BC BIDEN
Saved by @Alex1Powell

I got overnight via email a query from @briansflood at Fox News, the principal part of which I reproduce below. I answered by email too. I'll append that reply in the next threaded tweet:

 @briansflood My reply:
Hunter Biden's dubious business activities have been reported for years. Here for example is @TheAtlantic in September 2019, year *before* @nypost https://t.co/qZBTpyuysM
That emails attributed to Hunter Biden were circulating was also known well before the NYPost story in October. Here's TIME magazine https://t.co/JvpEKdG0U4
What @NYPost added to the work earlier done by others was a new *origin* story for the materials that circulated in Ukraine in 2019. When other media organizations attempted to corroborate that story, hijinx ensued. https://t.co/ZJGZWq7etU @thedailybeast account
I doubt that anybody at any responsible media organization holds any particular brief for Hunter Biden. I sure don't. If he did wrong, he should face the consequences. But Hunter Biden's legal situation was not what was at issue with the NY Post report.
What was at issue in the NYPost story were these two questions: "Is this material about Hunter Biden being promoted by Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani genuine? If yes, where does this material come from?"
In November 2019, Russian spy agencies hacked servers at Burisma, the Ukrainian company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. The NYTimes reported in January 2020: https://t.co/Vhz03pg3o1
When the Trump White House shopped purported Hunter Biden materials to reputable news organizations like the Wall Street Journal, reporters went to work verifying authenticity and sourcing. That process unnerved the Trump White House and its allies. https://t.co/HI4QbH1UkS
The Trump White House and its allies wanted their purported Hunter Biden materials to be published with no uncomfortable questions asked about its authenticity and its origins. For that, they turned to the New York Post. https://t.co/HI4QbH1UkS
Even after the NYPost published, the Trump team still refused other media organizations the information they needed to verify the NYPost story. This behavior - plus the selective leaking to pro-Trump outlets that didn't bother with verification - naturally sowed suspicion.
Now there's a new report on DoJ investigation of Hunter Biden's activities. That report is of course something every media organization will want to dig deeper into. https://t.co/N3iJiSlZve
But those latest stories, properly sourced, do not confer retrospective rehabilitation on what the NY Post was doing in October - or on the Trump White House officials doing Trump campaign work at taxpayer expense.
Last point. It very often happens that presidents must deal with family members who try to trade on their relationship to power: James Roosevelt, Donald Nixon, Billy Carter, Hugh Rodham - it's a recurring problem.
I've suggested from time to time that one way to deal with that problem is to require publication of tax returns by any member of the First or Second family who accepts Secret Service protection.
But even that answer - tax returns for Secret Service - only carries us so far. In the end, there's probably no once-and-for-all legal remedy to the problem of relatives trading on power. The ultimate guarantor of ethical standards must be vigilant media and a concerned public.
At the same time, it's essential to keep a sense of proportion. For the past four years, the US government has been led by the most corrupt president in history. Trump's children and their spouses eagerly grabbed their pieces of the action too, again on a scale never before seen.
It may turn out that Hunter Biden is our next generation Jimmy Roosevelt or Donald Nixon. It's right to expose that, and to demand that the Biden administration distance from him.
But when the Trump family tries to excuse its massive depredations by invoking Hunter Biden's activities - we have left earth's orbit.

When Donald Trump Jr. asks, "Can you imagine if I did ... " the right answer is : Junior, you did that -and worse- just before breakfast today
So there's my answer to the @briansflood query - and to the pro-Trump trolls who have been frolicking in my Twitter timeline over the past 24 hours. I'll put it here, where they live - aware that the truth may not matter much to them, but confident it matters to everybody else.

More from David Frum

David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
In February 1981, pro-Franco army officers attacked the Spanish Parliament hoping to halt Spain's evolution toward democracy and liberalism. 1/x

The coup was soon suppressed, in large part because of a miscalculation by the dying Franco regime. In 1975, the regime had restored the old Spanish monarchy, hoping to glamorize authoritarianism. Instead, King Juan Carlos opposed the coup - and most of the army obeyed. 2/x

Here's where the story gets interesting for our current purposes ...

The coup launched to thwart Spain's shift to democracy instead consolidated Spanish democracy. The next year, 1982, social democrats won the biggest landslide in Spanish electoral history. 3/x

The elected social democrats formed a government without a single minister connected to the old regime. State support of the Catholic church ended. Family law was modernized, minority language rights were protected. If Franco had opposed it - the new Spain wanted it. 4/x

The process was not instant. Not until 2019 would the state remove Franco's remains from the lavish tomb he built to himself. But the process was inexorable. The pro-Franco attempted coup guaranteed the total doom of Francoism in Spain. 5/x
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
On October 16 2020, a secondary school teacher named Samuel Paty was beheaded with a meat cleaver in the street of a small town 20 miles down the Seine from Paris. 1/x

Paty's murderer, a young Chechen refugee, had never met the teacher. The killer was incited to the crime by a multi-day campaign of defamation and disinformation on French social media. 2/x

For 5 years, Paty had taught his classes a unit on free speech and its limits in a democratic society. As part of the discussion, he showed his students some of the famous Charlie Hebdo cartoons - after inviting those who might be offended to leave and then rejoin the class. 3/x

One parent of one student - not the student herself - then set in motion a campaign of denunciation against Paty. And the result was a crime that shocked France and pulled tens of thousands to vigils and protests. 4/x

France has suffered terrible crimes in the name of religion before the Paty killing. We're only 5 years from the horrifying nightclub attacks that killed 130 in November 2015. But past attacks caught France by surprise. This murder announced itself in advance. 5/x
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
Lizzie Collingham is one of my favorite social historians working today. I finished the latest of her books, Biscuit, on Christmas Day. #FrumReads4

Collingham's "Biscuit" is the history of hard-baked bread from ancient times to the box of cookies in the grocery aisle. As always with her work, "Biscuit" uses the device of a foodstuff to open a wide eye upon the surrounding culture. 2/x #FrumReads4

Biscuits, in the British usage of that word, were among the very first industrial foodstuffs. They enabled the British empire - Royal Navy sailors lived upon them - and were in turn enabled by that empire to discover a global market. 3/x

Collingham self-presents in a self-effacing way. Her short biography notes that she writes "in a garden shed." She includes recipes for the foods she writes about. Do not be deceived. Collingham's theme over her career is a grand one: the interaction of cultures over time. 4/x

Collingham's "Curry," enraged Hindu chauvinists by demonstrating how Indians synthesized their cuisine from their interactions with others. The word "vindaloo" is an amalgam of the Portuguese for wine and garlo, vinho and alho. Tea-drinking was mimicked from the British. Etc. 5/x
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
In an early episode of "Mad Men," the young striver Peggy Olson faces a traumatic experience. The principal character, a man whose life is built upon falsehood and evasion, offers his life advice: "It never happened. It will amaze you how much it never happened." 1/x

With the Tanden nomination, we are watching congressional Republicans put Don Draper's advice into effect.

They supported a profoundly corrupt, cruel, vituperative, and generally immoral and unethical president at the head of an inept and unethical administration. They knew it!

But of course those senators never said so. They were scared and they were shamed. Maybe they stopped some bad things - or at least they tell themselves they did. But the experience had to have been profoundly humiliating for almost all of them. And these are not humble people.

So how do they cope? They follow Don Draper's advice. "It never happened."

The Tanden nomination is the opportunity to rev the pretense loud and fast.

The lady was occasionally indecorous! Even ... sometimes ... untoward. We can't have THAT in the US government!

Hypocritical is not really the word to describe this behavior. It's more a kind of post-traumatic coping mechanism, a denial of the radical abuse that they also suffered, along with US allies worldwide, people of integrity in govt service, and so many bereaved American families
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
You're hearing a lot of talk about "irregularities" in the election of 1876 that led to a "disputed" outcome. What is being referred to in this hazy terms?

Across the state of South Carolina, white conservatives had used terror and massacre to deter former slaves from voting in 1876. Here's the story of an attack upon the small town of Hamburg in July

Hundreds of black South Carolinians were killed by white conservative militias. Blacks fought back in many places, but they were out-gunned.

The killings were not spontaneous outbursts. They were part of planned campaign of anti-black voter

Some of the elements of the conservative plan to suppress black votes in South Carolina in 1876 sound queasily familiar in our own time, adjusting for the antique language and technology.


But back of it all was terror and violence, more violence than could be contained by the limited federal forces in the area - who were anyway constrained by the white conservative Democratic House majority elected in 1874.
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Marley K
@MarleyK20
I have been listening to Biden's recording with Civil Rights leaders and his tone and bs was a trip I wasn't ready for.

The disrespect was absolutely unacceptable. No self-respecting African-American should be allowing old White dudes to talk to them this way. (THREAD)

The other thing that irritated me was his demand that we work with White Hispanics. We GOTTA do it.

Nobody is else is told they have to work with other racial groups except African-Americans. No other racial groups are ridin for us!

I'll show you. 2/

The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) advocates for all people of colors. It was founded by Blacks, but looked out for all the Brown immigrants that came here AFTER us.

Black folks fought for and protected the rights of all non-White people.
3/

Other groups don't. I looked.

The National Council for Asians and Pacific Islanders don’t advocate for Black people. I haven't heard on call for them to help and support Black people.

The Jewish Federations don’t advocate for Black people either. Nobody is telling them they need to include Black people in their agendas or work with them.
BIDEN
Ali Velshi
Ali Velshi
@AliVelshi
1/13
I have watched every presidential inauguration that I can remember, since I was a little boy, and long before I ever imagined I would live in America. But I had never watched one the way I watched the inauguration of Joe Biden. #velshi

2/13
I’d never considered the details leading up to an inauguration. I watched this one like a nervous parent, making sure everything went as planned. #velshi

3/13
Thanks to the last four years, everything is different, now. Our demons are on full display, our Union is certifiably imperfect. Our nation is divided. #velshi

4/13
After a year that takes first place in our history for death, destruction, fear and injustice, normalcy is struggling to regain its place. One thing with which we will struggle in this new day for America is the death of shame. #velshi

5/13
In addition to the other norms the former president destroyed, he turned lying - deliberate, casual and often with the force of law - into an art form and, with that, contributed to the death of shame. #velshi
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Daniela Gabor
Daniela Gabor
@DanielaGabor
bankers against Biden's fiscal plan could really do with some proper fact-checking before sending their op-ed to the FT.

We all understand 'it's ideology, stupid!', but no excuse for lazy arguments.

apparently, the Gospel according to Morgan Stanley is that we havent had enough neoliberalism for the past 4 decades


if you click on BIS link, it tells you monetary policy, not higher deficits, are associated with wealth inequality.

Incidentally, unconventional monetary policy through which central banks basically rescued banks after they nearly destroyed the global financial system in 2008


speaking of government spending, who else but Morgan Stanley got $10 billion in equity investments from US Treasury in 2008?

I cant think of a more productivity-enhancing outlay for 10bn of public funds.


the OECD 'evidence' that 'four straight decades of growing government intervention in the economy have led to slowing productivity growth' is also, excuse my language, a lot of bullshit.
BIDEN
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so ... I saw this and comment @GhostEzra made underneath
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Coping MAGA
Coping MAGA
@CopingMAGA
We made a thread of Biden's first executive actions.

Categories include:
• Coronavirus
• Financial Relief
• Environment
• Human rights
• Immigration
• Regulation
• Ethics

😷Coronavirus:
- Start of his "100 Days Masking Challenge" with Dr. Fauci
- Restructuring the federal government coordination to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Rejoining the WHO

💰Financial Relief:
- Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums
- Continue "pause" on student loan payments until September 30

🌳Environment:
- Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
- End Keystone XL pipeline and revoke oil and gas development at national wildlife monuments

☮ Human rights:
- Undoing Trump's efforts for a "Patriotic Education"
- Count non-citizens in U.S. Census again
- Strengthen workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity
BIDEN

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