Yesterday, a federal court jury convicted President Joe Biden’s son Hunter for lying on a federal form that he was not an addict when he purchased a .38 Colt revolver shortly after doing 11 days in a drug rehab facility.
From what all I read in online news media and saw on TV news media, Hunter’s defense was (a) he wasn’t using drugs when he bought the gun and wrote on the federal form that he was not and addict, and (b) Amendment 2 of the U.S. Constitution allows a drug addict to buy a gun and overrides the federal disclosure form Hunter signed. The US District Court trial judge ruled against Hunter on the Amendment 2 argument, and the jury ruled against Hunter on the he was not an addict when he wrote on the federal from that he was not an addict.
This old lawyer, who clerked for a United States District Judge that presided over ever federal criminal prosecution in north Alabama, sez only the blind, death and dumb can't see that the federal prosecution of Hunter Biden is a tempest in a teapot, which never would have gone to trial if it was anyone but the son of the president of the United States of America. If it was anyone else, it would have been settled with a plea deal years ago, with the defendant being put on probation- or nothing would have happened, because the defendant didn’t do anything with the gun after he bought it, and a US Attorney would have had far more important matters to address.
I’ll back up and start over.
The federal prosecution of Hunter by a US Attorney appointed by President Donald Trump, presided over by a United States District Judge appointed by President Donald Trump, ABSOLUTELY GUTS the argument made over and over by convicted felon Donald Trump and his legions of MAGA and Republican lemmings that the United States Department of Justice is PARTISAN in favor of the Democrats.
President Biden saying he will not pardon Hunter and President Biden never attacking the trial judge, prosecutors, prosecution witnesses, jury, etc., and saying he respects the rule of law and the federal criminal justice system and jury’s verdict, puts him in an entirely different universe from the convicted felon Donald Trump, who clearly believes he is immune to the law.
Donald Trump is an unnatural disaster.
As is President Biden, for his continued financial and arms aid to Israel in its war in Gaza.
Hunter Biden proved that he, too, is an unnatural disaster.
Here’s how.
Hunter knew darn well that a drug addict should not buy a gun, and he didn’t need his former vice president father to tell him that.
When Hunter left the rehab facility and bought a gun, he proved to the whole wide world that he was nuts, dangerous and depraved. If you don’t believe me, ask any old timer in Narcotics Anonymous.
When Hunter left the drug rehab facility and bought the gun, he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. If you don’t believe me, ask any old timer in Narcotic Anonymous.
When Hunter was caught and prosecuted by the Feds and he didn’t admit his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the federal judicial justice system and spare his loved ones and his very prominent American family what they would publicly endure, he proved he cares only about himself. If you don’t believe me, ask any old timers in Narcotics anonymous.
If President Biden has not figured out that Hunter cares only about himself and got from the jury what he deserved, then President Biden is not fit to be President of the United States of America, because his eyes, ears, mind and heart are broken beyond repair.
But we already knew that from how President Biden dealt with Israel after he saw what Israel was doing in Gaza. That is not to give Hamas a free pass, but is to not give President Biden a free pass, which he gave himself, and that’s another reason he is not fit to be president of the United States of America.
We also know, because there is no other possible explanation, that Hunter got very rich via business dealings in Ukraine and Red China because of his vice-president and president father, and that’s another reason his father is not fit to be president of the United States of America.
Any Republican or MAGA, who has not yet figured out that Donald Trump is no different from Hunter Biden, but on a much larger scale, is just as insane and incorrigible as Donald Trump, Hunter Biden and his father.
If you don’t believe me, go into your prayer closet and stay there until you hear God’s VERDICT, which was in my Apple newsfeed this morning:
The HillPaul Ryan says he won’t vote for Trump: ‘I’m gonna write in a Republican’BY TARA SUTER - 05/08/24 9:35 AM ETFormer House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that he does not plan to vote for former President Trump in November, suggesting he would write in another candidate instead.
“Character is too important to me,” Ryan, who left Congress in 2019, told Yahoo Finance at the Milken Global Institute Conference. “And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.”“Having said that, I really disagree with [President Biden] on policy,” he added. “I wrote in a Republican the last time, I’m gonna write in a Republican this time.”
Ryan, the head of the Republican House majority during Trump’s first two years in the White House, has became a vocal critic of the former president. He has argued that Trump is not a “conservative” but rather an “authoritarian narcissist,” and backed former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for standing up to the former president.
“Historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, makes him feel good in any given moment,” Ryan said in an interview late last year.
“He doesn’t think in classical liberal conservative terms,” he continued at the time. “He thinks in an authoritarian way, and he’s been able to get a big chunk of the Republican base to follow him because he’s the culture warrior.”
The former Speaker has also stated it is “really clear” that Biden won the 2020 election, despite the former president and his allies’ common claims to the contrary.
“It was not rigged. It was not stolen,” Ryan said in an interview in 2021. “Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear.”Ryan left Congress after serving 20 years representing Wisconsin’s 1st District. He was also Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) running mate in the 2012 presidential election.
Romney, who announced in September that he will retire from the Senate at the end of his term, has also recently emerged as a strong critic of the former president.The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Meanwhile, if you are wondering what’s really going on in Hamas, read this VERY TARDY CNN finally got some of the shit out of its eyes and ears wake up call in my Apple newsfeed this morning::
CNNHamas gambled on the suffering of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu played right into it
7:01 PM EDT June 11, 2024
Yahya Sinwar has so far survived eight months of Israeli’s brutal military campaign to kill him. His longevity is a personal victory for the Hamas leader – and increasingly appears to be grim vindication of his decision to seize the initiative in the generational Palestinian struggle with Israel by launching a bloody attack on October 7 that would plunge Gaza’s two million residents into a predictable hell.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his military responded as expected to Sinwar’s onslaught of terror that killed more than 1,200 people and saw over 220 taken hostage, declaring war and vowing to destroy Hamas.
Predictably too, according to many regional diplomats, Israel’s military campaign is failing to deliver on the dismantling of Hamas, even as the number of Palestinians killed soars past 36,000. While Hamas is people and structures, they argue, it is also an ideology.
Now Sinwar – who speaks fluent Hebrew and has a nuanced knowledge of Israeli politics – believes he still has the war’s initiative, amid high-stakes bargaining with Israel for a ceasefire and hostage deal.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” he is said to have told other Hamas leaders, in leaked messages reported by The Wall Street Journal. He appeared to justify the deaths of Palestinian civilians as a “necessary sacrifice” according to the messages.
If this were a conventional war, it would be easy to write Sinwar off as deluded; Israel has the upper hand by far in conventional weapons. But the weapons’ devastating effectiveness is becoming a liability in this asymmetric conflict, and against the backdrop of a tortured history that Sinwar is adroitly weaponizing against Israel.
Because of the enormous civilian casualties and suffering inflicted by Israel in its pursuit of Hamas, Netanyahu now faces a possible arrest warrant for war crimes from the ICC, the world’s top court – just like Sinwar. And the consequences for Netanyahu are far more serious than for Hamas’ leader, because Sinwar is already a renowned terrorist hiding in a tunnel with limited prospects and Netanyahu is a global leader whose world will dramatically shrink if the ICC issues warrants.
Netanyahu dismisses the ICC as anti-Semitic, but that hasn’t neutralized the damage in the court of international opinion. Meanwhile, Sinwar can sit back and cash in on the international anger over Palestinian suffering.
Wind in Sinwar’s sails
Earlier this year, university campuses across the United States and Europe combusted in spontaneous protest over the toll of Israel’s war on civilians in Gaza, where humanitarians warn of a growing hunger crisis.
For the first time, a generation of Palestinian were able to witness what they’d always hoped for, a potent political force able to rival what they’ve always perceived as an over loud, over pervasive and over powerful lobby for Israeli interests.
In any other year this may have been irrelevant, but Biden’s back is to the wall in the upcoming US presidential election. He has pledged unwavering support to Israel and continues to send weapons to Israel’s military, but if he stays the course, Biden risks losing vital votes in swing states from a new generation of left-leaning Democrats. He can’t ignore the protesters’ anger about Gaza’s plight.
T his puts wind in Sinwar’s political sails. His negotiating team has gotten tougher: first appearing to be on the verge of compromise, then holding out for a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. He also appears to have brought the reality of a Palestinian state closer too – a political coup following decades of stultifying inertia.
US regional allies, notably Saudi Arabia, have set an “irreversible” path to a two-state solution as part of their price for buy-in to help Gaza rebuild. And while Netanyahu’s far-right ministers predictably say no to Palestinian statehood, some Western partners are showing they’re fed up with Israeli intransigence.
In recent weeks, Ireland, Spain, Norway and Portugal, all frustrated Netanyahu won’t agree a peace deal, have formally recognized Palestinian statehood. The statements mark a remarkable departure from their previously cautious approach to Netanyahu’s belligerence.
Israel has lashed out against the four European nations, but this doesn’t sting Sinwar. He is able to hunker down deep below Gaza and relish the hell he has unleashed above and the repercussions he gambled on.
Hamas’s ideology thrives under the current Israeli attacks, precisely because it was born of, and nurtured on, that very narrative. The war Sinwar started has taken Palestinian suffering to the next level – and Netanyahu has played right into it.
None of this means Sinwar will be winning a popular vote in Gaza during his lifetime, however long or short that may be. But the enormous bloodshed he precipitated has allowed him to tap into global moral outrage. He is now playing the Democratic world against itself, and his tools are the very values that developed nations hold sacrosanct: sanctity of life and fair play.
From a position of apparent weakness, he tries to turn every apparent disadvantage to advantage. On the cusp of Israel’s imminent Rafah operation, he tried to stall it by claiming to accept an Egyptian peace deal that he said Israel had accepted – with his officials briefing details of the mechanics and timings of how hostage releases would work.
As expected, the tactic spun up already febrile Israeli street protest against Netanyahu to a new level. Demonstrators demanded Netanyahu forestall the Rafah operation in favor of a seemingly tantalizingly close hostage release deal.
Who’s calling the shots in Gaza
According to regional diplomats, many of Sinwar’s power plays were entirely predictable. Decades of Israeli failure to address Palestinians’ security and economic concerns outside of Israel’s perceived interests set the table for Sinwar’s challenge, and what he could expect to achieve.
Sinwar’s power amid the war seems to be becoming part of the perceived wisdom about Gaza and the war. In Israel on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “I don’t think anyone other than the Hamas leadership in Gaza actually are the ones who can make decisions.”
E ven if Sinwar were inclined to solicit input from Hamas’s well-heeled leadership cadre sitting in the comfort of Doha, and meeting leaders in Iran and Turkey, the likelihood they can bridge the gaps in their thinking through detailed discussion is almost nil. Unfettered communication away from Israel’s prying ears and eyes is impossible.
In the final days before Northern Ireland’s momentous 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement between the IRA’s political wing Sinn Fein and the British government, I watched the group’s top leaders emerge from the talks locked in intense, semi-silent conspiratorial whispers, slowly pacing adjacent gardens.
But such conversations are likely a luxury Sinwar neither has, nor dares risk taking, from wherever he is hiding in Gaza. And like any leader convinced he is proving his point, he is unlikely to back down now unless his key demands are locked in.
His recent warning that Israel will have to fight for Rafah strongly suggest he is still in the process of bargaining.
Blinken didn’t mention Sinwar by name in his remarks Tuesday, but there was no need. Everyone in the room understood who he meant when he added, “That is what we are waiting on.”
And if messages of pressure to make a deal are reaching Sinwar he will also understand them for another part of what they are – an attempt to turn Gazans desperate for an end to the conflict against him.
As much as Sinwar has put the psychological screws on Israel’s leadership, he can be made vulnerable too. And if past experience is any measure, he will likely gamble that he can play mind games better than Netanyahu.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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