I previously wrote a column on the one year anniversary of the Hunter Biden laptop story that marveled at the success of the Biden family in making the scandal vanish before that 2020 election. It was analogized to Houdini making his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear in his act. The Biden trick however occurred live before an audience of millions. Now, in an encore, a new major story on Biden’s Chinese dealings has surfaced. Once again, poof!
The media has made the story disappear except for a couple of the usual outlets. Even with the New York Times reporting on the story, the disclosure of Biden’s role in securing one of the world’s largest cobalt mines for China (a key component to electric battery production) has been ignored by the major networks and many other print outlets. Once again, ABC. NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and other media just cannot see the elephant.
What is most amazing about this continuing trick is that the story has all of the elements that the media longed to confirm during the Trump Administration on the financial dealings of the Trump children. The son of the President was involved in a successful effort to handover a strategically vital natural resource to the Chinese that would guarantee their dominance in one of the most important new industries of the “Green economy.” This occurred during a period when Hunter Biden and his uncle were accused of running a global influence peddling operation with foreign powers that cashed in on the Vice Presidency of Joe Biden. Then there is the fact that the story appears to contradict denials of continuing ownership in such foreign interests by the Bidens.
Finally, there is the fact that this windfall from the Chinese occurred in a field that Hunter Biden knew nothing about (much like his work on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma) and he was, by his own description, a hopeless addict. In his recent book, Hunter admits that he was a crack addict and alcoholic all the way up to the start of his father’s presidential campaign — in his words, “Drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating,” as well as “smoking crack around the clock.”
This elephant is truly difficult to unsee.
Hunter Biden established the firm Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) Equity Investment Fund Management Company with a few American and Chinese partners in 2013. He and his American associates controlled 30 percent of the Shanghai-based operation and served on the board. They then put together the purchase of the Congo cobalt and copper mine transfer from American company Freeport-McMoRan to China Molybdenum for the sum of $2.65 billion.
The Tenke Fungurume mine was considered a human rights nightmare. The Congolese military reportedly reduced workers to virtual slaves, torched homes, and killed dissenters. Amnesty International spokeswoman Sarah Jackson denounced “the long history of excessive use of force … unlawful killings.”
However, there was money to be made and Hunter Biden was there to lend the Biden name to the enterprise. BHR served as a minority stakeholder to buy out around $1.14 billion of shares from Lundin Mining of Canada, a partial owner of the mine. China Molybdenum then bought BHR’s shares two years later to give it 80% of ownership of the mine and control of the vital natural resources.
Biden controlled 10 percent of BHR through Skaneateles LLC but his lawyer reportedly insisted that, as of April 2020, he no longer had such interests in this foreign company. That may be untrue, according to the media reports. Chinese business records reviewed by Fox News in April 2021 allegedly show that Hunter Biden continued to hold a 10% stake.
If true, it means that through the election, Hunter Biden was still receiving money from a variety of companies with close ties to the Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian governments. In this case, his alleged influence peddling was used to deliver a huge strategic advantage to the Chinese in the very area of electric cars that his father was making an American investment priority.
Of course, this is simply not the type of scoop that has drawn most of the media coverage.
None of these facts, however, can force the media to see the elephant. The key to the trick was involving the media in the original trick is that it invests reporters in the illusion. It is like calling audience members to the stage to assist in the performance. Reporters have to insist that there was nothing to see or they have to admit to being part of the original deception. The media cannot see the elephant without the public seeing something about the media in its past efforts to conceal it.
Republican cities and states are more prosperous than Democrat ones, which resemble third world countries.
Maybe Republicans should have all of the political power.
Fundamentally not true across any possible metric that can be objectively measured.
Hunter, Hunter,, no bunter..
Banana danna foe chumper .
Hunter!
Kneecap the energy industry in America — which Biden is doing. That, in turn, strengthens the energy industry in China (and Russia) — paymasters of the kleptocratic Biden family.
There’s nothing to see here. Move along.
P.S. I hope that KR’s civil attorneys have good forensic accountants.
This echoes of Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the sale of Uranium One.
I’m not going to waste the readers’ time detailing that, but I ask: Why do we allow people to sell out the interests of our nation and its businesses, while at the same time profiting from being so close to the top layers of our nation’s government?
Trump did say many times that our government (both parties) is filled with self-serving traitors, who seek personal financial gain at the expense of Americans.
Jab,
Who would know better than Trump who would not hesitate to do a real estate deal with killers like Putin or MBS if he stood to profit.
Jeff, Trump never did a real estate deal with Putin.
You lie again.
Trump was making deals with Putin’s Russia for a long time, look it up. Not to mention Trump’s sons making comments about the Russian money. As Trump was running for President he was making deals about Trump Towers Moscow. Again, look it up, but we all know you won’t.
Fishwings, tell us the real estate deal Trump sold to or bought from Putin. Try not to be so foolish. Trump has sold property to Russians, Greeks, Canadians etc. Try to be at least a little discerning.
Meyer,
I said that Trump WOULD NOT HESITATE to do a deal with Putin or MBS, NOT that he had done one!
What fundamentally is your problem? Have you always been like this or do I bring it out in you?
JS, First paragraph. “Jeff, Trump never did a real estate deal with Putin.”
Second paragraph: Responding to your made up conjecture that “would not hesitate to do a real estate deal with killers like Putin…”
You lie.
I don’t have a problem, but you seem to have one. It’s known as TDS. Go get yourself a nipple and suck on it.
We don’t “allow” it. We’re powerless to stop it.
On and on it goes. If the media are not lying outright, they are distorting or ignoring major stories that undermine their preferred narratives. You won’t have to wait long for this to happen again. It will probably happen this week.
When it does, remember that this is what the corporate press has been doing for years now. They are not interesting in informing their readers and viewers, they are interested only in telling you what to think. That is their entire raison d’être.
And rest assured that if you do somehow end up with the wrong opinion, Big Tech will silence you.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/24/your-default-assumption-should-be-that-everything-corporate-media-says-is-a-lie/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=your-default-assumption-should-be-that-everything-corporate-media-says-is-a-lie&utm_term=2021-11-24
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X
The political left has fully endorsed pure propaganda, innuendo and lies as their means to an end. Propaganda Is Destroying Trust In The Fourth Estate and Wreaking Havoc On Society
Steve,
If we consider the importance of the development and use of critical-thinking skills, which of course is the essence of your blog, then we have to include the education industry as a complicit entity in the havoc propaganda inflicts on society. What we have today is exactly what Bezmenov warned us about back in the 80’s. We now have generations of Americans with access to information like never before in history and no ability to discern fact from fiction. This is the fertile ground on which propagandist’s flourish. I’ve posted excerpts from Kant’s short essay, What is Enlightenment? before and the lessons in there are profound. They are worth repeating:
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on–then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind–among them the entire fair sex–should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html
Olly says:
“When it does, remember that this is what the corporate press has been doing for years now. They are not interesting in informing their readers and viewers, they are interested only in telling you what to think. That is their entire raison d’être.”
Fox News! Nailed it!
Was an injustice done to the people of Waukesha?
Injustices only seem to matter if you have a certain complexion, or so it seems.
That’s not fair.
“Was an injustice done to the people of Waukesha?”
Nah. It was just “reparations.” Or “equity.” Maybe both.
Complexion?
According to the left and many of our bloggers, complexion matters most. Character and merit shouldn’t matter Crazy as it seems some wish to hire pilots based on whether their complexion suits the decor of the cockpit..
The liberal media exists just to angelicize minorities, even when they are doing demonic things.
Why do you think this is?
They constantly assail reality.
How is this a public service?
If family members of a President involved in foreign business interests was something FoxNews and Turley cared about they would have been reporting on it full time during 2016-2020. Really, there was so much of that it was stunning. They didn’t, but want us to care now. Because their guy is not in office.
Ever get your hands on those Russian Pee Pee tapes you were promised?
No, because Trump gave Putin everything he wanted for four years there was no reason for Putin to release the pee pee tape.
You’re lying stupidly.
The Bidens are taking millions upon millions and bribes and in exchange are selling out their country. None of the Trumps did either of those things.
I’d like to believe there was some sort of reverence for an old man’s family’s story of corruption, an old man that was too easy to beat up on, and no one wanted to tell this story when feeble Uncle Joe was competing with a dozen other, less senile, potential nominees. This was all before Uncle Joe did a bait & switch on the prospect of being moderate/inanimate/not Trump. Until C19, Trump was likely to have been re-elected. There was also a team effort of the media and feds to deny, deny, deny. The FBI had been in possession of Hunter’s laptop for more than a year and, once revealed, gave near universal attribution to Russian disinformation. There are still a plurality of people who think Trump/Russia was a thing, incited an insurrection, bullied Ukraine, told people to inject bleach, & thousands of other lies. It’s quite clear how much reach the Bidens have and are willing to use to destroy anyone they choose; tread lightly.
An 8-year old boy has died
The view talks about living in fear of being shot.
I live in fear of being mowed down by an angry black supremacist.
Why was he allowed to have a big metal weapon on wheels?
Why was someone with a long criminal history as free as someone without one?
Are white fears not to be taken as seriously as black fears?
Why is the View allowed to be on television?
Why is the View allowed to be on television?
The dont need to be on television, so a peaceful protest at their studios and homes would be patriotic. An outside chance some property damage and loss of life happens, but you have to break a few eggs for progress.
Why are known propagandists FOX NEWS allowed on TV?
Fishwings. choose your show and we can both tape it so it can be referred to in the discussion.
You won’t do it. Why? Because you know that you cannot back up what you say. More mouth that ability.
Make sure you understand the difference between opinion and fact. We can tape a Rachael Maddow Show at the same time we tape Hannity or Ingraham. The only difference will be that Maddow has been proven to lie about facts. The other two are very careful not to or correct themselves when they do.
Bahahahahahaha.
I hear your cries, but I don’t speak sheep.
Allan still has a VHS.
It seems the light of day is preventing ATS from using his green icon. He is back in the weeds with his multiple friends pretending he can hide from his Stupidity.
The Media ignoring the story is one thing….the DOJ/FBI/IRS/Postal Inspectors/CIA/NSA all ignoring the matter is an entirely different story that is being ignored by the Media.
Compare the Daily Mail coverage of the Christmas Parade Massacre to what you see at MSNBC and CNN….and it become abundantly clear how corrupt the US Media has become.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10238327/Man-let-Darrell-Brooks-home-minutes-Christmas-Parade-killings-says-sat-sofa.html
On the Hunter laptop, there’s probably a picture of Hunter Biden in black face munching on a slice of watermelon, but he will get a pass from the pro-Biden media, just like Jimmy Phallus did.
Steve,
And because Turley won’t inform his followers that Trumpist lawyers have been sanctioned by a judge to pay their defendants’ legal fees for their acting in bad faith, I felt it was my responsibility to do so. I don’t want you to be manipulated by selective reporting. It’s better to know the truth than to be kept in the dark. You’re welcome.
jeffsilberman,
I’m all for free speech; however, your tactics are unethical, your nonsensical “arguments” are usually nothing but rationalizations, and your modivation is transparent. You’re an unapologetic blatantly obvious unethical internet troll and as such you should be banned. If you trolled my blog like you do here I’d ban you in a heartbeat.
https://stevewitherspoonhome.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/freedomofspeech.png
And yet you engage him. Smh
Ive been posting about trolls on here for 2+ years, always linking to scholarly, published peer reviewed journals. Sadly, no one cares, choosing instead to feed the trolls because they too have a “need” to engage psychopathic individuals. Theirs is a Dopamine-rich reward circuit just like crack. People need to break the circuit but they succumb to the very pathology that characterizes trolls.
We are a sick society. Choose to break the cycle
Estovir wrote, “People need to break the circuit but they succumb to the very pathology that characterizes trolls.”
Putting on the facade of apathy (that’s what completely ignoring trolls does) and a non-confrontational stance is not a solution to the problem Estovir, it doesn’t work to with behavioral problems when raising children and it doesn’t work to curb the behavior of internet trolls.
it doesn’t work to with behavioral problems when raising children and it doesn’t work to curb the behavior of internet trolls.
Huh? You’re equating how parents tackle behavioral problems of their children with how strangers deal with internet trolls? Well, good luck raising these internet trolls.
Steve,
You said the “b-word!” Banned? On a blog created by a self-described Free Speech Originalist? Are you crazy or have you lost your mind? That is inconceivable as long as I am civil. Haven’t you learned anything from Turley?
Don’t censor me. Debate me! That is what Turley would want.
jeffsilberman wrote, “Don’t censor me. Debate me! That is what Turley would want.”
Then Turley can choose to debate you, I choose to point out your unethical trolling behavior.
If you have topics that you want to discuss that others aren’t blogging about then come out from the weeds, stand up for your own opinions, start your own blog and allow comments, heck maybe I’ll participate if it’s topics I choose to discuss. Trying to blatantly hijack a blog, as you have done here, to deflect discussion away from the blog topic is what internet trolls do and it’s solid ground for being banned.
Steve,
Hijack this blog? You flatter me. All I did was post a free speech news item for this blog’s consideration. You’d think I am holding a gun to your head.
There is nothing to debate. Jeff is an empty vessel that could never hold anything in the first place.
At the same time Jeff closes his eyes to everything Turley mentions about the Biden Crime Family that Turley talked about in today’s blog.
Jeff uses a very broad brush to define Trumpists. The reason is he is too ignorant to specify what he is talking about. Jeff is Mr. Generality. He is filled with empty rhetoric.
Steve, Their minds are made up, doesn’t matter what the facts are. Turley these days only feeds them the slush they want to read and hear.
FishWings wrote, “Their minds are made up, doesn’t matter what the facts are.”
Facts are irrelevant to propagandists, liars and idiots! The corrupted lying pompous hacks and trolls in the political left, aka totalitarian progressives, have been making their collective beds since 2008 and now they’re starting to suffer the consequences of their own transparent deceit. They’ve earned a massive public rebuke of their immoral tactics.
“Facts are irrelevant to propagandists, liars and idiots” ! …..Thanks for explaining the mindset of a trump supporter.
Interesting, we have another commenter trying to use rationalizations as if they’re real arguments.
Be honest FishWings, you didn’t bother to read the content of the link I shared, did you.
Is it really a big surprise to anyone with a functioning brain that the left’s Pravda like mainstream media is selectively not telling the public about things that could be detremental to the ruling Biden family?
Only way this story will get any legs is by alleging that someone involved is a white supremacist. The MSM should be ashamed (I expect this incompetence from MSNBC or CNN). Edward R Murrow is rolling over in his grave
I just assume eveyrthing in the media is a lie. That includes trolls that insist on hijacking blogs.
Iowan,
Trolls hijacking blogs? Moi?
It’s called Free Speech! And as long as I am civil, there is not a goddamn thing you or your Trumpist liars can do about it. Dig?
It is free…does not cost you anything but your credibility and reputation….so yes…..it is free to you here at Professor Turley’s Blog.
Ralph,
As if I care what Trumpist liars think of me!
JS
If posting about unknown lawyers getting their comeuppance makes you feel better, then bless you.
Your post is an illustration of the manipulation that the left uses to deceive Americans.
Monument,
If Turley won’t inform you that Trumpist lawyers are getting their comeuppance for their lies in court, I will. It’s my pleasure.
Judgement day is coming, my Trumpist friend.
JS
Love your optimism.
Agree that Judgment Day is coming.
But current trends would suggest that 2022 will be a Judgment on the Left.
Seriously, aren’t you disgusted by the corruption in the Biden family?
Monument,
When you evidence your disgust with Trump’s Big Lie, I happily will share your disgust in Hunter’s apparent corruption.
I’m waiting….
“When you evidence your disgust with Trump’s Big Lie”
Is the Big Lie that Trump said the Steele Dossier was untrue? It was. That was Hillary’s Big Lie which was followed by many lies. Is that what JS refers to?
Stupid. The election was stolen. That’s an undeniable, admitted fact. Whether Trump’s complaint matched up exactly with the way it was stolen is immaterial.
Stealing an election is infinitely worse than the victim’s failing to grasp exactly how it was done. You people are truly misanthropic.
We keep seeing more of the media’s dishonesty and partisanship.
Yet the Lefties keep lapping it up.
Stockholm Syndrome, gullibility, or are Lefties happy to be lied to and manipulated?
Given the responses of so many posters here, I have to conclude that our Lefty posters are intellectually dishonest.
Most thinking posters seem to have arrived at the same conclusion and treat these Lefty posters with contempt.
MonoColo – The posters who try and spin, but what about, Fox News, Trump are either as another poster stated: “Trolls with a very high Dark Triad” or possibly paid Trolls. In either case readers who come here, again as others stated previously just ignore them. They offer no value to the conversation, distort fact, lie and make attempts to get off topic. God knows how many other blogs they infect during the course of 24 hours?
Margot,
All I did was link to a news story that I thought might interest this blog and for convenience copied a few quotes from the judge. I had hoped it might stimulate an exciting debate just like Turley wants on his blog!
It’s not my opinion; it’s a judge’s….
Here is a news item that Turley is not likely to bring to your attention which is why I am taking the liberty to do so in the interest of being “fair and balanced.” So stop your whining about my interjecting information which undermines your Trumpist narratives. If you don’t like the exercise of my free speech, too damn bad.
——-————-
“2 lawyers who tried to challenge 2020 election results were ordered by judge to pay $187,000 as they ‘should have known better’”
https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-orders-187k-fines-for-lawyers-who-tried-overturn-election-2021-11
“A judge ordered two lawyers to pay $187,000 towards the legal fees of the companies and organizations they accused, unsuccessfully, of rigging the 2020 election.”
“The fine, ordered on Tuesday, is one of the first times a financial penalty has been attached to a rebuke of the mass of lawsuits seeking to undermine President Joe Biden’s election win.”
“The payment was a reminder of the lawyers’ “higher duty” not to advance poorly investigated claims that “strike at the heart of our democratic system,” Judge N. Reid Neureiter wrote in court documents released Monday”
“Accusing the lawyers of working in bad faith, the judge wrote that the pair had not thoroughly investigated the claims and had created a “cut-and-paste” job from similar lawsuits, such as those filed by Sidney Powell, which also failed in court.”
“The order may have a chilling effect on future cases, Neureiter said — but said this was “the kind of ‘advocacy’ that needs to be chilled.”
————-
You would think that Turley would have something to say about the sanctioning of Trump lawyers and the chilling effect on future cases. But will he defend them?
Or will Turley’s silence mean that he agrees with the judge who found the lawsuit “so frivolous that he brought [the lawyers] into a hearing and called the case “fantastical” and “the stuff of which violent insurrections are made”?
Unlike the court of public opinion, in a court of law, you cannot lie with impunity.
Off topic, Jeffie – the First Amendment notwithstanding.
Cassidy,
I know it is, but I am trying to shame Turley into commenting on this development. He should not pander to you Trumpists by selectively telling you what his employer, Fox News, wants you to hear. It’s important you know that those lawyers alleging Trump’s election lies are subjecting them to sanctions and possibly disbarment.
You don’t want to know Turley’s reaction to this judicial chilling of Trump’s free speech?
I do!
“I know it is, but I am trying to shame Turley into commenting on this development.”
Your words leave little doubt you are a pinhead. Why would anyone like Turley want to respond to a pinhead?
This is pure unadultrated off topic trolling from a confirmed internet troll.
TROLL: noun (abbreviated version of internet troll) Those that post inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion, often for their own amusement.
Steve,
Since you are the expert, was the word “troll” around in the 18th Century?
No doubt the British loyalists would have called Thomas Paine a troll!
jeffsilberman wrote, “Since you are the expert, was the word “troll” around in the 18th Century? No doubt the British loyalists would have called Thomas Paine a troll!”
That is literally unethical rationalization #45 The Unethical Precedent, or “It’s Not The First Time”
Elsewhere in this thread I wrote, “…your tactics are unethical, your nonsensical “arguments” are usually nothing but rationalizations, and your modivation is transparent.”
I rest my case.
Why should Turley make a special comment about things you are unable to define or discuss.? Haven’t you noted how wrong the MSM, prosecutors and lawyers are, while shilling for the left. Maybe you have’t heard. Rittenhouse shot in self defense and that was clear from the videos. Yet leftists brought charges which shows how deceitful the left is.