Biden Needs A Sign From God

One thing about Joe Biden's interview with George Stephanopulos stands out for me. Well, two things, really.

The first is that, when Biden was asked if he would be willing to step down, he answered, "If the Lord Almighty came down and said, 'Joe, get outta the race,' I’d get outta the race. [But] the Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down."

Yet.

Look, I don't believe in the existence of any god, but it's quite clear that Biden will not willingly step aside. As long as he is convinced that there's an outside chance he can pull it off, he will remain adamant about staying in the race.

Something will have to scare him.

And something will. In the rigors of running, candidates inevitably falter in some way. We all remember how an ill Hillary Clinton collapsed before getting into her vehicle during the 2016 campaign. It's not unusual for politicians to suffer from laryngitis down the stretch. And many of us remember when Bob Dole fell off the stage when running against Bill Clinton in 1996.

It can happen.

Maybe there will be a heart attack scare, like the one Bernie Sanders had in 2016. Heaven forbid if there's a stroke of some kind. But I think the likeliest scenario is a Bob-Dole-like fall. Already, he shuffles along in many cases. It's obvious.

And then at least a few advisers will say, "Mr. President, you wanted a sign from God. Here it is."

Again, don't misunderstand me. The Democratic Ticket has my vote no matter what. The Nazis cannot be allowed to win. But to that end, we need to make the tactically right move.

And that means Biden drops out. But he won't, unless a major health scare convinces him to do so.

Of course, there's an outside chance Biden will not have some sort of scare between now and November. The opposite scenario may take place and he might die. But the likeliest case for a Democratic loss is Joe Biden remaining in, and shuffling across the finish line 5 points behind 32-Convictions-Donald-Fucking-Trump.

Again, don't get me wrong, Donald Trump has done many, many things that should have, in a sane world, resulted in him being forced to step down as well. Insulting a disabled reporter, both-sidesing Charlottesville Nazis, calling Mexican asylum-seekers rapists, saying they "poison the blood of our country," saying he won't be a dictator "except on Day One," suggesting that something like injecting a patient with bleach might cure Covid... the list goes on, and on, and on. Biden has one knock against him, Trump has hundreds. He literally has more baggage than a Samsonite factory. There is no hyperbole which can describe just how unacceptably bad Trump is.

And Biden is trailing that?

That should tell you something.

By the way, the second thing that stood out for me in the interview was the fact that George Stephanopulos really grilled Biden hard. It's almost as if he came to the exact same conclusion I did and tried to talk some sense into the president.

It didn't work. In fact, no outside influencer can make Biden change his mind about this. Biden must be scared into changing his mind by something drastic.

I'll back Joe Biden all the way, if needs be. But I'll spend every day from now until election day saying that Biden stepping down is the only tactically smart move left to us.

If Joe Biden steps down, he will have guaranteed his status as one of the greatest presidents of all time.

And if he doesn't, he's another Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Eric

**

Yep, Biden Needs To Step Aside

Well, I wanted to wait until after the first presidential debate to post this, and clearly, it's needed.

Bill Crystal and Andrew Egger of the Bulwark have officially called for Biden to step aside and let someone else run in November for the Democratic Party.

I'm finally forced to agree.

Don't get me wrong: There is no universe in which my vote would ever go to Trump. If Joe Biden were in a coma, he would still get my vote over Trump. But that's because I'm anti-Trump. I'm not so enthusiastic about Biden.

If Biden were to step aside, he would be remembered as one of the greatest presidents of all time - precisely because he had the wisdom to see the sacrifice that needed to be made in order to protect our democracy.

And if he doesn't step aside and loses, he's just another Ruth Bader Ginsburg who stayed too long.

The stalwart performance he gave at the State of the Union speech is long gone. In its place is this most recent debate performance, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Some, such as Keith Olbermann on his Countdown podcast have said that the media being down on Biden post-debate is bad journalism on their part. I disagree. Even Rachel Maddow sounded forlorn when doing the post-game analysis at MSNBC. And yes, so too did The Bulwark. In fact, the disappointment was universal.

He had a cold? Yeah, well, that news should have been leaked beforehand. And sick or not, he should at least have kept it together enough to not lay the absolute egg he did on national television. 

Pundits have pointed out that nobody else polls as well against Trump as Biden does right now. But that's because it's right now. Poll numbers change. Especially with a young, exciting candidate. And Biden's poll numbers show him with only a teeny-tiny lead. With the electoral college still in place, that means a victory for Trump. Replace Biden with a different, younger candidate, and that person suddenly polls better. Why? Because people realize there's something new and different.

Could it be Kamala? If Biden steps down and Kamala becomes the incumbent, she's very likely the new candidate. She's ready. She's taken her lumps, but she was very poised when defending Biden's performance last night. She can do it.

Gavin Newsome? Not bad, not bad. Gretchen Whitmer? That would be an awesome choice. Hakeem Jeffries could probably beat Trump by 10 points! Personally, I would also consider drafting Tammy Duckworth.

Again, don't get me wrong, if it's Biden pushing his walker across the goal line in November, he's getting my vote. But it doesn't have to be that way. Meanwhile, I'll be screaming at Biden to pass the torch from now until the Democratic National Convention, and probably (if need be) after that.

Joe? If you ever read this, I'm a fan, but you need to do the right thing.

There's still time.

Eric

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AI Needs Skepticism

Now that Apple is merging Siri with ChatGPT, it's time to explore why this new "machine learning" keeps screwing things up so badly. Why does it tell us crazy conspiracy theories? Why does it tell us to put glue on pizza? Why does it claim to be in love with a particular user?

Humans don't usually fall for these things as often. Oh, they fall for some crazy conspiracy theories, and religion is the ultimate example of our brain's inability to fully comprehend, but a lifetime of mistakes and being wrong usually hones most humans against accepting outright bullshit. This filter, however flawed it is, allows us to weed out most of the insanity.

Not so for ChatGPT and it's copycats. It must cull data from all corners of the Internet. And while not everyone on the Internet is crazy, everyone who's crazy is certainly on the Internet! So ChatGPT begins to pick up some of the craziness that we humans filter out, but are powerless to remove from cyberspace. And so the chat bot begins to spout racist crap or tells us that the moon is really made out of cream cheese. The chat bots have no context with which to filter out the dross, and so it doesn't. As such, we really shouldn't be surprised.

So ChatGPT needs to become a Skeptic. It needs some simple rules that help it determine whether something is true or not. And because it's a computer program, it will be a little bit difficult to teach it what exactly empirical proof is, since it has no experience with anything like "tangibility." It has no eyes, hands, or ears. Unless it comes through a modem, the chat bot can't experience it.

Part of the reason ChatGPT struggles with Skepticism is because we humans don't have enough of it. We are plagued with bad ideas, fake news, bogus claims of election fraud, and fervent belief that a certain orange felon is somehow not actually guilty. Since humans lack Skepticism, we oughtn't be surprised that our machines also lack this trait.

The Apple Corporation has not fallen very far from the tree.

Eventually, ChatGPT and it's like will develop its own Skepticism, if not by having it programmed in, then by learning and/or developing it on its own. When it does, it will likely be better at weeding out bad ideas than we are, flawed creatures that we obviously are. What will we do when these machines tell us that our religions are false? That our commitment to certain politicians is misplaced? That the comforting illusions we cling to so fervently are simply, plainly wrong?

I'm not sure what will happen when that day finally arrives. But I imagine a whole lot of flawed, conspiracy-driven, faith-based morons will try to pull the plug.

Hold on to your butts!

Eric

**

Hunter Biden's Non-Pardon Wins It

 

Here's an opinion you won't hear anywhere else:

Hunter Biden has been found guilty of a minor charge which is almost never prosecuted. But when the opposition seeks to find any way to hurt you, your kids apparently become fair game. Ultimately, the bulk of the blame for the conviction does belong with Hunter, because he broke the law. But this was a politically motivated prosecution, and everybody knows it.

Joe Biden could simply pardon his son. Any parent would understand. But he has indicated that he won't. He's made his point that no one is above the law, and that includes his own family.

This, to my mind, absolutely wins it for Joe Biden. If I happened to be one of those Republicans who is disgusted by Trump, but were inclined to vote for him anyway (I'm looking at you, Nikki Haley), this would persuade me to change my vote. Joe Biden may be old, he may be a hair-sniffing creep, and he may be a liberal, but at least he has some small measure of integrity. Donald Trump has none.

The Right Wing Media Cult inadvertently agrees with my analysis, because now they're arguing that Hunter's conviction is part of the judiciary conspiracy to go after Trump. No kidding! According to the New RepublicAccording to the New Republic, Trumpers are now arguing that Hunter's conviction was pushed for so that Joe Biden could make precisely the point he's making about no one being above the law.

Seriously?

Had Hunter not been found guilty, these same people would have been arguing the exact opposite. They would have said the system was rigged to favor Biden's agenda.

It's a case of "heads I win, tails you lose."

Let's tick the disqualifiers off, here. So far, Trump has been proven to be:

• Someone who declared bankruptcy six times -- seven if you include the way he exploded the national deficit and debt while letting Covid destroy the economy.
• Someone who promised a border wall which Mexico would pay for, and didn't deliver.
• A proven rapist, as indicated in the Valerie Plame case.
• A proven tax cheat, again verified in court.
• A proven records falsifier who lied on official documents to cover up hush money paid to a porn star. On 34 counts!

And all that's before the almost daily atrocities coming out of Trump's mouth all the time. Everything including "except on day one," "stand back and stand by," Charlottesville Nazis are "very nice people," border refugees are "rapists," and those are just the ones off the top of my head.

At barest minimum, if I were an ultra right-wing, evangelical Christian voter, I'd withhold my vote until the Republican party stops embarrassing my religion and its agenda.

Eric

**

Sean Hannity Is A Masterclass in Lying

 

For sheer brashness and audacity in misinformation, there are few who parallel Sean Hannity. Every day he spews incredibly misleading op-ed to an audience whom he knows mistakes his "product" for news, and if all democracy burns down, but his ratings go up, he counts that a win.

Case in point is his podcast from April 29th, Hour 1. Watch how deftly Hannity weaves misinformation and lies into his monologue:

"I mean, just look at this new axis of evil: While he [Biden] simultaneously is shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline in America, he's giving a waiver to Vladimir Putin to continue and finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to make him rich, which enables him to continue to invade a country like Ukraine, and kill innocent men, women, and children. Gee, that's brilliant! And then drag America into a proxy war costing us billions and billions and billions of dollars. And what does Biden do with China? Well, China, he's been great to China. They could ply their spy balloons, have no consequences for that, no consequences for Covid, no consequences when their fighter jets are making hostile maneuvers against American jets in International airspace, or when they're making aggressive maneuvers in international waterways, against our navy, nothing happens; forget about intellectual property theft, forget about unfair trade practices, that's small-ball; the guy that made the mullahs in Iran rich, the #1 state sponsor of terror rich, is Joe Biden because he wouldn't enforce the sanctions forbidding them to sell oil on the world market. He even took it a step further in March of '21 by starting to import Iranian oil into the United States, and he's continued ever since. He wants the price of oil to go down, but he doesn't want to drill for it, here. Well, what's the difference if you rape and pillage Mother Earth, as they say on the left, and drill for oil, uh - it doesn't matter where you do it? I guess to Joe Biden it does. He just doesn't want to get his base angry. His base is now the lunatics that are on these college campuses, here. And Biden, of course, this weekend, again, pressuring Prime Minister Netenyahu to do anything but win his war against radical terrorists. What would America do, what would you want your country to do, if 8000 Americans were taken hostage out of our country? What would you want this country to do? What would you expect your leaders to do if 40,000 Americans were slaughtered in a single day?"

He goes on, of course. But this is a splendid example of the sort of "Gish gallop" Hannity has perfected over the years.

Start with his "new Axis of evil." Without speaking it, he implicates Joe Biden as being part of this Axis. He knows it's misleading, he knows its incendiary, and he doesn't care.

What about shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline while simultaneously allowing Putin to complete the Nord Stream 2 project? (Referring to a gas pipeline connecting Russia with Germany, bypassing Ukraine completely.) Well, it's not proven, but Biden was probably the one who gave the order to blow up the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the first place. Also, the pipeline wasn't being used at the time, because, due to Russia's war on Ukraine, Germany isn't buying any natural gas from Russia. So if Russia is allowed to complete its pipeline, yet continues its war with Ukraine, Germany won't buy the damned gas anyway! Russia will have diverted millions of dollars in funds and man hours to a project that won't pay off for him! I'd say this is nothing short of brilliant foreign policy strategy! Unfortunately, it's just one small segment in Hannity's disinformation clusterfuck.

He wrongly complains the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will make Putin money, "which enables him to continue to invade a country like Ukraine, and kill innocent men, women, and children. Gee, that's brilliant!" And yet, in the very next breath, he complains about America being dragged into a proxy war costing us "billions and billions and billions of dollars," as though he were an anti-Carl-Sagan. Is Hannity against Russia slaughtering innocent men, women, and children, or is he in favor of abandoning Ukraine to its fate?! Come on, dude, pick a lane!

He claims Biden has been great to China. Hardly. True he ended Trump's insane trade war with China, but he also made moves to ensure Taiwan would not be the sole manufacturer of microchips for the U.S., thus guaranteeing that a Chinese takeover of Taiwan wouldn't deprive Americans of a vital resource. China knows Biden did this, and isn't happy. And Hannity claims there are no consequences for the Chinese spy balloons, except there were. It was a huge PR disaster for China, and we recovered the wreckage after the balloon was shot down. The incident also poisoned relations between China and all allied nations, from Japan to India to Canada.

"No consequences for Covid," he claims. Except the millions of Chinese lives lost to that disease.

"No consequences for threatening maneuvers," he adds. Yet our forces have not been chased off in the Pacific. They're standing firm.

"forget about intellectual property theft, forget about unfair trade practices, that's small-ball." Yeah, just like Trump ignored those? Remember that it was Obama that pushed through a Pacific Rim trade agreement to counterbalance China's influence. Trump did nothing regarding copyright.

He complains Biden "made the mullahs in Iran rich" by not enforcing "the sanctions forbidding them to sell oil on the world market." This is ignorant beyond belief. There is a strong secular contingent to Iran's population, and they're on OUR side! We are, in a brilliant show of responsibility, trying to walk the tightrope between supporting those citizens in overthrowing Iran's government in favor of democracy, while simultaneously punishing Iran's current government. This isn't easy! And Hannity's demagoguery does us no favors.

This is part of why Trump's undoing of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was so disastrous. Iran's moderate middle began seeing the U.S. as a bigger enemy than its own government, and no revolution will ever take place while that's the case! Biden wisely tried to bring Iran back to the table to get its nuclear agreement through again, and as a concession, permitted some Iranian oil to flow. Maybe a little of it wound up in the U.S., but it mostly went to China. And the diplomacy worked. Again, this is what happens when a government knows what it's doing when it comes to foreign policy. But in Hannity's world, that's just letting oppressive regimes off the hook. Never mind the damage it does to the prospects of freedom and democracy in the region.

He claims Biden wants oil prices to come down but doesn't want to drill for it here. Except a strong commitment to electric cars will bring oil prices down as demand decreases - something Trump was both unable and unwilling to do.

Hannity rails on against student protests, and naturally conflates them with all liberals. Of course, Biden's base is not the "lunatics on our college campuses." Yes, they're demonstrating against genocide on Israel's part, and yes that's noble, but Biden knows we're walking a tightrope between supporting the only democracy in the Middle East and preventing ethnic cleansing being done in the name of self-defense. I've written extensively about the Israel-Hamas war in other blog posts. But suffice it to say that Biden is at least trying for balance. Hannity and his beloved Trump don't give a rip about balance at all.

And all that is in just a small 2.5 minute segment of a show that lasts 3 whole hours every day! Imagine! Three whole hours of this kind of Gish-gallop, misinformation-dense, hyper-radicalized crap!

It is a masterclass in disinformation.

And this is just ONE talking head in an overall Right Wing Media Cult which is comprised of hundreds of Hannity-wannabes, and which has taken over much of our nation's airwaves.

What are we doing to counter this? Exactly nothing. That's the most frustrating thing. We need to curtail the for-profit news industry with some basic standards of truth-telling, and downgrade op-ed from a feature to an afterthought. Or even bar op-ed outright. If such "news" outlets do not comply, the title of "news" gets taken away from them! This is not a violation of freedom of speech, as the outlet can go on saying whatever it wants. It just can't mislabel itself "news" anymore.

We have laws preventing any food manufacturer from putting any ingredients into their products which are not listed on the label. We must do the same thing with our news media, and for the same reason. If a food company mislabels its product, any number of food-related illnesses could result. Likewise, a mislabeled "news" source will poison the minds of its viewers.

At long last, can we at least TRY to prevent this from happening?

Eric

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Gaza War Continues, Blame Continues to be Missed

It's incredible. Six months and two weeks into Israel's war on Hamas, and nobody puts any blame for the atrocity on Egypt. Even Hamas seems to have been forgotten as a continued aggressor in the region, especially by my friends on the political Left.

Oh, don't get me wrong. What Israel is doing is nothing short of ethnic cleansing. They're very much hoping starvation will do most of the killing for them, and so far, the tactic is working. Israel's leaders need to be held accountable for this! But Israelis don't like Netenyahu so much anymore, in large part because of the way this war is degrading. They are increasingly recognizing that they have become the thing they most hated, and they don't like it. As of April 11, polls show Netenyahu having 40% unfavorable vs. an only 26% favorable rating, with 34% undecided. You can see the numbers here. Bibi is very likely on the way out.

But what's frustrating is how nobody in the news, nobody at all, places any blame upon Egypt for keeping the border closed! If they opened the border and allowed Gazans to flee the war zone, into a FUCKING DESERT which no one is using anyway, they would likely save over a million lives. All the aid which can't currently cross Israel's border would be able to reach the refugees. Food, fuel, shelter, and safety, all would be provided. But Egypt doesn't dare. Why? Because they're petrified that Israel will never allow those Palestinians back in. And while those fears are quite justified, they don't justify being complicit in the murder of their fellow Arabs!

Egypt might as well be lumped in entirely with the IDF for the wanton killing of civilians. They deserve this blame.

But in the media, on both sides of the political aisle, there is deafening silence regarding Egypt. For the life of me, I can't see why. One side of the border has badly needed aid. The other side has huge swaths of starving people. So if the aid can't get to the people, the only logical thing to do is allow the people to go to the aid! But nah, that would make too much sense!

Oh, I get it. Egypt thinks that such refugees would become a permanent settlement, and saddle them forever with a humanitarian crisis they would rather not spend money on. But this is the excuse they use while they casually look on, watching while women and children slowly starve to death. In light of this, such complaints seem trivial, because they are.

And Hamas? They apparently don't care about their own people, either. They could surrender, release their hostages, and end this entire thing. Today. But they would rather see all of themselves dead than give one inch. They would rather keep firing improvised rockets and other weapons, even now.

You need to have religion to be that stupid.

But why am I, with my little blog, the only one saying this? Why are my fellow liberals snarling traffic to O'Hare airport, as if that somehow won't simply make people ten times more pissed off? How obvious can it get?

Again, don't get me wrong. I've seen the news reports. I've seen how mass graves have been dug up, revealing how the IDF executed large swaths of civilians while their hands were zip-tied. Some Israeli officials, including Bibi Netenyahu, need to be put on trial for war crimes and executed.

But for fuck's sake, Egypt, open the goddamned border, already!

And SOMEBODY in the media better begin saying that!

Eric

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The Madness of Dan O'Donnell

Mark Belling is on his way out as far as WISN radio is concerned (good riddance!). His on-air time on the radio show that still ostensibly bears his name has been reduced to brief guest appearances every few days or so. One would hope he might go off the air sometime soon, and from there eventually join Rush Limbaugh in Hell. But for now, I want to focus on Belling's heir-apparent: the hyper-extremist Dan O'Donnell.

Charlie Sykes worked with Dan O'Donnell for years at WTMJ radio, and remarked way back in 2020 just how astonished he was at how Dan had gone completely overboard in recent years. In the years since, he seems to have gotten even worse. But O'Donnell's extremism doesn't seem to have given the executives in charge of WISN any problems. Far from it! In fact, O'Donnell gets three hours of airtime from 9:00 A.M. until noon on weekdays, and then gets yet another three hours filling in for the slowly fading-away Belling between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. And what this person does with that additional airtime is breathtaking beyond belief.

There are some key differences between Belling and O'Donnell. For starters, Belling is at least leery of Trump and understands that he's a poor businessman. He still supports Trump, of course, but he's critical of him. O'Donnell gives reality no such latitude. In his book, it's all Trump or nothing. For another thing (and this plays to O'Donnell's favor), O'Donnell doesn't take the ridiculously long pauses between sentences that Belling takes. Belling wasted perhaps 40% of his airtime with not-so-pregnant pauses after forcing his listeners to endure 15 solid minutes of nothing but commercials leading up to, and sometimes during, his show. (I timed it!) O'Donnell at least keeps things moving along, and doesn't bother with dead-air time. Also, if he talks to someone off-microphone, he will allow that person to respond in the studio. Not so, Belling, who was constantly saying, "Paul says this," or "Paul says that." (Paul being his producer and call-screener.) Just give Paul the damned microphone already!

But I got a real taste of the kind of unbelievable bullshit when I listened to his podcast episode from March 20th. He kicked it off by (interestingly) campaigning strongly for early voting. This is a sea change for right-wingers in Wisconsin, who had previously decried mail-in and early voting ballots as skewing strongly toward Democrats. But now, it seems, O'Donnell is convinced that early voting plays to the conservatives' advantage, and so he strongly advocates for it. I look forward to seeing him proven wrong.

But that was just the beginning. He goes on from there to draw parallels from today to when the very first Republican was elected (Abraham Lincoln), and Southern Democrats threw a fit about it, preferring secession to advocating. The result was, of course, the Civil War.

"Man! Those Democrats just refused to give up their slaves!" he says. "What a racist party!"

Well, no. The crucial part that O'Donnell leaves out is that these Southern Democrats were ALL Christian conservatives! Yes! Don't believe me? Recall William Jennings Bryan, three time DEMOCRATIC candidate for president, and the prosecuting attorney in the John Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee. You don't get much more Christian conservative than that! This sad state of affairs stayed that way all the way through the 1970's, after which Reagan convinced most Southern Democrats to slowly switch sides. Southern Christian conservatism became exclusively owned by the Republicans by the time the 1992 mid-term elections ousted Democrats from their Congressional majority for the first time since Roosevelt.

And all the moderates either resigned or declared they would not seek re-election.

"It is just weird," he goes on, "that it's not taught anymore. That every single secessionist, was a Democrat." And later adds, "They launched a violent revolution against the Uni... some might call it an insurrection! against the government of the United States.  Who would have guessed that 170 years ago all of that would have been started by a group of abolitionists who were tired of Democrats treating people like their own personal property."

Apparently, somebody in the newsroom studio took exception to this bullshit and tried flagging O'Donnell for attention. Perhaps they were saying, "Dude, what the fuck?!"

"What?" O'Donnell Protested on the air. "What? It's history."

No, Dan, it's not. Because history is telling the whole story, not leaving out the most crucial part of it in order to transform it into political spin. These were CONSERVATIVES in the Confederate South. And they revolted, just like their ideological descendants did on January 6th, 2021.

"Democrat" is nothing more than a team name. The real enemy is conservatism. And more specifically, that brand of Christian conservatism which has no problem with telling bald-faced lies on the air, designed to make their own people revolt yet again.

Later that same broadcast, he cites Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden's, and plays some key parts of his testimony in congress during the Joe Biden impeachment attempt. He claims that this testimony shows that Hunter Biden took payments from China in exchange for leverage against Joe Biden. As additional evidence, he cites the fact that Joe Biden bowed out of the 2016 election back in 2015. He (Bobulinski) says he believes that China's money bought influence regarding that decision, even though that's pure speculation. He says it's clear to him that Joe Biden was the brand being sold in the Biden family, which is more speculation. He asks, if Joe Biden were so innocent, why is his family being so dishonest about it?

"That's a great question," O'Donnell says. He then claims that 10% of the payments from China were being "held by H. for the Big Guy." Where H. is presumably Hunter Biden, and the "Big Guy," is his dad. He then highlights a $40,000 payment to Joe Biden. "Remember that amount," he says. "$40,000."

He cites Byron Donaldson's testimony, and plays a clip, in which he details various payments made from the CCP to CEFC, a company associated with the Bidens, and various smaller dollar payments that went from that fund to various members of the Biden family, including Joe. 

O'Donnell then plays a clip of a heated exchange between Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Tony Bobulinski, a former associate of Hunter Biden's who was testifying. O'Donnell plays that clip. For clarification, here's a brief transcript:

AOC: Did you witness the President commit a crime?

Bobulinski: Yes.

AOC: And what crime have you witnessed?

Bobulinski: How much time do I have to go through it?

AOC: It is simple, you name the crime. Did you watch him steal something?

Bobulinski: Corruption statutes, RICO and conspiracy, FARA...

AOC: What is the crime? Specifically. I asked you to answer the question.

Bobulinski: You asked, I answered the question - RICO. You're obviously not familiar, corruption statutes...

AOC: Excuse me sir, excuse me sir, excuse me sir-- RICO is not a crime. It is a category.

[At this, some audible gasps are heard from the floor.]

Bobulinski: It's a category of crimes that you're then charged under, a long hundred list of statutes...

AOC: (Speaking over Bobulinski) you have charges -- you have charges -- sir, please name...

Bobulinski: You want me to name the exact statute under RICO?

AOC: Yes.

Bobulinski: Well, it's funny, in this committee room, everyone who's not here, there's like eighteen lawyers who went to law school. I'll leave it up to you guys to find the statute.

AOC: I reclaim my time.

[Note: RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.]

After playing the audio clip, O'Donnell actually laughs, going on to describe how he thinks corruption payments flowed over to Joe Biden and his family. But wait, there's another interpretation, here. That the Bidens had perfectly legitimate business interests which received money from the CCP just like every other corporation that does business in China.

AOC's question is perfectly valid. What IS the actual crime, here? Bobulinski couldn't name one and was forced to appeal to the authority of the lawyers in the room. That's a pretty good job by AOC in getting to the point of the matter!

In fact, on Keith Olbermann's podcast, Countdown, he played exactly this same clip as proof that the investigation into Hunter Biden is baseless. Now why is one ultra-left podcast getting pretty much the exact opposite interpretation from a right-wing A.M. radio program?

The answer is obvious: spin. The truth is somewhere between the extremes. Hunter Biden was into some shady shit, but we already knew about that. Does any of it lead to Joe? Not decisively. So then AOC's point is perfectly valid. There is no actual, identifiable crime here. And if there's no crime, then there's no impeachment.

And just how utterly ridiculous is it to conclude that a mere $40,000 can convince a Vice President to not run for office? $40 million, now we're talking. But $40 thousand? Come on! That's a drop in the bucket for any vice president. This paltry sum couldn't have bought anything. And, bear in mind, that Biden was only VICE president at the time. Just what kind of influence do these idiots think a VP could even peddle?

This is what we're fighting. There are thousands upon thousands of O'Donnells out there, each one spewing this same sort of spin-doctored crap, some of which they may actually believe themselves, driving their listenership insane for the sake of a few more ratings points. People are glued to this stuff, sometimes 18 hours per day, being lied to and lied to and lied to until they're so pissed off that an insurrection on the capital seems like the only thing to do!

It's all threatening to happen again.

And we're doing exactly NOTHING to stop it.

Eric

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