political.  But that's another story.

Even in larger corporations, officers who defrauded the public can go to jail.  Think of Enron.  It's officers went to jail some for 15 years including the CEO.  The company had been worth billions and shareholders lost everything.  A separate accounting firm, one of the largest in the country, went bankrupt although the judgment against it was reversed on appeal, but too late to save the company. It is true that often executives in larger corporations don't get penalized for civil penalties.  That's because of the corporate shield.  However, because the corporation represents people, there are many people who suffer as well because of lawsuits against the corporation.  Penalties and lawsuit judgments like what happened to the tobacco and chemical industries filter down.  Employees don't get raises, many lose their jobs. Stockholders lose dividends and their stock valuations drop.  Many corporations have gone bankrupt because of civil and criminal penalties, so even bondholders lose.  They're people too. 

If someone steals your photos, you can sue the individual and the corporation.  I don't believe the corporate shield defends the individual working for the corporation, especially the CEO if it's a small corporation.

The one crime I agree with you is what happened in 2008 with all the games banks, rating agencies, and others in the real estate security industry who defrauded the public.  There were a few fines, but I don't think anyone went to jail.   The Washington DC swamp protected all the insiders many in Treasury and the Fed who protected their friends.  That was a disgrace. Worse than that, after the crime, they were bailed out and made whole under the theory that they had to save the country.  Why did Obama let that happen?  (Bezos just gave the Obama foundation $100 million for such a great job he did as president.) Trump said he would clean up the swamp.  But the alligator population has only grown. Look how the Fed is bailing out the stock market especially today with low-interest rates and printing.  All that inflation hurts me and you while the bankers get richer.  So yeah.  In that area you're right.  Nothing much has changed.  The connected get protected.

[Alan Klein]

Meanwhile, while leftish, Democratic, anti-Trump media was talking up Trump's kids doing real estate deals with Russia, they were protecting the Biden family's bigger deals with China.  Will we ever know the full story or will the coverup continue?

Joe Biden was involved in a deal with a Chinese giant — and was expecting a 10 percent cut
In her new book, “Laptop from Hell,” Post columnist Miranda Devine reconstructs the Biden family’s quest for cash by using files left on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. Sunday, she detailed how Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden entered into a deal with Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CFEC, and contacted businessman Tony Bobulinski to run the enterprise. Here, Bobulinski meets “the big guy” — Joe Biden himself.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-cut-in-deal-with-a-chinese-giant/

[Robert Roaldi]

Meanwhile, while leftish, Democratic, anti-Trump media was talking up Trump's kids doing real estate deals with Russia, they were protecting the Biden family's bigger deals with China.  Will we ever know the full story or will the coverup continue?

Joe Biden was involved in a deal with a Chinese giant — and was expecting a 10 percent cut
In her new book, “Laptop from Hell,” Post columnist Miranda Devine reconstructs the Biden family’s quest for cash by using files left on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. Sunday, she detailed how Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden entered into a deal with Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CFEC, and contacted businessman Tony Bobulinski to run the enterprise. Here, Bobulinski meets “the big guy” — Joe Biden himself.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-cut-in-deal-with-a-chinese-giant/

I'm not following your implication. In 2017 Biden was a private citizen, why shouldn't he be engaged in business activities?

[Alan Klein]

I'm not following your implication. In 2017 Biden was a private citizen, why shouldn't he be engaged in business activities?

His son's involvement with China and Ukraine for that matter goes back to when his father was VP under Obama. He was trading on his father's position since then. The point is that the people who were so concerned about Trump's real estate deals which predated any political activity show no concern with Biden's kid involvement trading off his father's political position, or Joe Biden's direct involvement for that matter.  The hypocrisy is amazing.    The media ignore it totally they're so corrupt.  This accounts for people's total distrust of the news as fake news.   

[Robert Roaldi]

His son's involvement with China and Ukraine for that matter goes back to when his father was VP under Obama. He was trading on his father's position since then. The point is that the people who were so concerned about Trump's real estate deals which predated any political activity show no concern with Biden's kid involvement trading off his father's political position, or Joe Biden's direct involvement for that matter.  The hypocrisy is amazing.    The media ignore it totally they're so corrupt.  This accounts for people's total distrust of the news as fake news.

You're still not being clear. Biden's son had the right to be in business despite what his father did for a living. Has any wrong-doing been uncovered that involved the office of the president or vice-president?

In Trump's case, were the criticisms of his or his son's real estate dealings have anything to do with his presidency or were they about other factors?

You are attempting to draw direct parallels here but are there any?

Also I don't understand your criticism of the so-called "liberal" media. If they were attempting to cover up something they didn't do a good job, you've been whining about Biden's son for nearly 2 years now, so you must be getting your info somewhere, that's not much of a cover up. Also, although I hate to play the "what about" game, it's not as if the right-wing media criticized Trump for much over the years. They can't even call the Jan 6 thing for what it was. That's pretty blatant bias.

In short, you seem to be saying that something obvious here stinks, except I don't know what that something is and I can't tell if it stinks or not. Is any of this real or just your supposition?

[digitaldog]

You are attempting to draw direct parallels here but are there any?

When asking such a question  :

[Alan Klein]

You're still not being clear. Biden's son had the right to be in business despite what his father did for a living. Has any wrong-doing been uncovered that involved the office of the president or vice-president?

In Trump's case, were the criticisms of his or his son's real estate dealings have anything to do with his presidency or were they about other factors?

You are attempting to draw direct parallels here but are there any?

Also I don't understand your criticism of the so-called "liberal" media. If they were attempting to cover up something they didn't do a good job, you've been whining about Biden's son for nearly 2 years now, so you must be getting your info somewhere, that's not much of a cover up. Also, although I hate to play the "what about" game, it's not as if the right-wing media criticized Trump for much over the years. They can't even call the Jan 6 thing for what it was. That's pretty blatant bias.

In short, you seem to be saying that something obvious here stinks, except I don't know what that something is and I can't tell if it stinks or not. Is any of this real or just your supposition?

The media was only interested in smearing Trump and his kids even if most of their involvement predated Donald's involvement in politics.  The were a lot of smears but no evidence at all.  Yet, you seem totally uninterested in Biden's son and Biden himself in corruption more apparent since their involvement occurred while Biden was VP.  No one's denying he (they) got paid by Chinese and Ukrainian interests.  The only press that talks about it is the conservative press like the NY Post.  The mainstream press and media is in the tank for Biden.  The whole thing is hypocritical. Your excuses for Biden are transparent.   

[digitaldog]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/trump-intelligence-briefings/index.html

The US intelligence community "struggled" to brief President-elect Donald Trump in 2016, achieving "only limited success" in educating and developing a relationship with the incoming president, according to a newly released unclassified history of the transition period published by the CIA's in-house academic center.

I'm very familiar, as are others here, to similar struggles. 

[TechTalk]

This accounts for people's total distrust of the news as fake news.

Intellectual laziness and stupidity account for gullible people swallowing and parroting the fake news line. Also, there is no single entity which makes up "the news".

As a side note, Miranda Devine, an Australian columnist for Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph in Sydney, is on "secondment" (temporary reassignment) to the New York Post following outrage and a lawsuit over a series of tweets she engaged in last year accusing an Australian 9-year old child with achondroplasia dwarfism and his mother of "a scam" when the mother released a video, which went viral, of the young boy sobbing and saying that he wanted to die after being bullied incessantly at school. The mother recorded the video to raise awareness of the effects that bullying children like her son has on them. Miranda Devine also accused the mother of "coaching the kid to say those things that no nine year old would say". The video is heartbreaking... assuming one has any heart.

The mother filed a defamation lawsuit against Miranda Devine and Murdoch's News Corp in Australia. Just before a settlement of the defamation suit, Miranda Devine tweeted "In February this year I posted some comments on my personal Twitter account about Quaden Bayles and his mother Yarraka. I now know those comments were hurtful and untrue. I sincerely apologise to the Bayles for those comments."  First make comments and then check facts—it has a familiar ring to it.

Ironically, this is her Twitter bio: "Journalist, wife, mother, dog-lover. Truth-teller. @nypost @dailytelegraph @foxnews Author of “Laptop From Hell”, out Nov. 30 2021". The information above may not interest many, but at least it's not a rehash of a months old story, with no new insights, in order to sell a book to Trumpublicans looking for a way to feel better.

[TechTalk]

Joe Biden was involved in a deal with a Chinese giant — and was expecting a 10 percent cut
In her new book, “Laptop from Hell,” Post columnist Miranda Devine reconstructs the Biden family’s quest for cash by using files left on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. Sunday, she detailed how Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden entered into a deal with Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CFEC, and contacted businessman Tony Bobulinski to run the enterprise. Here, Bobulinski meets “the big guy” — Joe Biden himself.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-cut-in-deal-with-a-chinese-giant/

If anyone wants to hop on and take a ride on this resurrected merry-go-round with Alan, Miranda Devine, and Tony Bobulinski; you're welcome to it. I've already been there and done that and unlike Miranda Devine—I don't have a new book I'm trying to pawn off on Trumpublicans.

From: TechTalk October 23, 2020, 05:58:28 pm

Despite the frenzied excitement in some rightwing media circles and their audience, I wouldn't get overly excited about Tony Bobulinski. This article in Politico gives a decent overview of the situation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/Trump's sideshow fizzles out

Excerpts Below

"One of the hallmarks of the Trump era has been his penchant for pushing fringe characters peddling dubious stories into the center ring of our political circus. In the past he has been an effective ringmaster. Whether it’s retweeting conspiracy theorists (that guy who recently alleged Osama bin Laden was still alive), elevating people who believe drinking water is tainted with Prozac that is causing shrimp to commit suicide (Alex Jones), or putting fringe GOP operatives banished from presidential politics on the payroll (Roger Stone), Trump has often delighted — and benefited politically — from turning the sideshow into the main show."

"But so far the Bobulinski allegations seem like bubkes. At 10:47, minutes after the debate ended, the Wall Street Journal, part of the same media empire as Fox News and the Post, reported, “Text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly from the spring and summer of 2017, don’t show either Hunter Biden or James Biden” — the former vice president’s brother — “discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture.”

"Even if Bobulinski is telling the truth, that Joe Biden knew about the China enterprise, it’s not clear what the scandal is — he was a private citizen at the time and not yet running for president. Trump has elevated an unsubstantiated assertion that Biden had knowledge about his son’s legal and failed business venture to a “crime” for which he “should be in jail.” To put in context how absurd this allegation is, one of the first things George W. Bush did after he left the White House was deliver a paid speech in China. Somehow he remains at large."

"Similarly, the Hunter bombshell has so far been defused because Trump’s exaggerations and over-the-top allegations bear no resemblance to the available facts."

"It makes you wonder what Trump could have accomplished this year against Biden if he had focused on what’s front and center to voters and didn’t get so distracted and preoccupied by the sideshow."

From: TechTalk October 23, 2020, 07:05:37 pm

A little more regarding Tony Bobulinski. Poor Tony is not in a happy place financially at the moment. 10 days ago, a U.S. District Court gave a company (unrelated to his failed business venture with Hunter which never got off the ground) called China Branding Group Limited a right to attach order which gives them authorization to seize Tony's property and assets for a little over $649,000 due in unpaid court ordered payment from an earlier lawsuit over a business venture.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17390317/40/china-branding-group-limited-v-tony-bobulinski/

In that lawsuit Bobulinski claimed he was due money back on his investment, but the court disagreed. He appealed and not only didn't get his investment money back but ended up owing a significant sum to the company. The appeals court had some major problems with Bobulinski's evidence which primarily consisted of text messages and his personal recollection of conversations with his business partner Adam Roseman. It appears that Bobulinski didn't do any of the normal due diligence in seeking legal counsel regarding his investment and relationship with the company.

The parallels between that case and his business dealing with Hunter Biden is that in both cases he felt that he was due something which he didn't get and that both Chinese ventures went bankrupt. With Hunter, Bobulinski appears to be upset that Hunter had other business interests in China to which he wasn't a party and the venture that he was part of failed to materialize as he was unable to get the neccessary funding from CEFC China Energy to fund the start-up.

As a side note... Jacqui Heinrich, National Reporter for Fox News [Now White House correspondent for FOX News] and part of their Democracy 2020 reporting team, put out a tweet on Bobulinski's evidence.

"I completed searching all of Tony Bobulinski’s emails. They establish:
• the “Chairman” is China.
• NO ROLE for Joe Biden in emails/docs
• Tony Bobulinski states himself there are NO OTHER MEMBERS besides Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, Rob Walker, James Gillar, and Bobulinski"

https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/Tony Bobulinski's emails

[TechTalk]

Meanwhile, in the nutty world of right-wing "news", comes this false gem of a news story that Nancy Pelosi is buying a mansion in Florida for $25 million. Completely false, but that didn't stop it from making the usual rounds from fringe right-wing tweets and websites to mainstream conservative news.

Here's an article which clearly illustrates how that mechanism works...

Conservative Media Makes Up a Fake Florida Mansion for Nancy Pelosi

Anatomy of a viral lie.

https://www.thebulwark.com/conservative-media-makes-up-a-fake-florida-mansion-for-nancy-pelosi