Hunter Biden guilty

[ex-khobar Andy]

They have just announced the verdict: Hunter Biden is guilty of lying in order to obtain a handgun.

I do have a question. Originally when they brought the charges last summer, he was offered a plea deal which he accepted - he would get no jail time if he copped to the charges and stayed away from drugs.

I know that plea deals always have to be OKed by the judge but it seems like double dipping to me. He is offered the deal - essentially, say you're guilty; say you're sorry; pay the fine; stay off the drugs; and there's an end to it. The judge says no deal - but you've already put your hand up and said yes, I did it.

How can there then be a fair trial?

Regardless - he won't get my vote in November.

[Bicycle Bill]

Regardless - he won't get my vote in November.

I didn't know Hunter was running for any office.

Or are we now overruling the Biblical admonition about how "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (Ezek 18:20 - ASV)?

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

They have just announced the verdict: Hunter Biden is guilty of lying in order to obtain a handgun.

I do have a question. Originally when they brought the charges last summer, he was offered a plea deal which he accepted - he would get no jail time if he copped to the charges and stayed away from drugs.

I know that plea deals always have to be OKed by the judge but it seems like double dipping to me. He is offered the deal - essentially, say you're guilty; say you're sorry; pay the fine; stay off the drugs; and there's an end to it. The judge says no deal - but you've already put your hand up and said yes, I did it.

How can there then be a fair trial?

Regardless - he won't get my vote in November.

In the American criminal justice system, discussions during plea negotiations are not admissible at trial and the jury never hears that the defendant proposed acknowledging guilt in that forum.

That's how there can then be a fair trial.

I hope the judge is merciful to Hunter Biden - he really has been dealt some horrible crap in life and his addiction was gotten honestly by profound childhood trauma and tragic adult loss as well. Frankly I have a lot of sympathy in general toward addicts, especially given all that we have learned via neuroscience in recent decades.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Regardless - he won't get my vote in November.

[Sue U]

Regardless - he won't get my vote in November.

Hunter Biden Suspends Presidential Campaign After Guilty Verdicts

[Burning Petard]

He won't get my vote either. I totally agree with the verdict, but I hate the trial. The whole thing smells of politics over justice.

The BATF has not had a top person for along time. The Trumpers/GOP in congress refuse to validate anybody who is nominated for the job. The staffing budget for the BATF has been cut to the bone, like the Income Tax people. No staff=no enforcement. The GOP principle applies that the goal is to shrink the federal government until it is so small it can be drowned in a bathtub.

I have filled out alot of those forms that Hunter was guilty of filling out wrong. Just above the signature line it says that the signer understands that to check the boxes inaccurately is a federal felony. The dealer looks over the form and if any of the wrong boxes are checked, the dealer just hands the form back and says "Sorry I can't sell to you." If the right boxes are checked, the dealer makes a phone call to some federal office who verifies the information. The potential customer stands around waiting for the return phone call that says yes or no again. If the call-back says there is something wrong here--there is now an individual standing on the other side of the counter who is presumed to have committed a felony by signing that form. BUT, no federal agent EVER says to the person/dealer on the phone 'hold this guy until the FBI or the Marshal Service, or the BATF get there, or call local cops to make an arrest.' That felony is ignored. Rarely does any one get their day in court to dispute it. Any unpleasant consequences of trying to buy a gun from a legal dealer when you are not eligible are close to non-existant, except the dealer loses the sale. This charge against Hunter only came up because he shipped his personal computer from California to the internationally known World's Greatest Apple Computer Technician, then located in Wilmington Delaware and promptly forgot about it. All the stuff the Trumpers talk about--influence peddling, bribes, shady deals with rich businessmen in China or some place else did not stick. This was the only thing that had a connection with real evidence beyond castles in the sky assembled from moonbeams.

So yes, I am not voting for Hunter Biden, any more than I would have voted for Billy Carter. Snailgate.

[Joe Guy]

After reading the comments here I think I will vote for Hunter Biden. I’m not all that excited about the current candidates.

[Big RR]

I hope the judge is merciful to Hunter Biden - he really has been dealt some horrible crap in life and his addiction was gotten honestly by profound childhood trauma and tragic adult loss as well.

While I understand your point BSG, I really cannot feel that sorry for him. Sure he was touched by death, but then many of us did't have the ideal childhood. He went to some of the best schools, had a prmoinent father (that I am sure helped him get in, and didn't have the big debt many of us had afterwards). And he never had to have concern from where his next meal came from, or sleep in the car after an eviction. Hell, his father pulled strings for him to get him access to government officials for a job. And still he became an addict. I don't know what sort of guy he was, but, at best, I think he was like W, a ne'er do well who would rather use his money for drugs than to help people, and who always thought he deserved more. Even his lying in the application is proof of this--what the hell did he need a gun for when he knew the law prevented him from getting one? A Yale law graduate should know how to fill out a simple form, but he wasn't like the rest of the people--he was entitled. I've known too many people who were just like him in my life and while I applaud his getting off drugs, I think his sense of entitlement is showing.

Personally, I feel bad for joe having a son like him.

[liberty]

I suspect Hunter Biden is still a drug addict and the old fart maybe too; that would explain a lot of the damage he has done to this country.
It might be the fault is cocaine's not Biden's he's never responsible for anything. If you give your children everything you might as well give them poison because you're killing them. Children should learn to be self-reliant and disciplined at an early age. I know that's an anti-literal sentiment, but that's what I really believe; if one grows up with a sense of entitlement you only can expect trouble.

[Bicycle Bill]

I suspect Hunter Biden is still a drug addict and the old fart maybe too; that would explain a lot of the damage he has done to this country.

On what evidence do you base that scurrilous claim?
And just saying — If that were to be the case, then at least he's got an excuse, flimsy as it may be.   What has your boy have to fall back and hide behind other than the fact that he's bug-fuggin' nuts?

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

I hope the judge is merciful to Hunter Biden - he really has been dealt some horrible crap in life and his addiction was gotten honestly by profound childhood trauma and tragic adult loss as well.

While I understand your point BSG, I really cannot feel that sorry for him. Sure he was touched by death, but then many of us did't have the ideal childhood. He went to some of the best schools, had a prmoinent father (that I am sure helped him get in, and didn't have the big debt many of us had afterwards). And he never had to have concern from where his next meal came from, or sleep in the car after an eviction. Hell, his father pulled strings for him to get him access to government officials for a job. And still he became an addict. I don't know what sort of guy he was, but, at best, I think he was like W, a ne'er do well who would rather use his money for drugs than to help people, and who always thought he deserved more. Even his lying in the application is proof of this--what the hell did he need a gun for when he knew the law prevented him from getting one? A Yale law graduate should know how to fill out a simple form, but he wasn't like the rest of the people--he was entitled. I've known too many people who were just like him in my life and while I applaud his getting off drugs, I think his sense of entitlement is showing.

Personally, I feel bad for joe having a son like him.

I know you've worked with abused and neglected (i.e., traumatized) children, so I'm rather surprised by this attitude. I can only think that you have not kept up on the emerging science over the last three decades concerning trauma response in the human brain and the links between that and mental illness of all kinds, including substance use and behavior disorders. Being wealthy and having access to privilege means nothing to the brain, unless you are stuck in the cement of thinking that people have 'willpower' that is capable of transcending the incredibly strong biological drive of our endocrine system, or that substance and behavior disorders are the result of a 'character flaw' - neither is true.

I admit it is a delicate balance to hold the addict in compassion whilst also acknowledging the damage done to those around them - you're talking to the abused child of an addict, after all - but I do hope someday we move beyond the fixation on fault and blame. I don't believe that Joe Biden for one moment agrees with your sentiment, other than that it would be lovely if we lived in a world where addiction never happened to anyone's child. I think parents in particular should never point fingers and sit in their privilege, because addictions can take hold at any age and just because one's kids are okay through young adulthood doesn't mean their lives won't fragment in middle age and that addiction won't be part of it. No whistling past graveyards is my advice.

[Big RR]

BSG--again, I agree that addiction can happen to anyone at any time in life, but you were the one who brought up his early trauma/loss as a "reason" behind the addiction. However, when someone is raised is what is, by all appearances, a good and loving home with many advantages, I just don't see the connection. When I have seen children overcome serious neglect and abuse issues and become well adjusted adults, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone like Hunter. I know it is my problem, but I just don't buy the "affluenza" crap some dish out as an excuse for his behavior; I still think Hunter is more of a self-centered adult who thinks he deserves more than the rest, and then blames others when he does not get it. He deserves treatment and a chance to do better, but, like the kids who rose above horrible childhoods, he has to take the responsibility to work toward it. This guy has had advantages most could only dream of and yet pisses it all away again and again.

In the instant situation, I think a Yale law school graduate would know he couldn't qualify for gun ownership, yet he went ahead and lied to get one. I think one thing a lot of people have to learn is that choices have consequences; I don't think he deserves 25 years in jail, but it is something he needs to learn.

Like you, I have had both alcoholism and drug abuse in my family and have found there are two different types of addicts--the ones who play the victim and say they cannot do anything (and they never recover), and those who fight against it (who may recover); but ultimately it comes down to the individual. Sure, some people are ensnared by actions that are not entirely their fault (like those who became addicted to oxycontin and then heroin), others make the choice to begin, but each day is a new day where you have to make the choice again. I've seen people turn their lives around by making the choice to get treatment and stop (even if they still have to live with the consequences of what they did) and others who do not. Willpower is not the answer, but until you choose to stop, you never will.

Again, I do not know Hunter, but from what I have seen I think he is someone who blames others for the mess his life is in and thinks he deserves more (like ownership of a gun) because he is "better". He may be a nice guy for all I know, but he causes untold problems for people who care about him, and does so again and again. One thing I will agree about, however, is that Joe Biden does not agree--by all accounts he loves his son inspite of his behavior, and, no doubt, it causes him a lot of pain.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I know that's an anti-literal sentiment, but that's what I really believe

lit·er·al /ˈlidərəl,ˈlitrəl/
adjective: literal; adjective: literal-minded
1. taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.

Lib finally confesses. He really really really believes in not using words in their usual or most basic sense.

[BoSoxGal]

BSG--again, I agree that addiction can happen to anyone at any time in life, but you were the one who brought up his early trauma/loss as a "reason" behind the addiction. However, when someone is raised is what is, by all appearances, a good and loving home with many advantages, I just don't see the connection. When I have seen children overcome serious neglect and abuse issues and become well adjusted adults, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone like Hunter. I know it is my problem, but I just don't buy the "affluenza" crap some dish out as an excuse for his behavior; I still think Hunter is more of a self-centered adult who thinks he deserves more than the rest, and then blames others when he does not get it. He deserves treatment and a chance to do better, but, like the kids who rose above horrible childhoods, he has to take the responsibility to work toward it. This guy has had advantages most could only dream of and yet pisses it all away again and again.

In the instant situation, I think a Yale law school graduate would know he couldn't qualify for gun ownership, yet he went ahead and lied to get one. I think one thing a lot of people have to learn is that choices have consequences; I don't think he deserves 25 years in jail, but it is something he needs to learn.

Like you, I have had both alcoholism and drug abuse in my family and have found there are two different types of addicts--the ones who play the victim and say they cannot do anything (and they never recover), and those who fight against it (who may recover); but ultimately it comes down to the individual. Sure, some people are ensnared by actions that are not entirely their fault (like those who became addicted to oxycontin and then heroin), others make the choice to begin, but each day is a new day where you have to make the choice again. I've seen people turn their lives around by making the choice to get treatment and stop (even if they still have to live with the consequences of what they did) and others who do not. Willpower is not the answer, but until you choose to stop, you never will.

Again, I do not know Hunter, but from what I have seen I think he is someone who blames others for the mess his life is in and thinks he deserves more (like ownership of a gun) because he is "better". He may be a nice guy for all I know, but he causes untold problems for people who care about him, and does so again and again. One thing I will agree about, however, is that Joe Biden does not agree--by all accounts he loves his son inspite of his behavior, and, no doubt, it causes him a lot of pain.

I guess we really couldn’t test your theory unless we had you, at a very tender age, be seriously injured in a car crash and then trapped in the vehicle with your seriously injured brother and the bodies of your mangled dead mother and mangled dead little sister and then see how that trauma manifested itself in your life once the pressures of adulthood and a dying brother came to bear.


The lack of compassion for someone who suffered that kind of trauma in early childhood is - kinda gross. As to your repeated assertion that coming from a good and loving home with material advantages should immunize someone against trauma and addiction - that’s just nonsensical. You seem entrenched in the Puritanical mindset that equates substance and behavioral disorders with poverty and low character - to be expected from those people but not a nice white boy with a Senator father, no matter what horrible traumas he might have experienced like watching his mother and sister die and then watching his brother die as well.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I know it is my problem, but I just don't buy the "affluenza" crap some dish out as an excuse for his behavior; I still think Hunter is more of a self-centered adult who thinks he deserves more than the rest, and then blames others when he does not get it. He deserves treatment and a chance to do better, but, like the kids who rose above horrible childhoods, he has to take the responsibility to work toward it.

Could have saved your breath for your porridge Big RR. Proving detail (and even admitting possible bias or error) cannot protect you from mischaracterization of your words.

"I don't see that tragic moment (the car accident) as necessarily resulting in behaviors that lent themselves to addiction," Hunter wrote in his book. "But I do have a better understanding of why I feel the way I do sometimes."

After years of struggling with alcohol - that is, drinking too much despite interventions, rehab and so on - he took up cocaine habitually in 2016 (though he'd tried it earlier). A 46-year-old man made a choice - cocaine. I sympathize with his problem but recognize that he was responsible for it - not anyone else.

[Big RR]

Who has a lack of compassion for Hunter, BSG; I feel bad for the choices he made and for the events that may or may not have influenced them, but I also have a great deal of compassion for those that his behaviors hurt and do not excuse the results of those choices.

You seem entrenched in the Puritanical mindset that equates substance and behavioral disorders with poverty and low character

Please, that's just ridiculous; I won't even justify it with an answer. anymore than I would say anyone who experienced a serious trauma while growing up, and then lost a sibling as an adult was doomed to drug addiction. But I will say people brought up in a loving family with good advantages have a pretty good chance to avoid it.

[ex-khobar Andy]

In the end you do your best raising a kid but there are just too many influences - nature / nurture - on that kid's character to put all the blame on parenting. I spent a good part of yesterday commiserating with a friend whose son has turned into an asshole (AFAIK drugs and alcohol are not a factor) despite his growing up in (what seemed to me, from afar, to be) a loving, albeit single mother, household.

We are all amateurs at what is perhaps the most important function we have. We have our own parents as examples of course. I remember speaking at my father's funeral and saying what great parents they had been. Afterwards, my mother told me that they had always thought that they had been poor parents - my father focused on his career too much, they had been absent for so much of our lives (working overseas, we were at boarding school) and so on - and I, who had at the time about 15 years of parenting experience, said that the mere fact that they questioned their own parenting ability put them in a very select group. We live nowadays in a binary world - if you are not X you must be Y - but it's possible (in my case) that both things are true. My parents, recognizing their own inadequacies in that department, placed us in boarding schools which did have the relevant skills - and that makes them exemplars of outstanding child-raising ability. I can live with shades of grey (or gray if you prefer).

And, to bring this around to politics again which after all is the title of this forum, I'll give you another example. I can be horrified at the actions of Hamas on October 7 last year and at the same time be appalled by IDF activity in Gaza. Again - I can tolerate shades of grey.

[Big RR]

I agree Andy; there are really no perfect parents; and most of us have seen two children raised in the same family at the same time turn out quite differently. Children are not computers who do the same thing when "programmed" the same way--and all any of us can do is our best. In my case, there are things I have done to emulate my parents parenting style, and other things I have avoided. I imagine my kids will do the same thing. And I have said before, some kids thrive inspite of poor parenting, and others have problem after problem despite the best efforts. But ultimately each of us is responsible for our own behavior.

I recall an Irish proverb:

To each is given a book of rules
A formless rock, and a set of tools
From which each must make, ere his time has flown
A stumbling block, or a stepping stone

[Burning Petard]

Yes, that little poem is correct. And for some that rule book is printed in a language they cannot understand and has pages torn out.
The rock may be granite or sandstone and the set of tools broken, or worn out. But each lives their own life and each is remembered, also in varied ways. Everybody knows Bucephalus but nobody knows the name or even the name of the owner, of the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem

snailgate.

[Big RR]

Indeed, BP. Everyone has different challenges.