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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Read my response to Rov Scam? There is a lot of caselaw (see what I cited) distinguishing between a gift and payment for services that results in taxable income. Assuming Joe is being paid as part of the influence peddling scheme, then the transferor (ie Hunter) isn’t giving Joe the money just because Joe is his dad but is giving him the money due to the business arrangement. Accordingly that means the payment is not a gift but is actually income.

Assuming Joe is being paid as part of the influence peddling scheme

Well, that is a pretty big assumption. And, I said: "The prior is low because actual corrupt people who have served as a US Senator for 40 years make a lot more income than he did." Your response is "well, if you assume he was part of a influence peddling scheme, his true income was higher." But whether he is corrupt is the question at hand; that assumption assumes the conclusion. So, yes, if you already "know" the answer, all evidence to the contrary is supposedly false or actually supports your conclusion. But you don't know the answer.

You said we shouldn’t expect Joe Biden to be corrupt because he has a low amount of income. My retort was you are basing low amount of income because of what Biden reported. If Joe Biden’s expenses are paid by Hunter (consistent with what Hunter claims in the email) then of course Joe’s low amount of reported income is not predictive at all of whether Biden is corrupt. That is, what you are basing your prior off of is questionable because of the known arrangement. Neither of us can prove it either way right now but it isn’t fair to use a highly questionable prior to make a Bayesian judgement here.

My comment about tax fraud is to say that it’s possible Biden has committed more crime than merely influence peddling.

it isn’t fair to use a highly questionable prior to make a Bayesian judgement here.

With all due respect, that is what you are doing.