New Hunter Biden Scandal Involving Foreign Money, Joe Trails Trump in 1st Poll, Taliban and China Buddy Up, Can Landlords Steal Your Fingerprints? (The Five for 05/10/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Before we dive in…just a heads up that my wife, Amanda’s painting schedule is filling up, but you can still grab a fine arts portrait of a loved one starting at $199 (her typical rates are $599-$2,000).
Amanda is offering a discount because she needs a couple more examples for her website. You can browse her Instagram to get a better feel for her style.
To book a portrait, email sethtowerhurd@gmail.com or text 314.580.3719. Delivery is 3-8 weeks. Shipping, if needed, may be extra.
You can also catch Amanda’s work at the Angard Arts Hotel in St. Louis, from June-August.
And on that note…let’s dive into the news.
[one]
President Biden’s son, Hunter, is again being accused of taking foreign money to pedal influence on the international stage.
NBC News reports:
The memo provides limited details about the Biden family’s alleged business dealings with foreign nationals. It alleges that the Biden family and associates’ activities in Romania “bear clear indicia of a scheme to peddle influence from 2015 to 2017,” alleging that while Biden was vice president, his son Hunter received through an associate more than $1 million from a company controlled by a Romanian official accused of corruption.
The memo also says the Biden family and associates' “activities in coordination with Chinese nationals and their corporate entities appear to be an attempt to engage in financial deception.” The memo reiterates previous allegations that Comer made against Hunter Biden in his memo released in March, in which the committee chairman alleged that the president’s son and at least two relatives were paid $1.3 million from an associate of Hunter Biden who had been wired $3 million from a Chinese energy company that was affiliated with another company Hunter Biden had been doing business with.
It’s worth noting that, at this point, these allegations are simply accusations put forth by Biden’s political opponents, and both Joe and Hunter deserve the same as all Americans—presumed innocence until proven guilt.
It’s also worth noting that Hunter Biden likes to smoke crack, know prostitutes in the Biblical sense (and filming said activities—and paying $30K over 5 months for the privilage)), and combine those two pastimes for weeks on end, and misplace laptops which could contain sensitive information along the way. (He lost or discarded three on an 18 day bender in Vegas, hopping penthouses).
Could a guy like that take money under the table? Ummm…yeah.
The elder Biden, however, is not distancing himself from his troubled son. The pair recently traveled to Ireland together on a diplomatic tour.
[two]
Well, I didn’t see that one coming. A new ABC/Washington Post poll has former President Trump up by 7% on Biden.
In both 2016 and 2020, polls under-represented Donald Trump’s support (even when Trump lost, polls predicted a bigger win for Biden than actually happened).
It’s worth noting this poll was conducted BEFORE the news broke that President Biden’s son Hunter could face multiple criminal charges.
[three]
Oh good. Two countries that would REALLY love to blow up the U.S. are even better friends.
China and the Taliban have discussed plans to bring Afghanistan into the Belt and Road infrastructure project as Beijing looks to boost investment in the crisis-hit country.
China’s foreign minister Qin Gang held talks on Saturday in Pakistan with Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and his Pakistan counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as part of the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral foreign ministers’ dialogue.
The trio discussed security and trade while Afghanistan also said it “hopes to strengthen co-operation with China in . . . infrastructure development within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative”, according to China’s foreign ministry. Since ousting the Nato-backed government in 2021 after two decades of war, the Taliban have courted global powers including China and Russia for investment to shore up the crumbling economy and ease the regime’s international isolation.
This includes efforts to attract Chinese infrastructure investment to connect Afghanistan with neighbours, such as Pakistan, through the BRI.
Beijing has invested billions in Pakistan through the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an under-construction network of roads, trains and ports, which is ultimately expected to be worth up to $60bn. “The idea is to engage Afghanistan in economic activity that has already linked China and Pakistan together,” a Pakistani official told the Financial Times.
China’s Belt and Road initiative has now spread to more than 150 countries and organizations as a way for the Communist dictatorship to buy friends internationally.
[four]
Wait, landlords want to own your face and fingerprints now?
Brooklyn resident Fabian Rogers knew he had to act in 2018 when his penny-pinching landlord suddenly attempted to install a facial recognition camera in the entrance of a rent-stabilized building he’d called home for years. Under the new security system, all tenants and their loved ones would be forced to submit to a face scan to enter the building. The landlord, like many others, tried to sell the controversial tech as a safety enhancement, but Rogers told Gizmodo he saw it as a sneaky attempt to jack up prices in a gentrifying area and force people like him out.
“They were trying to find ways to expedite ways of flushing people out of the building and then try to market new flipped-over apartments to gentrifiers,” Rogers told Gizmodo.
Rogers says he tried to speak out against what he saw as an invasive new security measure but quickly realized there weren’t any laws on the books preventing his landlord from implementing the technology. Instead, he and his tenant association had to go on a “muckraking tour” attacking the landlord’s reputation with an online shame campaign. Remarkably, it worked. The exhausted landlord backed off. Rogers now advocates against facial recognition on the state and national levels.
Despite his own success, Rogers said he’s seen increasing efforts by landlords in recent years to deploy facial recognition and other biometric identifiers in residential buildings. A first-of-its-kind law discussed during a fiery New York City Council hearing Wednesday, however, seeks to make that practice illegal once and for all. Rogers spoke in support of the proposed legislation, as did multiple city council members.
I’m unclear as to how a landlord could use such technology to force tenants to move, but it certainly feels like an invasion of privacy for a business to take your fingerprints and facial scan under threat of losing your home.
[five]
And finally…people are not that into electric vehicles.
In March, 21% of new-vehicle shoppers said they were “very unlikely” to consider an EV, up from 18.9% in February and 17.8% in January, consumer analytics firm JD Power said in a monthly EV report. In contrast, the percentage of car shoppers who say they are “very likely” to consider an EV was 26.9% in March, largely flat this year.
Persistent worries about charging infrastructure and vehicle pricing’s dampening enthusiasm, the report said. EV’s market share of all new-vehicle sales dropped to 7.3% in March, down from a record high of 8.5% in February but up from 2.6% in February 2020.
“Many new vehicle shoppers are becoming more adamant about their decision to not consider an EV for their next purchase,” JD Power said.
The lack of public charging infrastructure and price have consistently topped the reasons for the past 10 months, JD Power said.
Other reasons people cited for not wanting to buy an EV: range anxiety; time required to charge; power outage and grid concerns; lack of servicers for repairs and maintenance; and inadequate performance in extreme temperatures.
Even high-profile initiatives like “Walmart’s plan to dramatically expand its charging network and Tesla’s announcement it would open some of its supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles have apparently had little effect on these consumer concerns, at least so far,” JD Power said.
Until the next one,
-sth