what does selling the Biden brand mean ?

Rumpole · Aug 13, 2023

Calypso Jones said:
The truth is out there everyday but as they say...you can't handle it.

Trump is going to be indicted for the 4th time.

And that is the truth you can't handle.

Rumpole · Aug 13, 2023

yidnar said:
Archer testified today that Hunter put Joe on speaker phone more than 2 dozen times to sell the Biden brand ! well democrats since yall say the Bidens and the head of the family Joe [The Big Guy] Biden are honest people and not involved in shady dealings like influence peddling ... tell us what selling the Biden brand means ..

That's not what Archer said.

Hunter admits he traded off of his father's name.

guess what, not illegal.

Nothing else was peddled, nor is there any evidence of it.

But Trump is going to be indicted for the 4th time.

Have fun with that one,

Rumpole · Aug 13, 2023

Doc7505 said:
The ‘Biden Brand’ Racket

The ‘Biden Brand’ Racket | National Review

Understanding the president’s family influence-peddling business.

www.nationalreview.com

5 Aug 2023 ~~ By Andrew C. McCarthy

In one of American cinema’s most riveting scenes, Vito Corleone, the Godfather, rebukes a distraught undertaker whose once-beautiful daughter has been beaten to a pulp by two young men — one of them the son of a powerful politician. Though the case was a slam dunk, a corrupt judge had let the brutes off with no jail time. That the system is rigged against those who play by the rules suddenly dawns on the law-abiding undertaker, whom the film’s co-writer, novelist Mario Puzo, named Amerigo Bonasera — as in Goodnight, America, where threats lurk around every corner, and the rules turn out to be strings pulled by puppeteers.
Bonasera needs a godfather. So he goes to Corleone, sobbing about the good intentions that were behind his good citizenship, his reliance on police and the courts. The Don cuts him off, scoffing that while he’d opted for the faux protection of the law, true security — the godfather’s friendship — had been there all along if only Bonasera had asked. “And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies,” Corleone says, pausing and pointing at his supplicant, “and then, they would fear you.”
Nowadays, such Yale-educated professional glibsters as Devon Archer would call this Don Corleone’s “brand.” Such a nice word, brand. Not what we federal prosecutors in the Organized Crime Unit called it back in the Eighties. We were more inclined to say extortion. Or racketeering — say, running a protection racket, as in, “Nice business you have here, be a shame if anyone shut it down.”
Pols like Joe Biden and their hangers-on — like Archer, his son Hunter’s partner in slime — don’t like to think of their “brand” as extortion. They’re more in the mold of Don Corleone’s equally ruthless but more progressive son, Michael, who swore that any year now the family business would become “completely legitimate.” In such “completely legitimate” businesses, the muscle to do extortion is the family’s “brand.” The brand’s stock-in-trade is “influence,” an aura of intimidation to which beleaguered businesses — including foreign “partners” connected to corrupt and anti-American regimes — buy “access.” That’s what they expect will protect them from the metastasizing peril of, yes, “regulation.”
~Snip~
Joe Biden was the business.
Without the now-president, there would have been no Biden brand. Influence-peddling only pays when there is influence to be peddled. Access can only be sold if it is access to someone. Joe Biden is what Hunter Biden was selling. It is risible to hand-wring over whether Joe and Hunter “discussed business” when Joe’s status and the access to power it provided to those willing to pay was the business.
And sure, the business does occasionally call for some hands-on services — Shokin was fired because of pressure brought to bear on the reluctant Ukrainian government, as sure as Don Corleone arranged for his henchmen to put a whuppin’ on the attackers of Bonasera’s daughter; and when Hunter extorted his Chinese partner, Henry Zhao, invoking the name of Joe who (Hunter said) was sitting right there with him waiting for Zhao to call, the WhatsApp message read as if it were written by Mario Puzo himself.
But mostly, the business is just access to an air of intimidation that requires no action. As Hunter put it in dressing down his associate, Tony Bobulinsky, the Chinese partners wanted to be in business “with the Bidens.” They wanted the association with America’s vice president — the problems it could stave off as well as the doors it could open. Zlochevsky was under investigation by the Ukrainians, and $23 million of his fortune had just been seized by the British government. He needed a godfather — an association with a powerful figure who would discourage his tormentors, such as a public tie to the vice president of the United States globally advertised by the installation of the vice president’s son on his company’s board.

Commentary:
This is the most crystal clear explanation of what US politics is all about these days. Every politician, from city council level all the way up to President of the US wants to be at the table, not on the menu.
When Democratic Presidents appoint judges, you don’t actually believe they wil be impartial about their decisions like John Roberts said:”Roberts responded to the president in a statement, writing that the United States does not have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

You want a real comparison to organized crime? Let's talk about the real-life soap opera that’s been unfolding: Donald Trump, Crime Incorporated. Now, that's a story worth sinking your teeth into.

Not too long ago, Trump's company was indicted. His CEO? Thrown behind bars. Eight of his associates have been convicted, and the guy's been indicted three times. And in the latest indictment, he's got six co-conspirators! It's like a reality TV show, but the stakes are real, and the consequences are unfolding right before our eyes.

It seems like everyone Trump touches winds up in jail. What's going on here? It's like King Midas, but instead of gold, everything he touches turns to legal disaster. Maybe even the Donald himself will end up in the clink.

And you think Biden is the story. He's a footnote compared to Trump, note to mention there is no evidence against Joe, just circumstance. That might make republicans act like jackals on a feeding frenzy, but it won't get you four indictments like someone else we know.

Rumpole · Aug 13, 2023

yidnar said:
so the multi millionaire's and billionaire's are complete idiots huh ? they lined up for yrs to get screwed over eh ? nah pal that aint gonna fly ..

Once upon a time, conservatives would applaud someone who scammed communists and oligarchs, but, of course, unless that person is a democrat.

Fucking hypocrites.

Crepitus · Aug 13, 2023

ColonelAngus said:
Nope. He did not. Read the transcript.

Here is the transcript.

Starting on page 102 Archer makes it clear there was no actual selling of influence. That no policies were changed or made, that no laws were changed or made, that no access whatsoever was granted.

There is no "there" there. Your case is over.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Devon-Archer-Transcript.pdf

j-mac · Aug 13, 2023

Rumpole said:
yeah, that's 10x better than 'but hunter, but hunter' the guy who isn't even running for office.

Hunter‘s beneficiary is in office now, selling us out…

Dragonlady · Aug 13, 2023

yidnar said:
Archer testified today that Hunter put Joe on speaker phone more than 2 dozen times to sell the Biden brand ! well democrats since yall say the Bidens and the head of the family Joe [The Big Guy] Biden are honest people and not involved in shady dealings like influence peddling ... tell us what selling the Biden brand means ..

Devon Archer confirms Joe Biden 'lied' about knowledge of Hunter's business dealings, Comer says

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said testimony from Devon Archer "confirms" that President Biden "lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved."

www.foxnews.com

Where did he say that? Where did he use the term "Biden brand". He used the expression "illusion of access". Hunter Biden was selling the "illusion of access". That doesn''t sound like the same thing at all.

Rumpole · Aug 14, 2023

j-mac said:
Hunter‘s beneficiary is in office now, selling us out…

Feel free to provide evidence of your allegation.

But, of course, you can't, and the reason is simple:

There isn't any.

yidnar · Aug 14, 2023

Dragonlady said:
Where did he say that? Where did he use the term "Biden brand". He used the expression "illusion of access". Hunter Biden was selling the "illusion of access". That doesn''t sound like the same thing at all.