Court upholds conviction of Chinese businessman linked to Hunter Biden

A federal appeals court upheld the criminal convictions against Patrick Ho, a Chinese businessman and think tank leader linked to President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

When Ho, one of Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming’s lieutenants, was charged by the Justice Department in 2017, the first call he reportedly made after his arrest was to Joe Biden’s brother, James, who has said he thought the call was meant for Hunter Biden.

Ho was indicted and convicted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for his role in a global money laundering and bribery scheme aimed at government officials in Africa.

The Justice Department also accused Ho of helping with Iranian sanctions evasion and working to use the Chinese company’s connections to sell weaponry to Chad, Libya, and Qatar. Ho was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 and was deported to Hong Kong in June.

Kamala Harris is the president-in-waiting. Here's how the VP is balancing building her own brand against serving as a loyal soldier on Team Biden. https://t.co/2HTKlpmEd9 by @rbravender & @TinaSfon ($) @businessinsider

Kamala Harris is the president-in-waiting.

It's the awkward reality that has always come with being second-in-command. The vice president's principal job function is to be ready to step in if she's needed.

At the same time, Harris can't appear over-eager to get the top job, and Democrats bristle at questions about whether she's interested in a future White House run or whether Biden — the oldest president in US history at age 78 — intends to try for a second term in 2024.

So — just like (the male) veeps who came before her — Harris & her team must walk the fine line of protecting her image & building a brand while also portraying her as a loyal Biden soldier & dismissing any speculation that she's eyeing another presidential run of her own.

Harris was "an icon before she even set foot in the White House," said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton's 16 campaign. "I think she's a bridge to the next generation of Democrats" and a bridge to progressives, women, and people of color, he added.

"He's not just unprepared -- he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016

Four years ago this country failed itself, bigly.

We got everything wrong.

All of it.

1/

We are where we are today because of the mistakes we made then. Period.

It could have and would have- gone so very differently.

This is true whether you believe Trump actually won fairly, or, that he and Russia stole the election in 2016.

We fucked up either way.

2/

"We cannot put the safety of our children and grandchildren in Donald Trump's hands. We cannot let him roll the dice with America."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016.

She sounds like a prophet now. She told us out loud every single day of that campaign who Donald Trump was.

3/

Many of us were screaming with her from the sidelines, but out front it was pretty much just Hillary.

Everyone else was too busy trying to tear her apart to hold him accountable for anything.

Even the left.

The fucking left

It was shit storm and it rained everyday.

4/

.

All kinds of fun stuff happened during that time. Things that should have made everyone sit up straight and pay attention.

In Dec 2015 Jill Stein ate dinner in Russia with her, ahem, good friends Michael Flynn and Vladimir

1) Where we are: This is much, much bigger than a fraudulent election (it was) or rampant gubment tyrannical China Virus abuse (it is).

2) What we are facing has been building for a good 30 years.

3) I date it back to the GOP failure to defeat Clinton in the gubment shutdown.

4) If you went to public school, that would be the 1995 budget battle.

5) The brand new GOP Congress, with plenty of public support, failed to rein in a Clinton bloated budget.

6) It wasn't the numbers. Compared to today's deficits & debts, this was pocket change. Rather, this was the first time since the Cold War, which was a legit excuse for constant deficit spending, that Congress failed to do its MAIN constitutional duty--oversee spending.

7) No, this isn't a thread about deficits or debt. At present, I don't think those pose the biggest challenge to us, or even probably one of the top five.

8) Rather, this is about a deadly disease that hit DC & the patient refused to take any medicine for it.

9) The disease was the failure to address the major problems of the day, whether it was deficits, Islamic terrorism, the banking crisis, or trade.

10) Vote fraud & this frankenstein of an election is only the latest SYMPTOM of this much larger disease.

Yesterday was the deadliest in U.S. history, a situation created by Republican leadership, who continue to actively fight against any remedy, while our media covers the president's unlawful attempts to overturn an election as a "gambit"

I see the cause of our "political divide."

The idea astonishes, that there still exist opinion pieces suggesting those directly responsible for a rolling series of the deadliest days in U.S. history should face no consequence. The belief that a few people matter and the rest do not has never been more nakedly exposed.

Killing people because you want them dead is divisive.
Abandoning them to a virus when you could save them is divisive.
Making them die of cancer when you could give treatment is divisive.
Making them starve when you have food is divisive.

Yelling at the people doing it is not.

Lying is divisive.
Forcing people to live in your lie is divisive.
Convincing their friends and family that the lie is truth, until they no longer resemble themselves, is divisive.
Creating a media ecosystem to launder lies into truth is divisive.

Insisting on truth is not.

Corruption is divisive.
Profiting from your office is divisive
Breaking laws you still enforce upon others is divisive
Making law enforcement a profit center for the demolition of human lives is divisive

Seeking to punish corrupt actors and demolish corrupt institutions is not.

If you haven't been paying attention, China and several other countries attempted to overthrow the American elections. China used proceeds from the US trade deficit to purchase influence in the very heart of the US Government, and battleground state governments. Trump has all..

I've led a fortunate life, much to be thankful for. I've been to 80 countries. Wherever I went I was thankful I lived in the U.S. where evils like autocracies & theocracies were impossible. Since 2017, we've discovered that's not so. Today's SCOTUS decision underscores that.

If there is anything to be thankful for in it, it is the hope it will serve as a wake-up call to those who do not realize the threats that lie ahead. Recent elections have reminded us how important it is to wrest democracy out of the hands of the donor class that's seized it.

Our recent experiences have also made it painfully clear that our system contains deep imperfections that assure that a minority will have disproportionate power in our Senate, our electoral college and, thanks to the Senate, our courts.

Either we, the majority that elected our next president, will continue our activism & engagement & work to fix what's broken in that system or we will drift further toward the kind of dysfunctionality that has led to so much suffering around the planet.

Our work, in short, has just begun. Removing Trump was an essential step toward preserving our democracy. But it was just one of several such steps. Winning back the Senate, rebalancing the courts, changing our campaign finance and election laws, are all essential.

1/25

WHEN MORALITY BETRAYS

I am no Democrat. I am no Republican. In general, I am not of the perspective that there is any salvation for black people in politics. To the black democrat I say, imagine if Obama fought as hard for you as Trump fights for white supremacists.

2/25

Hear me. Politics is not a morality contest & Democrats often reduce politics to a never ending competition in a self righteous morality Olympics. Their allegiance to morality outweighs their allegiance to the public good. Morality & the public good are NOT the same thing.

3/25

Morality is different things to different people. The public good is all things to the most people. This is not a play on words, but a mindset required to competently engage in the public square. Those who fail to heed such caution render themselves vulnerable to those-

4/25

powerbrokers who morality factors little into their decision making. Herein, lies Barack Obama's fatal flaw. His allegiance to the moral principle of bipartisanship caused him to let Republicans run roughshod over him. He was elected w/a mandate from the American people &

5/25

squandered it. I offer the following as evidence: Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Sureshbhai Patel, an elderly Indian man who was walking through his son's subdivision when a white neighbor called the police 2 report a "suspicious black man" casing the community.

Strongly endorse everything in this @OsitaNwanevu piece. One of the key mistakes I see among Dems, both online & in the real world, is thinking that people believe right-wing nonsense because they are unintelligent or uneducated.

In the area I know best, climate change, it's been found repeatedly that climate denialists & skeptics have, on average, MORE higher education than those who accept the science. They know MORE about climate science. They have, on average, HIGHER verbal intelligence.

What they do is adopt the conclusion that best serves their social tribe and then use their intelligence & education to build a case for it. It's called "motivated reasoning" & everyone is subject to it, very much including the smartest people.

THREAD

1)
U.S. charges political scientist Kaveh Afrasiabi with acting as an agent of #Iran's regime.

https://t.co/fJq6jRtBha

Afrasiabi is one of many “scholars” lobbying & pushing Tehran’s talking points in the West.

cc:
@TheJusticeDept

A list of questions about the 1/6 siege: a thread. About motives, planning, and operations.

Did members of Congress or their staff unwittingly take participants in the riot on private tours before the rally? If so, and after the tours, did any of them have reason to think that these tours would be used in service of a seditious act?

Did these private tours (if they happened) bring participants by leadership offices? Did the participants request to see certain Democratic offices? Did they gain access?

During the hour snd a half that President Trump was watching the insurrection in real time, did he explicitly say no to a request for National Guard troops?

Did Acting SecDef Miller speak with the President during this period? Did Trump convey disapproval tacitly? Was he in communication with any outside advisers during this period?

THREAD: It's worth noting that none of us knows how the 127,000 drive-thru voters actually voted. Harris County is extremely diverse, from urban to rural, old to young, white, black, and brown, Democrat, Republican, everything in between, and from all walks of life. 1/

There are undoubtedly tens of thousands of drive-thru votes for @realDonaldTrump, and tens of thousands of votes for @JoeBiden. And because we have one of the longest ballots in the country, tens of thousands of votes for each candidate in dozens of state and local races. 2/

I've talked to numerous candidates and elected officials on both sides of the aisle, and almost to a person, the candidates want the people to choose who wins their race. Plain and simple, the votes should be counted. 3/

Today, an all-Republican @SupremeCourt_TX dismissed a second legal challenge to drive-thru voting, making it clear that voters' voices should be heard despite some trying to make this a partisan issue. @HarrisVotes will continue to fight to protect your right to vote. 4/

But I'd like candidates to make their positions clear. So @realDonaldTrump @JoeBiden: Do you believe that the 127,000 votes cast at drive-thru voting centers in Harris County should be counted, or would you like to see them thrown out? 5/

[thread] on a suggestion of a speech at the last

and how to vote for this deal on 30th December 2020

Mr Speaker

May I congratulate Boris Johnson

Truly

He is our Lion King as Robert Halfon calls him

Our herd leader with his massive success of coronavirus where as Priti Patel says we have always been ahead of the curve.

A Prime Minister whose achievements will go down in the annals of British history in infamy.

The focus of my speech shall be three pillars.

How did you win?

What did you win?

Where do we go from here?

But first I want to change tack and go to what I know is a favourite topic of the Prime Minister's: American Presidents.

I Know the Prime Minister has a deep ancestral hatred - sorry respect - for American Presidents.

As an Islington inhabitant once upon a time I know that his respect for America birthed out of a deep love for that nation and out of a deep desire to avoid his tax obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.

Election Analysis for PA
As you may have seen my testimony in AZ at the end of November, I have been busy doing analysis for additional states and for individual

Patriots,
I'm hearing from multiple, credible sources about this Apple Update. I put out a request for information from fellow Patriots and received a response from someone in either France or Switzerland. They wrote a 6 page document