I have friends on both sides of the aisle. Some are just a hair’s breadth from being Socialists, and some are hardcore capitalists. Suffice it to say, this is the general gist of how my discussions go when it comes to Mar-A-Lago:
With a more Liberal friend: “Donald Trump should be locked up!”
Me: “Does that mean that Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden should be locked up?”
Liberal friend: “The news told me that all of that stuff was a hoax. You can’t believe Fox News! Everyone knows that!”
Now here is how my conversations with my conservative friends go:
Conservative friend: “Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden should be locked up!”
Me: “What about Trump? Should he be locked up for slipshod storage of Top Secret Materials he should never have kept?”
Conservative friend: “The news told me that stuff was planted on him and the whole Mar-A-Lago raid is a political sham! Everyone knows you can’t believe CNN!”
The three points for this post:
1) The Democrats (at least on the grassroots level) can be forgiven for thinking the Trump political campaign is largely a one-trick pony.
2) The Republicans are baffled why the FBI was willing to investigate Hillary Clinton, causing an October surprise, but waited to investigate Hunter Biden till well after the 2020 Presidential Election.
3) What in tarnation is on that laptop to cause all the ruckus, anyway?
I’m pretty sure my conservative friends take umbrage at my first point, but it is true. The way Trump has been portrayed to the liberals (for right or wrong) is as a small-minded bully who would never have gotten anywhere in life if not for his Daddy’s money. I’m going to post three links that I think will adequately portray my point:
https://www.axios.com/2018/04/29/one-trick-pony-inside-trumps-negotiating-style
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-pennsylvania-voter-fraud-primaries-mehmet-oz-1708128
https://reason.com/2019/10/15/on-tariffs-trump-is-a-one-trick-pony/
Jonathan Swan of Axios.com reports that all of Trump’s strategies can be boiled down to this basic concept: ” Threaten the outrageous, ratchet up the tension, amplify it with tweets and taunts, and then compromise on fairly conventional middle ground.
““His ultimate gamble is: ‘You don’t have as big of stones as I do,'” a source close to Trump told me. “‘You’re going to feel too uncomfortable where I go. The stakes are too high. This is too far outside your comfort zone.'”
Swan then proceeds to share some very compelling examples: “Consider these threats: To withdraw from Syria (he reengaged with missile strikes), withdraw from Afghanistan (he settled on the more-of-the-same strategy recommended by his generals), withdraw from the U.S.-Korean trade deal (Trump’s team negotiated with the Koreans and announced modest changes to the deal), veto the government spending bill (he signed it), and impose severe worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum (he offered a bunch of exemptions).”
If I’m understanding Swan correctly, the signature Trump negotiation involves exploding with fury, threatening insane retribution, then bullying the opponent to a reasonable middle ground and signing off on it.
Newsweek makes a similar claim: in Trump’s efforts to assist the politicians he is accused of simply parroting his claims from 2020. “The race in Pennsylvania is still too close to call, with Trump-backed candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz leading former hedge fund manager David McCormick by the narrowest of margins, 31.2 percent to 31.1, with 98 percent of the votes declared.
“The primary is now almost sure to head into a recount, meaning the results may not be known for several days at least. Despite this, Trump has suggested that Oz is the winner and that the celebrity heart surgeon should just “declare victory” over McCormick.“
‘”Trump, a one-trick pony, is playing the fraud card again, urging Oz to act like a Wizard and just declare himself the winner in PA!” tweeted David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama.’
This article paints Trump as a bully who wants his cake and to eat it too. On one hand, Trump is portrayed as someone willing to cry foul, on the other, he is reported as someone willing to declare victory before all the facts are in, and the end results be damned. As usual with your Tired Blogger, I can really see both sides of this debate.
On to my next source though. Reason.com reports that Trump has only one economic strategy to deal with other nations: tariffs. Peter Suderman writes:
“Yet it’s still telling that this—imposing steel tariffs—is what he chose to do. For Trump, tariffs are the key to solving nearly every issue that presents itself. The rise of China as an economic power? Tariffs. Immigrants coming across the southern border? Tariffs. The federal budget deficit? Probably tariffs. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is kind of smug and annoying? Yes, still: Tariffs.
“Never mind that Trump and his pro-tariff advisers have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no earthly idea how international trade actually works. Never mind that tariffs have clearly hurt the U.S. economy and cost the very manufacturing jobs—including in steel manufacturing—that Trump says he wants to save. Never mind that Trump-style tariffs can presage global destabilization. Whatever the problem is, Trump is convinced that tariffs are the solution.
“This is precisely the opposite of true. Tariffs do not, and have not, accomplished Trump’s goals. As Reason‘s Eric Boehm has written over and over and over and over again, the trade wars have been a failure on nearly every level.”
This makes Trump look like a half-wit version of Teddy Roosevelt, shout loudly, and carry a big stick.
Whether any of this is true or not (and the Tired Blogger is too tired to do your thinking for you, agree or disagree with these folks as you wish, but I would appreciate comments letting me know why you agree or disagree), surely even the most radical, hardcore Republican can see why the Democrats at the grassroots level believe what they believe. Assuming that the political opposition only sees this one aspect of Trump, can’t they be forgiven for thinking the way they do? And the more radical and hard-nosed my fellow Republicans act, doesn’t that just feed into the self-fulfilling prophecy? Unless we have written off the Democrats as utterly reprobate (and I fear too many Republicans at the grassroots have), surely we can start a dialogue by damping down on the anger (some of which is justified). Martin Luther King did it with Republicans and won a lot of us over. Are there no longer statesmen willing to reach across the aisle and put country before party?
To my second point: while Trump may live in an echo chamber, I fear too many Democrats at the top levels do as well. The Clintons and the Biden and even the Obamas can sometimes at least appear guilty of not listening to the American people. That (and the October surprise) is what won Trump the election, to begin with. A huge segment of the population no longer felt heard, and Trump at least made them feel heard. Let’s explore this.
So while it is not mentioned in any of those posts, I know if I were a Democrat I would think Trump to be a one-trick pony because he won one election due to top secret emails on Hillary Clinton’s server, and at least to the Democrats, it had to seem as though he tried to win again based off of controversial items on Hunter Biden’s laptop. To them, it has to seem like the same song with different verses.
Now let’s look at this from a Republican’s viewpoint. My pro-Trump Republican friends are baffled by the whole situation. From their viewpoint, this has been a major miscarriage of justice. Hillary should have been locked up, and would likely have been, too, except Trump graciously let the quarrel go with his acceptance speech. Then Hunter Biden comes along with a laptop (their words coming, not mine) full of emails proving that the Bidens are on the payroll of the Chinese, and his father Joe, “the Big Guy,” is nothing other than a Manchurian candidate. They cannot understand how more Americans can’t see the injustice of Hillary Clinton and Joe and Hunter Biden being Scott-free when Trump is being persecuted by the FBI. In no way do I mean disrespect to my friends, it may be possible I misunderstood some points. But this is the gist as it has come to me of their view of the current events.
Let’s look at some articles and see if we can figure out why Republicans at the grassroots level see it this way.
You should be really impressed I only use one Fox News article. But I’m trying to be fair and centrist here. So let’s dig in:
Ok, the Fox News report leaves me with a lot of questions, but here are some of the key takeaways. Trump is quoted, “
“The FBI just fired its Special Agent In Charge of this outrageous & very illegal assault on the Constitution of the United States of America!” he added.
On Monday, the former commander-in-chief had written: “So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, ‘Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.’”
Reporter Danielle Wallace (no relation to William Wallace) tells us that “Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to turn over communications between government agencies and Facebook employees regarding Hunter Biden after Zuckerberg admitted that his company censored news articles about the president’s son after the FBI reached out.”
Unnamed whistle-blowers claim that there was communication between FBI agents, including FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and Mark Zuckerberg…yeah, that guy. You know. Founder and erstwhile CEO of Facebook (bite me Facebook). Zuckerberg has admitted Facebook censored articles about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Thibault (who denied killing Romeo) has retired and was not part of the Mar-A-Lago investigatory team.
Newsweek reports that “A security source told Fox News that Thibault…was escorted out of the building on Friday as is standard practice when an agent leaves.”
James Bickerton goes on to report “An inquiry into business practices of the president’s son, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware, is currently ongoing.
“A Rasmussen poll published in December 2020 found more than 50 percent of Americans believed the news media deliberately ignored the FBI’s seizure of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, in order to benefit Joe Biden.”
Now let’s see what Andrew McCarthy of TheHill has to say: “Some politically fraught cases, moreover, involve potential threats to American national security — a concern the Justice Department has highlighted as its rationale for seeking a judicial search warrant to search former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. We need not venture a premature judgment on whether that concern was valid. For present purposes, the point is that, in principle, it would be wrongheaded in national security cases for law enforcement officials to drag their feet in a manner that prioritized the political calendar over protecting defense secrets, and the methods and sources for obtaining them.
“In my many years in federal law enforcement, my objection to the 60-day rule was more basic: Failing to take action can be just as prejudicial as taking action. Let’s say the FBI had overwhelming evidence that a candidate for public office was taking bribes or involved in a fraud scheme, and let’s assume that the evidence was sufficiently compelling that, in an ordinary case, arrest and indictment would proceed. It would be perverse for the suspected politician to get extra solicitude — consideration that the average person would not get — because he is seeking an office of public trust that, the evidence shows, he is unfit to hold.
“Obviously, I am not saying that consequential action ought to be taken on the basis of weak evidence or, a la Walsh, legal deficiencies. I am simply saying that when an investigation has reached the point where charges are appropriate, the presumption should be in favor of filing charges. Otherwise, the public would be denied information that would be given in a normal case, and we could end up with a corrupt person in office.”
A Tired Blogger’s analysis: the FBI, right or wrong, chose not to do the same thing in 2020 that they had done in 2016, I.E. they did not help Trump’s campaign (please allow me to stress, I’m not claiming they helped him on purpose in 2016, but they did intentionally refrain from helping him in 2020). Then after the election…after all the scandal and after the Mar-A-Lago investigation, the FBI agent who is most implicated in burying the Hunter Biden story retires. Yes, we are told it is a mere coincidence that he becomes eligible for retirement now. But please hear me Democrats (there are several of you I love, I wouldn’t be messing with this post if I didn’t). If the shoes were on the other foot there would truly be riots in the streets. While both parties are guilty of using riots and violence for their political ends, be intellectually honest here. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at these articles:
https://www.newsweek.com/what-caused-last-chicago-riots-1968-1524006
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/uw-students-gather-to-mourn-clinton-loss/
In no way am I trying to discredit Democrats’ outrage about the January 6 incidents, or their outrage about their perceptions about Trump and Mar-A-Lago. What I am asking for is for members of the grassroots of both parties to grow up and accept that their parties are both capable of injustice, tyranny, and violence. If we can’t both be intellectually honest, then there really IS no peaceful recourse possible.
The Democrats see the Republicans as traitors who are willing to bully their way to success, and the Republicans see the Democrats as traitors who are willing to use the FBI and big tech as tools to undermine our liberties. Let’s both call a spade a spade. In this post, as much as I would like to, I’m not going to try to make peace between the two. All I am asking is for both parties to acknowledge that there is a good reason why the other party sees them as monsters. Neither party must believe the other right just yet. But both need to see there is reasonableness in the view of the other. We can both be angry at our leaders in Washington. We can both be angry at the Media and big corporations and globalist neighbors. But we HAVE TO STOP hating our neighbors. There are good reasons why they think the way they do. Accept it. Admit it. And start an honest dialogue between each other. Fuck the two parties. It is the survival of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors we should worry about.
Last of all…I notice none of these articles actually tell us what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop. We have at least some vague ideas of what Hillary’s emails contained, and of the documents, Trump had at Mar-A-Lago. What in the world is on Hunter Biden’s laptop? And does it merit all this fuss? Let’s look at a few articles that may shed some light on this. In the interests of fairness, I am going to exclude both Fox News and CNN from the remainder of this analysis. I know both are not accepted as legitimate by the other side, so even legitimate evidence from either source would be disregarded by the opposition anyway.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54553132
https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/emails-reveal-how-hunter-biden-tried-to-cash-in-big-with-chinese-firm/
Let’s look at some of the reporting here, shall we? According to BBC:
“The New York Post cited a purported email from Hunter Biden in August 2017 indicating he was receiving a $10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for “introductions alone”, though it is unclear who was involved in the alleged introductions.
“Another purported email, which Fox News said it had confirmed, reportedly refers to a deal pursued by Hunter involving China’s largest private energy firm. It is said to include a cryptic mention of “10 held by H for the big guy”.
“Fox News cited unnamed sources as saying “the big guy” in the purported email was a reference to Joe Biden. This message is said to be from May 2017. Both emails would date from when the former US vice-president was a private citizen.
“A former business associate of Hunter Biden has come forward to say he can confirm the allegations.
“Tony Bobulinski told Fox News that, contrary to Joe Biden’s statements that he had nothing to do with his son’s business affairs, Hunter had “frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals” in China….He says he asked Joe Biden’s brother, James, whether the family was concerned about possible scrutiny of the former vice-president’s involvement in a potential business deal with a Chinese entity. Mr Bobulinski told Fox News that James Biden had replied: “Plausible deniability.””
Now the New York Post, the original paper that broke the story:
“The email is contained in a trove of data that the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware said was recovered from a MacBook Pro laptop that was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved.
“The computer was seized by the FBI, and a copy of its contents made by the shop owner shared with The Post this week by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”
The NYT report continues with: “Another email — sent by Biden as part of an Aug. 2, 2017, chain — involved a deal he struck with the since-vanished chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, for half-ownership of a holding company that was expected to provide Biden with more than $10 million a year.
“Ye, who had ties to the Chinese military and intelligence service, hasn’t been seen since being taken into custody by Chinese authorities in early 2018, and CEFC went bankrupt earlier this year, according to reports.
“Biden wrote that Ye had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay him $10 million annually “for introductions alone.””
Last of all, NBC News, the article that has most beguiled your Tired Blogger. The “Biden” in the article is Hunter, not Joe:
“Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, said there is a national security risk when foreign powers like China see an opportunity to get close to someone like Biden. “It’s all about access and influence, and if you can compromise someone with both access and influence, that’s even better,” said Figliuzzi, now an NBC News contributor. “Better still if that target has already compromised himself.”
“The documents and the analysis indicate that few of [Hunter] Biden’s deals ever came to fruition and shed light on how fast he was spending his money. Expenditures compiled on his hard drive show he spent more than $200,000 per month from October 2017 through February 2018 on luxury hotel rooms, Porsche payments, dental work, and cash withdrawals. “
The report goes on: ” [Hunter} Biden made $5.8 million, more than half his total earnings from 2013 to 2018, from two deals with Chinese business interests.
Biden’s most lucrative business relationship was acting as a consultant in a project with a company that belongs to a once-powerful Chinese businessman who is now thought to be detained in his homeland.
According to business records referred to in the Senate report, Hudson West III, a venture funded by the Chinese oil and natural gas company CEFC and its chairman, Ye Jianming, paid $4,790,375.25 to Owasco P.C. over about one year.”
I know I’m being long-winded, but I think this next part really needs to be shared, read, and considered by all and sundry: “In 2018, Chinese prosecutors accused Ye Jianming of “economic crimes,” including alleged fraud and bribery, and detained him for questioning. He hasn’t been seen in public since.
“A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told NBC News, “We are not familiar with the case you mentioned, and I’m afraid we can’t offer information on this.”
“According to the Republican Senate report, Hudson West III, CEFC, and another firm were involved in certain transactions that were “among those identified as potential efforts to layer funds.”
“The U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network describes the layering of funds as “separating the illegally obtained money from its criminal source by layering it through a series of financial transactions, which makes it difficult to trace the money back to its original source.”
“But the report doesn’t say whether or not Hunter Biden was personally involved in any transactions that were suggested to involve “layering.”
“Biden also appears to have done work for one of Ye’s business associates. Patrick Ho was convicted in U.S. federal court of bribing top officials in Chad and Uganda in pursuit of oil deals in those countries starting in September 2014. A jury found that Ho, while working for CEFC, bribed or attempted to bribe officials as much as $2 million. He was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 and then expelled from the U.S. at the end of his prison term.
“Federal court filings and emails on Biden’s hard drive indicate Ho was employed by CEFC and was an associate of Ye…
“Hudson West wired Biden’s company, Owasco, $1 million from Hudson West III in March 2018 with a memo line for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping Representation,” according to the Senate report and emails on the Biden hard drive.
“Biden never made an appearance on the docket in Ho’s case, and there are no emails on his laptop that indicate he was involved in the legal strategy of the case or drafted any legal documents outside his suggestion of whom to use as Ho’s counsel.”
Some quick analysis. Mostly all I have is questions though. So Hunter Biden was getting “$10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for “introductions alone”.” Introductions to…whom? Also, where do I get that job? I’ll be happy to introduce you to anyone you like for $10 million a year. And you wonder why Trump’s slogan of “drain the swamp” resonates?
Who is this Tony Bobulinski guy? Is he reliable, or just someone Fox dug up to make the Bidens look bad?
Note to self: when I go into politics and become famous…be sure to pick up your damned electronics from the repair shop!
Frankly, I don’t trust mayor Rudi Juliani. Having said that…pick up your damned MacBook from the repair shop!
Why is Ye being held by the Chinese?
Why are the Chinese being so tightlipped?
Does anyone remember this term: kompromat? Anyone care to look it up? Anyone care to wonder how or if it might somehow relate to Trump, Hunter Biden, or Hillary Clinton? Just a thought.
“Layering funds,” or laundering money”? Is there any way for the grassroots folks to know if that is being perpetrated by anyone mentioned in this article?
Hunter Biden’s company Hudson West wired a cool million to Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping for a “representation” to African officials, and Dr. Ping is later convicted of bribery, but hunter Biden, owner of the company, knows nothing about it except to be asked who the good Dr. can hire as an attorney. Mr. Biden…You could have wired me half that amount and I’ll bet I would have accomplished just as much with no prison term. Granted, you’d likely see neither me, nor your money again, but the savings of half a million should sell you on the idea.
Shout out to the NSA agent monitoring this blog. Mar-A-Lago baby. Mar-A-Lago.
In the light of the Mar-A-Lago quandary…again, I have no smoking gun, no way to prove to either side that one side is right and the other wrong. If you believe that the FBI planted documents at Mar-A-Lago, why don’t you believe the FBI doctored fake emails on the laptop? If you believe the Russians tampered with the election and got Trump elected, why don’t you believe the Chinese may have done the same?
The Tired Blogger is truly tired. Next week, Snowden and Assange: were they better spies than Trump? Stay tuned!
Instead of a video this week, I thought I would share a poem that may or may not shed some light on the subject. Enjoy! Let me know in the comments if you would rather I shared more videos at the end, or if you prefer poems.
The Gods of the
Copybook Headings
Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Tired Midnight Blogger (What Blogs at Midnight) 
“…both [political sides] need to see there is reasonableness in the view of the other. We can both be angry at our leaders in Washington. We can both be angry at the Media and big corporations and globalist neighbors. But we HAVE TO STOP hating our neighbors. There are good reasons why they think the way they do. Accept it. Admit it. And start honest dialogue between each other. F*** the two parties. It is the survival of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors we should worry about…”
Here’s a great article/book review on how the ‘bots and A.I.s of media (specifically social media) ramp up our outrage toward those who don’t think like we do. This causing us to RAGE at the extremes instead of LISTEN for the Common Ground:
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/09/1121295499/facebook-twitter-youtube-instagram-tiktok-social-media
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