The latest Biden scandal

could you imagine if he brokered a $1billion deal? Or secured a $1billion+loan from the Saudis? That would be 8x worse!!

So I guess if the previous owner of my house killed his wife and got away with it, it makes it okay for me to kill my wife? That is what I'm learning here at PSR.

That's the Tinley "two way street" "logic" you put into writing there.

I'm pretty sure I've read people complaining about the previous killer (Jared) on here, a lot. Just not the same people who complain about this homeowner. The way I see it here is no one wants their family member held accountable but wants the other guys family member held accountable. The next homeowner has free reign to kill his wife because the previous ones did. 

The deep partisanship and refusal to compromise here is pretty ramped. Kind of like real politicians. 

www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/opinions/house-gop-kushner-trump-ivanka-obeidallah/index.html

James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has kicked off his committee’s investigation into whether President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Biden’s brother James and others in the Biden orbit somehow profited financially from their connection to the President.

Comer, a Kentucky Republican, alleged in a letter last week to Hunter Biden that he and his associates “peddled influence to generate millions of dollars for the Biden family.” He declared in his committee’s press release touting the investigation, “The American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden family’s influence peddling.”

If Comer is sincere about transparency and accountability when it comes to influence peddling in politics, then he should be readying similar letters to Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump. All three may have personally profited from their time in the White House.

When it comes to Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was his senior White House adviser, and the former President, we need look no further for evidence demanding an investigation than this weekend’s blockbuster Washington Post article titled “After helping prince’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds.”

Asked whether his committee would investigate the Post’s reporting, Comer told ABC’s “This Week,” “I think everything’s on the table,” before he quickly turned to the current probe of the Biden family.

If Comer reads this article, he will see red flag after red flag of how Kushner and Trump potentially pocketed money from recent business deals with the Saudi government after helping Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as MBS, while in the White House. (Representatives for the Trump Organization and Kushner did not respond to CNN’s request for comment about the Post report. The former President and his son-in-law also declined to comment to the newspaper.)

Don Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, told the Post that there was no requirement for Trump, a former commander in chief, or Kushner, a former senior White House official, to disclose financial ties to foreign governments. “He said their work has exposed a glaring shortfall in ethics laws that needs to be fixed by Congress,” the paper reported.

As the Post details, Kushner and Trump both were facing “unprecedented business challenges” when they left the White House. Trump had seen revenue from his properties dramatically decline, plus the controversy surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack made him toxic, according to the Post. Kushner was facing his own challenges, with his family business needing a $1.2 billion bailout, the newspaper reported.

Then came Saudi Arabia and MBS to the rescue. In Kushner’s case, a fund controlled by MBS invested $2 billion in Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, six months after he left the White House, The New York Times reported last year.

A panel that screens investments for the Saudis had raised concerns over this investment on a range of issues, including “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management,” according to the Times. But the board headed by MBS overruled the panel and awarded the massive investment that will result in a payday to Kushner’s company of $25 million a year — not including profits earned from investments, the Times reported.

This deal raises concerns about Kushner’s repeated lobbying in favor of MBS and Saudi Arabia while in the Trump White House. The relationship between the two men may have yielded benefits for MBS after a US intelligence report on the October 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi determined that the crown prince had approved the operation to capture or kill the Saudi journalist. “Kushner became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House,” the Times reported in 2018 after the killing. (MBS has denied involvement in the murder.)

Beyond the Khashoggi controversy, Kushner used his influence in “persuading Trump to prioritize Saudi Arabia over the objections of top advisers,” the Post noted this weekend, citing Kushner’s own written account.

The Post also laid out how Trump appears to be benefiting from his defense of MBS and Saudi Arabia while in the White House. After a CIA report concluded MBS had authorized Khashoggi’s killing, Trump publicly undermined the report’s conclusions and opposed releasing the report, according to the Post. He also vetoed a congressional attempt to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Trump wasn’t shy about what he did for MBS, stating in a recorded interview with Bob Woodward about the Saudi crown prince: “I saved his ass.”

Now we see Trump hosting Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournaments at his golf courses — which typically pay the course owner in the case of PGA events $2 million to $3 million, as the Post reported. However, Trump has not revealed how much he’s pocketing from the Saudis — which is especially alarming given he is running for President in 2024.

The Trump Organization also has recently secured an agreement with a Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump-branded hotel, villas and golf course in Oman as part of a $4 billion project, according to The New York Times.

Then there’s Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who was also a White House adviser. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, urged the Justice Department to investigate her four years ago over potentially violating conflict of interest laws by participating in the implementation of a program giving tax breaks for investors in so-called opportunity zones. (A spokesperson for Trump’s ethics attorney called the claim “politically motivated and meritless.”)

CREW also had raised concerns over Ivanka Trump’s business receiving “registration” approval for trademarks from the Chinese government in 2018 around the time that her father lifted sanctions on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE — whose controlling shareholder is a Chinese state-owned corporation.

Later in 2018, Ivanka Trump’s business received approval for 16 new trademarks from the Chinese government on a range of goods — from shoes and jewelry to voting machines. These approvals occurred while her father was negotiating a trade deal with China.

In defense of the applications for trademark, Abigail Klem, then the president of the Ivanka Trump brand, said in 2017, “We have recently seen a surge in trademark filings by unrelated third parties trying to capitalize on the name and it is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark.”

Ivanka Trump’s lawyer at the time, Jamie Gorelick, said, “Ivanka has had no involvement with trademark applications submitted by the business” because she resigned from her position with the company. “The federal ethics rules do not require you to recuse from any matter concerning a foreign country just because a business that you have an ownership interest in has a trademark application pending there.”

Comer is correct that the “American people deserve transparency and accountability” when it comes to anyone profiting off political connections — especially when the people officially served in our government. If Comer is sincere, we should be seeing letters demanding the same information from Kushner, Trump and daughter Ivanka as he sent to Hunter Biden.

If not, then we know the congressman is doing nothing more than using our tax dollars to try to hurt the President and help the GOP.

Typical stuff ITT. What about the other guy? Attack the source, then post equally shitty sources about other things in other threads.

You regularly mock sources from left wing media while parroting right wing sources that have also been proven to be disingenuous.

On Point: Weaponizing Everything, Including Lawyers and Balloons: China's 1999 Manual for Defeating America

During its North American aerial odyssey, The Big Chinese Balloon passed within intel-gathering distance of ICBM silo fields, strategic bomber bases, key global logistics hubs (Charleston for example) and major Army and USAF headquarters.

The balloon wasn't just blowing in the wind. Its calculated military itinerary tells reasonable Americans and Canadians -- reasonable being a qualifier that excludes media influencers and politicians bribed or blackmailed by communist China -- that the balloon was spying on critical North American defense installations.

Which means it had a War Mission. Note I did not write "pre-War"; I wrote "War."

I'll explain why in a moment, but first due praise for The Wall Street Journal's February 20 article titled: "China's Newest Weapon to Nab Western Technology -- Its Courts."

According to the report, U.S. and EU officials "accuse China of using its courts and patent panels to undermine foreign intellectual-property rights and help Chinese businesses. They say China is focusing such efforts on industries it deems important, including technology, pharmaceuticals and rare-earth minerals."

Beijing has weaponized its legal system to steal technology.

Beijing's lawfare is calculated and synchronized. According to the Journal the EU is suing China for attempting to bar European companies from protecting their patents in courts outside China. One company official lamented: "It is puzzling that so many cases went wrong at the same time."

Actually -- it isn't puzzling at all.

At the bottom line, communist China is fighting a war to dominate the world. In pursuit of that goal the Chinese state has weaponized every technology, media and means of personal and organizational interaction,

Informed minds assure us the study titled "Unrestricted Warfare" and published by the People's Liberation Army in February 1999 isn't a war plan. I'll agree it isn't a step-by-step plan, but it is a thoughtful and deadly intellectual guidebook China's communist leaders are using to defeat the U.S. and establish a Chinese-mandated international order.

The authors are Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. When they wrote "Unrestricted Warfare," both men were People's Liberation Army Air Force colonels. Qiao later made major general.

Chapter 2 discusses full-spectrum warfare. Its title in English: "The War God's Face Has Become Indistinct."

Translation: In China's long war with the U.S., weather balloons and lawyer jargon are weapons that can degrade American capabilities.

The chapter lists several types of warfare that China can use to attack and harm the U.S. without risking a military counterattack.

Start with Drug Warfare. The authors add this comment on pushing drugs: "obtaining sudden and huge illicit profits by spreading disaster in other countries." In 1999 it was one of Qiao's and Wang's speculative options. In 2023 fentanyl is savaging American society. Beijing's delivery system for this weapon in Drug Warfare? Mexican cartels.

Here are some other Qiao and Wang options with their comments in parentheses.

--Psychological warfare ("spreading rumors to intimidate the enemy and break down his will").

--Smuggling warfare ("throwing markets into confusion and attacking economic order").

--Media warfare ("manipulating what people see and hear in order to lead public opinion along").

--International law warfare ("seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations"). The use of courts to steal technology is another wrinkle.

--Resources warfare ("plundering stores of resources"). China's attempt to gain control of Congo's cobalt reserves involved crooked contracts and bribery. That is white collar plundering.

--Economic aid warfare ("bestowing favor in the open and contriving to control matters in secret"). Controlling matters in secret hints at bribery, blackmail and intimidation. The concept goes hand in glove with resources warfare.

--Cultural warfare ("leading cultural trends along in order to assimilate those with different views"). Beijing has spent billions influencing Hollywood and social media. American teenagers love the China-sourced TikTok app. But TikTok and similar apps are potentially routes for spying and disseminating psychologically and socially destructive propaganda.

TikTok is being banned by some states. We can fight back.

strategypage.com/on_point/2023022121641.aspx

whoa! someone misspeaking is pretty scandalous.