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To metaphorically do in America, what Mussolini had done in Agro Pontino, would be a big task. To do it in an unfair manner is trivial, and there exist sufficient precedent, but doing it justly requires institutions uncaptured by partisans.
Trump was indicted in what many considered, in the absense of prosecution of Bidens or Clintons, selective enforcement. That a thorough investigation of Donald would probably discover he violated some statue would be admitted by many of his supporters, but they would add that so did other polticians of his rank but who didn't
But now news has come in Biden's son has been indicted for a second time (first was for gun possesion) for evading 1.4M USD (14.6M SEK) of federal taxes. Despite being filed in today the stronghold of Democrats, the inditement pulls no punches in describing Hunter's lifestyle, claiming that he spent money on "drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes".
With this step family members of important politicians of both American political parties are facing justice. Perhaps Hunter knows more than he lets on and it will be both candidates for US president in 2020 who are suspects. In such a case the US could said to be a tragic country if criminality is so common in the ruling classes, a democratic one if no one is above the law, or an oligarchic one if there exist factions divorced from democratic oversight able and willing to besmirch beyond repair the reputation of any politician.
But if the middle option is true, and this the few unrighteous in high places made low due to their unrighteousness (and not for coming into conflict with the deep state), the metaphorical Wermacht is always a danger. A former ally of amelioration and reclamation now undoing the hard work for short-term gains. This role could be played by judges finding guilty politicians innocent due to having political opinions similar to those accused, temporarily strengthening their party but in the long term promote rot in the republic.
I've long believed that if Hunter had any decency at all, he would go to his dad and demand to go to prison. Even if, by some absurdity, he was factually innocent. The best thing he can do for his father, his family, his country, is to go to prison. Take the rap on tax stuff, get two years, read the Bible cover to cover and lift weights. Most Americans don't actually find tax fraud morally disqualifying anyway.
Then Joe can get up and give a speech about how in America no one is above the law, his son made mistakes and he's going to pay for them.
Assuming the Bidens would live it down, how do you do this without providing subpoena power to people who would discover links between Hunter's fraud and the Big Guy
(for you)?The link appears to be that Joe pressured Hunter into giving him some of his earnings, likely to prevent Hunter from immediately spending it all on hookers and blow. I realize that might seem overly sympathetic; Joe has likely been about as corrupt as the average long-standing machine Democrat, but he hasn’t displayed a particular desire to get rich outside of office relative to more ambitious politicians, and Hunter’s income is nothing compared to what Joe could have made after he left office in 2016 if he really wanted to pursue significant wealth.
It doesn’t make sense for Joe to delegate his corruption to Hunter; even as ex-VP he could make more in a single speech than Hunter was making in a year.
Will it come out that 10% of Hunter's earnings were going into a nice managed fund that paid out $X/mo to Hunter?
Well, it certainly seems more likely than Joe using the single most incompetent person in his life to profit from his position in an unbelievably inefficient manner.
Sorry, I realized as I was framing that last post it has an annoying tone-of-voice, especially since I licked an argument with you in a different thread, so I ended up fixing the end but not the beginning.
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This is the same Joe Biden who washed out in the 1988 Democratic presidential primary because he plagiarized his campaign speeches. I suppose there are lots of possible interpretations of what the Bidens have been up to, some worse than others, but I think it's pretty plausible that Joe did not behave all that smartly. Especially when you consider that, throughout his Vice-Presidency, it was assumed that Hillary would be the next president, and nothing Biden could reasonably get up to wiuld possibly matter.
I suspect ‘grabbing as much of his money as he’ll let you get away with and sticking it in an account you control access to’ is a standard play for upper class families dealing with a failson, and as noted elsewhere Joe hasn’t displayed Clinton or even Obama level grifting to get rich; in general he seems to be basically content once he’s ensured he has a nice lifestyle and the same for his immediate family. It just seems a lot more plausible that this was a roundabout way to set up a custodial account than that it was legit collecting otkat.
He set up Hunter to collect the otkat, then he took some of the resulting money. That's "legit collecting otkat", even if he was doing it for Hunter's benefit.
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