Toxic Smoke, Jared Kushner And Noor Bin Laden, What More Could You Ask For
Just as in 2016, the main 2024 GOP presidential attack point, years in the making, continues to take shape and is quickly gaining momentum like an oncoming deadly tornado.
In 2016, the focus of the GOP smear campaign, and trump’s, in particular, was Hillary Clinton’s emails, made to sound by the Republican echo chambers, Fox News and other bootlickers to be thoroughly illegal, though in the end, nothing illegal was proven. It was a tempest in a teapot, especially compared with trump’s cavalier and irresponsible use of private cell phones while he flushed sensitive information down the White House toilet and his apparent theft of sensitive documents to his castle by the sea in Florida. Lock her up was the phrase that trump used to rally his rabid base who screamed back in unison, like at a dystopian Nazi rally, “Lock her up.” And you know who won, trump and who lost, the American public.
So now we have Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Much has been made by the Republicans, most dramatically trump and their media enablers about emails found on Hunter’s laptop and the allegedly, incriminating information about the younger Biden’s relationships with Chinese businesses. It is a complex matter that has yet to be unraveled but one thing is known and that is that nothing is known for certain. To date, it is a smear campaign that the self-serving, hypocritical Republicans love to claim must flow over on to the president’s lap. But facts are irrelevant to the GOP smear campaign, as they were with Hillary’s emails or with the millions of dollars flushed away in the storm of Benghazi that turned out to be a brief, innocuous shower.
It is an old playbook and an even older psychological ploy that goes back at least until the Tudor England playwright and musician, John Heywood’s 1546 collection of proverbs, including the one that says “There is no fyre without smoke.” In other words, repeat something enough times and people are going to be convinced that something must be going on, the investigation wouldn’t be taking this long if there weren’t any real leads, every rumor has some foundation and when things appear suspicious, something is wrong.
Hunter Biden may have acted with poor judgment or he may have broken laws, that remains to be seen. But even with the empty accusations coming from the right, they are like fleas on an elephant compared with the crimes of trump, et al.
The Hunter Biden character assassination and whisper campaign has turned into a scream, led by the loudest and obscene of all mouths, trump and associates, as in organized crime associates. In July 2019, Trump tried to strongarm Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky when the ex-president ordered $391 million in military aid frozen unless Zelensky agreed to investigate Hunter and his father and their alleged involvement in Ukraine. Zelensky would not buckle and eventually the aid was provided while the scandal led to trump’s first of two impeachments, that he was able to squirm out of.
Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. Since the early months of 2019, Biden and his father have been the subjects of unsupported claims of corrupt activities. Hunter Biden also was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company. Trump also called on China to investigate Hunter Biden but that request also was apparently ignored.
The storm clouds being fomented around Hunter Biden and previously, around Hillary Clinton are reminding of the allegations involving the 2012 attack of the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that left three Americans dead. Like sharks smelling blood, Republicans accused then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as being responsible for not creating adequate security at the compound. There were 10 investigations into the Benghazi matter: one by the FBI; one by an independent board commissioned by the State Department; two by Democrat-controlled Senate Committees; and six by Republican-controlled House Committees. After two years and millions of dollars, no improprieties were uncovered involving either Hillary Clinton, nor any other high-ranking official.
And by the way, speaking of potential skullduggery, it was reported today that the Saudis have given $2 billion to Jared Kushner’s private equity company, that is billion with a “B” and the Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund makes up most of Kushner’s equity firm. Kushner is married to trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and as a senior advisor to trump, Kushner was very involved in working with the Saudis. Where are those smug Republicans when you need them? I shouldn’t attack Kushner as he was awarded the coveted, “Sash of the Order of the Aztec Eagle” by the Mexican government
And speaking of dissembling and hypocrisy, three of the wackiest right wing, QAnon-tinged members of Congress got a shout out recently from Noor Bin Laden, the niece of the terrorist Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the nation’s most deadly attack. on Sept.11, 2001.
Bin Laden was interviewed on April 6 on the Breitbart News show, “Real America’s Voice,” by former trump top advisor Steve Bannon, who has been indicted on criminal contempt charges for refusing to respond to a Congressional subpoena to testify in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
In the interview, bin Laden’s niece praised Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., for praising the trump supporters who attacked the capitol. Bin Laden, 35, was 14 when her infamous father orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks. She said those accused of storming the Capitol were “patriots” who are being “smeared and crushed” by the media and Department of Justice.
“We can be really grateful for representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, (Matt) Gaetz, Sen. Ron Johnson … (they are) among the handful defending and standing up and speaking about these political prisoners,” said the niece of Osama bin laden who is a longtime, strident trumper.
Greene and Gaetz have previously said they are unashamed of the violent insurrection and have repeatedly demanded to know how those in custody over the riots are being treated amid unfounded allegations of abuse.
Bin Laden, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, also claimed that the Jan. 6 attack was not attempt to overthrow the federal government but was rather a “hoax.”
“This entire insurrection narrative is a hoax … I’ll keep saying it, this wasn’t an insurrection, it was an entrapment operation,” said bin Laden who published her comments on her website, which she said she later forwarded sent to the United Nations.
Gaetz, Greene, Johnson and Rep. Louis Goehmert, R-Texas, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., and Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga. have all downplayed the riot while trump has said that the more than 700 people charged so far in connection with the siege of Congress are being wrongly penalized and could be pardoned by him for their crimes.
Clyde rejected descriptions of the Jan. 6 attack as “an insurrection,” and said that the trump supporters behaved “in an orderly fashion” and that “if you didn’t know that TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
Gosar said the Justice Department was “harassing” suspected rioters, whom he described as “peaceful patriots.” Hice said that it was “Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others.”
Gohmert also argued that there are worse things than an insurrectionist riot inside the nation’s seat of government.
Greene, Gosar, Gohmert and Gaetz, have been referred to as members of the the so-called “Sedition Caucus” of legislators, because they all voted against the certification of Biden‘s presidential victory. The three also have protested the treatment of those arrested in connection with the the Jan. 6 attack and called them “January 6th prisoners.”