quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
I find it curious how many politicians significantly increase their net worth during their time in office, quite a bit more than could be explained by their salary plus standard benefits.

Obama is a perfect example. I wonder how much of their newly acquired wealth was kosher vs how much was payola.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

I find it curious how many politicians significantly increase their net worth during their time in office, quite a bit more than could be explained by their salary plus standard benefits.

Obama is a perfect example. I wonder how much of their newly acquired wealth was kosher vs how much was payola.

Who would you trust? A millionaire who decided to become a politician, or a career politician who somehow became a millionaire?

It would be interesting to know how much just Biden's property taxes are each year.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
It would be interesting to know how much just Biden's property taxes are each year.

He may not pay much in taxes. I read where he gets his $$ through an 'S-corporation', which sounds like the perfect money laundering scheme for the bidens...

https://www.irs.gov/businesses...loyed/s-corporations

https://thehill.com/homenews/c...ime-since-aide-tests

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will hit the campaign trail Monday for the first time since her travel was suspended this week after an aide tested positive for the coronavirus.

The campaign said Harris will travel to Orlando and Jacksonville, Fla., for the first day of in-person early voting in the Sunshine State

Here's a good summary:

Beyond Hunter’s MacBook: Email account of his ex-busines partner reveals high level Chinese group bought hidden access to Biden at the White House

By Thomas Lifson

The evidence establishing a shocking pattern is now clear: Hunter Biden and his busines partners sold access to Joe Biden when he was the Obama administration’s point man on China. This took place during the period when US jobs were being exported to China by the millions. Hunter earned many millions of dollars and funneled a share of that money to his father, in return for selling out American workers.

An entirely new source – a business partner of Hunter Biden who has “flipped” and granted full access (i.e., his username password) to years of his Gmail email account – reveals that access to then-VP Biden in the White House was granted in 2011 to a high level group of member of the Chinese Communist Party with a keen interest in US trade policy, as that policy was being formulated.

Breitbart has an exclusive story, co-authored by Peter Schweizer, who received access to the email trove of Bevan Cooney, formerly Hunter Biden’s partner in crime, and now serving time in federal prison for a fraud that he claims he was the fall guy for, taking the heat for Hunter.

Moreover, the MacBook hard drive emails have been authenticated by at least two people whose emails were found on it and who verify that the hard drive contains their true communications.

The long and detailed Breitbart article should be read in full to understand the magnitude of the email records. The 23,000 emails on it are still being reviewed, and more will be released in the days ahead. Here are few words of context from it:

From prison, Cooney provided Schweizer with written authorization, his email account name, and password to his Gmail account to retrieve these emails. He authorized, in writing, the publication of these emails— notable because it is the first time a close associate has publicly confirmed Hunter’s trading on his father’s influence.

The emails offer a unique window into just how the Biden universe conducted business during the Obama-Biden Administration. These associates sought to trade on Hunter Biden’s relationship with, and access to, his father and the Obama-Biden White House in order to generate business.

For instance, on November 5, 2011, one of Archer’s business contacts forwarded him an email teasing an opportunity to gain “potentially outstanding new clients” by helping to arrange White House meetings for a group of Chinese executives and government officials. The group was the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the delegation included Chinese billionaires, Chinese Communist Party loyalists, and at least one “respected diplomat” from Beijing. Despite its benign name, CEC has been called “a second foreign ministry” for the People’s Republic of China—a communist government that closely controls most businesses in its country. CEC was established in 2006 by a group of businessmen and Chinese government diplomats.

CEC’s leadership boasts numerous senior members of the Chinese Communist Party, including Wang Zhongyu (“vice chairman of the 10th CPPCC National Committee and deputy secretary of the Party group”), Ma Weihua (director of multiple Chinese Communist Party offices), and Jiang Xipei (member of the Chinese Communist Party and representative of the 16th National Congress), among others.

The visit was logged in at the White House, but thegroup's meeting with VP Biden was concealed. However, proof that it took place was found on the internet because a member of the group boasted about it:



Curiously, the Obama-Biden visitor logs do not mention any meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. But the Vice President’s off-the-books meeting was revealed by one of the core founders of the CEC. In an obscure document listing the CEC members’ biographies, CEC Secretary General Maggie Cheng alleges that she facilitated the CEC delegation meetings in Washington in 2011 and boasts of the Washington establishment figures that CEC met with. The first name she dropped was that of Vice President Joe Biden.

The relationships established during that visit may have benefited Hunter Biden and Devon Archer down the road. Two years later, they famously helped to form the Chinese government funded Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) investment fund. One of BHR’s first major portfolio investments was a ride-sharing company like Uber called Didi Dache—now called Didi Chuxing Technology Co. That company is closely connected to Liu Chuanzhi, the chairman of the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the founder of Legend Holdings—the parent company of Lenovo, one of the world’s largest computer companies. Liu is a former Chinese Communist Party delegate and was a leader of the 2011 CEC delegation to the White House. His daughter was the President of Didi.

On his Fox News program last night – the highest rated program on cable news – Tucker Carlson provided an excellent summary of the meaning of all this.



And in the hour that followed, on Hannity, Peter Schweizer himself explained how the pay-to-play system worked. Key excerpt:

A wide net of using the Biden name, using access to the White House, Hunter serving a pipeline to the administration as a means to help their clients and gain clients. The names that come up in this are the Chinese, the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Kazakhs – it’s a veritable United Nations of corruption, and what it demonstrates is that Joe Biden as Vice President of the United States of America was a center point -- it was almost the planet around which these business activities moved.

President Trump is already speaking about the “Biden Crime Family” in his campaign rallies, and will share a stage with Biden in the scheduled debate moderated by NBC’s Kristen Welker. More and more evidence will be coming out each day, and quite notably, Biden and his lawyers are not contesting the veracity of the emails from Hunter’s MacBook and they have not yet been asked about the Cooney email account, which is readily verifiable.

The social media cofferdam around distribution of the stories of Biden corruption will not hold. Not only does the Streisand effect serve as an impetus, but the week and half left before the election are focusing the nation’s attention on Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

https://www.americanthinker.co...the_white_house.html

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
It would be interesting to know how much just Biden's property taxes are each year.

New Castle County parcel information
$17K between county & school taxes.

Good ole' Middle Class Joe.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

maybe he bought it cheap during the first Obama Administration when real estate was in big trouble and got a deal...

Not defending Biden he’s a corrupt POS, but the guy signed a huge book deal in 2017 and reportedly claimed 11.1 mil. He set up an S corporation to flow the income from his book deals and speeches to avoid payroll taxes. He belongs in jail and is a poster boy for the swamp.

I want to know how these book deals work. Have you ever seen Biden's book on anyone's coffee table? Have you ever seen someone carrying a copy in an airport or airplane? Who the hell buys these books for which publishers pay huge advances? How do the publishers ever get their ROI? I can see it being a tribute payment, but for what? It's not like print publishing is exactly in the crosshairs of the gov't. It's not a growth industry anymore and never will be again. What are these publishers getting for their huge advances?

Full disclosure - I bought Newt's book back around 1995 when it was a huge controversy. But I saw Newt all the time back then, so I had him sign it for my dad and gave it to him for Xmas. That was a different time, however.

‘We Are Not Ahead by Double Digits,’ Biden Campaign Manager Reportedly Admits Polls Inflated

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...reaking-2020-10-17-3

The Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign manager reportedly admitted that the national public polling numbers, which show Biden overwhelmingly leading President Donald Trump, are inflated.

“Please take the fact that we are not ahead by double digits,” Jen O’Malley Dillon reportedly said during a grassroots summit of the campaign on Friday. “Those are inflated national public polling numbers.”

The video of the live event seems to have been deleted but her comments were posted on Twitter by New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher.

The Biden campaign and Trump campaign didn’t respond to requests for comments.

This is not the only circumstance Dillon cautioned about the leading position of Biden.

She reportedly said in a three-page memo obtained by Fox News that Trump can still win the November election and the race is “neck and neck” in certain states like Arizona and North Carolina.

“[T]he reality is that this race is far closer than some of the punditry we’re seeing on Twitter and on TV would suggest,” Dillon allegedly wrote in the memo. “[E]ven the best polling can be wrong and that variables like turnout mean that in a number of critical swing states we are fundamentally tied.”

Currently, national polls data overwhelmingly show Trump trails Biden. As of Saturday, the RealClearPolitics average of the polls shows Biden leads Trump with nine percent nationally.

However, the Trump campaign is highly skeptical of the poll.

“In 2016, the ABC News/Washington Post Poll was such a complete disaster that these two … news Organizations changed the numbers prior to the Election. Now these haters are trying the same thing, though on a lesser scale, again. Will have a bigger win than even 2016!” Trump wrote in a Twitter post back on Oct. 11.

The current situation brings about a feeling of deja vu of the 2016 race when polls show Trump trailed Hillary Clinton, the then failed Democratic nominee for the White House.

A study published in August by CloudResearch, an online market research and data collection company, found polls are unable to capture the full extent of support for Trump due to a “shy voter” phenomenon.

The study shows that 11.7 percent of Republican voters fall into the “shy voter” category—meaning they would be reluctant to disclose to pollsters their true preferences for who they would vote for in the presidential election—more than twice as likely as Democrats with a percentage of 5.4.

It supports the view that polls may not capture the full extent of support for Trump, the study says.

Biden's ahead. Liberals, Dems and Progressives don't need to vote since Biden's a shoe in. I hope they embrace the message............

quote:

Seriously... Does Biden Actually Have Any Supporters?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXqXMXP8pSA

GO JOE, GO!!!
The finish line is just ahead!

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
I want to know how these book deals work. Have you ever seen Biden's book on anyone's coffee table? Have you ever seen someone carrying a copy in an airport or airplane? Who the hell buys these books for which publishers pay huge advances?

Recall when Clinton’s book came out it immediately jumped to the top of the NYT book list. When? Because the NYT does the selection. “ NYT keeps a tight lid on its process for selecting bestsellers. It is known that NYT samples its own list of certain booksellers across the country—then look at the data with wise NYT brains, and decide whom they think should be on the list...it’s also done so that The New York Times can have a say about which books get the extra credibility of being named a bestseller.“

Who reports sales? The publisher. Amazon ranks books based on recent sales. A book sold today counts more then one sold a year ago. Further, books sold by the publisher are counted as “sold.” However, they can be returned to the publisher and the sale stands.

All those millions paid for the advance on the book? “ Most authors do not make any money off of actual book sales because most books do not “earn out” their “advance.” Traditionally published authors are paid money up front, before a book is released. This “advance” is money given up front to the author out of future royalties so that the author can buy ramen and pay the overdue electricity bill. “Earning out” means the book has sold enough copies that the total royalties (not the total sales) match up to the advance, thus providing a (most likely tiny) trickle of royalty money to authors for all sales thereafter.”

There’s also a scam to being a “Best seller.” Amazon has 500 categories of books. Select and oddball category (Yes, you get to choose.) Now post the book, buy a couple of copies and suddenly your on the top of the charts! A “best Seller.”

Then the author can buy their book (at a discount) and hand them out. There was a science fiction author that started a religion. His followers reportedly bought multiple books, shipped them back, then they were sent to bookstores. Repeated as required.

So the “best seller” isn’t how many books are sold.

https://electricliterature.com...-were-afraid-to-ask/
https://observer.com/2016/02/t...al-bestseller-lists/
https://medium.com/the-mission...minutes-ec05cee1749a
https://www.mikerindersblog.or...sales-going-nowhere/

Thanks for that explanation, Icabod.

Hunter Biden also had business dealings in Kazakhstan: report

https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/...-ties-in-kazakhstan/



Hunter Biden is facing fresh questions over business dealing in yet another nation — Kazakhstan.

Between 2012 and 2014 — when his father Joe Biden served as Vice President — Hunter Biden worked as a go-between to Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakh oligarch with close ties to the country’s longtime kleptocratic leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, The Daily Mail reported.

The British tabloid said they obtained emails from “anti-corruption campaigners” in Kazakhstan showing Hunter making contact with Rakishev and attempting to facilitate investment for his cash in New York, Washington DC and a Nevada mining company.

Through his connections, emails show Hunter Biden successfully engineered a $1 million investment from Rakishev to filmmaker Alexandra Forbes Kerry — the daughter of ex-Sen. and former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, the report said.

Hunter Biden also traveled to the country’s capital of Astana for business talks.
see also


Rakishev, however, repeatedly ran into problems finding western business partners due to the murky origins of his wealth. The respected International Finance Corp. pulled out a planned deal with him over “liabilities” stemming from his connections to the country’s rulers.

As in other nations like Ukraine and China where Hunter plied his trade, Joe Biden may not have been far behind. The Mail published a photo they obtained from the “Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery” showing Hunter Biden with his beaming father alongside Rakishev.

Hunter Biden and Rakishev also enjoyed a long and chummy personal correspondence as well, alleged emails show.

“I’m on vacation with family [at] Lake Michigan . . . trying to spend some much needed time with my wife and daughters. It’s my 20th anniversary of marriage tomorrow,” Hunter told Rakishev in 2013.


Photos here:

https://kiar.center/the-son-of...-also-in-kazakhstan/

The laptop looks more and more legit.

And the FBI has had it since 7 Dec 2019.

And the DEMs tried to impeach Trump when ?

The impeachment of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, was initiated on December 18, 2019 , when the House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

And the only way we have ever heard of it is because the repair guy got it to Rudy Giuliani lawyer

Giuliani’s attorney, Bob Costello, met up with the store owner and spent about a week reviewing the information it contained to make sure it was legal to release. The contract Hunter Biden signed said that if the computer wasn’t picked up in 90 days it would be considered abandoned and the owner would obtain possession.

The information, however, wasn’t validated until Giuliani received a copy and reviewed the information. Based on dates and information from a confidential informant, Giuliani was able to validate it was, in fact, Hunter’s computer.

Based on what’s known, Giuliani stated Hunter Biden should be in prison for failing to register as a foreign agent, which is what Paul Manafort went to jail for.


https://www.powerlineblog.com/...cuments-are-real.php

Just imagine if we had a press with even an ounce of integrity. This is a crisis in media that has reached critical mass with the failure to report on the biggest political scandal in at least a century. Maybe ever

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Just imagine if we had a press with even an ounce of integrity. This is a crisis in media that has reached critical mass with the failure to report on the biggest political scandal in at least a century. Maybe ever

Don’t be ridiculous! Of course the Lame Stream Media has a lot of integrity. It shows through clearly as they continually shill and cover for the GDCs.

Chris Stigall:

Obama will be stumping for Biden in Philly Wednesday. Now, I’m no politico but if you’re sending your biggest gun into deep blue Philly days before the general - that tells me you’re concerned about turnout for gramps and hoping Obama can juice turnout.

shipwreckedcrew:

History says turnout in Philly can lose the race for Dem. It can't necessarily win the race, but without a specific number of votes in Philly, a Dem is doomed statewide. This is not a positive sign for Biden, and it confirms lack of enthusiasm for Biden among young Black voters.