this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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[–] FlyingSquid 60 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Did he get his son on the board of Burisma or did his son just get himself on the board by using his father's name just like he made "hey, what's up dad?" calls to his father in meetings to make it seem like his father had influence?

Also, I'm not sure that using your influence to put your son on a company's board is inherently crooked. Maybe unethical, but I wouldn't put it as far as crooked.

[–] TechyDad 32 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Also, the Republicans are screaming about Hunter Biden using his father's name to get a job, but are dead silent on Trump's kids doing the same thing. Ivanka got a bunch of trademarks approved in China while her father was President. She had been trying to get them for years unsuccessfully. Then daddy becomes President and suddenly it goes through.

But that's fine, apparently, because Trump.

[–] Beetschnapps 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It’s worse than that. Hunter Biden may have benefitted from what most of us would call “privilege” using his name.

Jared Kushner was denied top secret clearance because the intelligence agencies believed he would be too easily leveraged by foreign powers, especially given his finances. Donald Trump hired him into an official White House job, called him a Middle East advisor, reversed the intelligence decision and gave him top secret clearance.

At the end of the administration Qatari money helped buy a 1.2 billion dollar property Kushner could not manage to sell otherwise for years. It was a well timed bailout from a group that never showed interest before trump was president.

6 months after leaving the White House Saudis invested 2 billion in a fund to managed by Kushner despite his lack of experience managing funds that size.

I’ve never heard of anything like that related to Hunter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

This is true, but it's also whataboutism. It was wrong when both people did it. Presidents shouldn't be doing it at all

[–] nomous 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah they'll sit around and say stupid shit like it has any meaning. The rich have been riding their parents coattails forever. I don't like it either but it's not exactly earth-shattering news.

Don't like it? Eat the rich.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And untalented nepo babies getting to do things that no one who was not in their position would be able to do at their skill level is also really common. See Tom Hanks' son and Will Smith's kids.

[–] nomous 10 points 11 months ago

Exactly, if we're being honest it's half the reason (the more honest) people who do work hard and accumulate wealth do it in the first place. So that their kids/grand kids can have better lives. I'm not saying that I think nepotism is a good thing, but that on our list of issues to worry about it's not very high.

I think it's hilarious that after years and years of digging the best they found was that a born-rich-ruling-class, already-a-hedge-fund manager got a cushy job at a natural gas company.

It's so blatantly obvious the GOPs attack on him is all tied to Russias interest in Ukraine.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't know the details, but in general it seems pretty obviously crooked. Like, hunter clearly isn't qualified for it. It's entirely possible Joe had nothing to do with it, but if that's so, why haven't we seen any evidence against? I get that this would be proving a negative, but I think the onus is on Biden regardless when something so openly suspicious comes out.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why does there need to be evidence? It's not illegal to use your connections to get your son a cushy job whether he did it or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But it's clearly very unethical, and not something a president should be doing. So if he did, that's a big deal.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

First of all, he wasn't president when Hunter got on the board of Burisma. Secondly, that is not an impeachable offense. Thirdly, if you want to talk about presidents using their powers to help out their kids, let's talk about Trump and Ivanka and Jared.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

No, let's not do whataboutism. I agree that what trump did was bad, but trump is not the subject right now.

1: Why does it matter when he did the bad thing? Neither trump nor Biden has sexually assaulted someone in the last 20 years or so, do those events not matter somehow? Can we not judge Biden on his time as VP then either?

  1. If a president is corrupt, we should impeach him. Any law that prevents that is a bad law. Laws exist to help us, we do not exist to prop up laws. I think you're falling victim to a classic lib fallacy, assuming that whatever "the system" puts out must be correct, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. The system is clearly broken, and thus, any argument based on what the law currently is is not valid.