this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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The Republicans needed something to justify their upcoming impeachment.
"justify"
What changed though? Why was it absolutely nothing a couple months ago and why is it now (seemingly) blowing up? Is it just squawking or did something actually change?
Like many things in politics, it’s basically a minor crime blown up for political reasons. There’s also a lot of conspiracies around Hunter Biden (and some extend to Joe as well), some stemming from his work with Burisma.
That being said, in the midst of a shit ton of politically motivated investigations, it turns out they found that he did lie on his taxes and lied about owning a gun. He was convicted of drug charges and not legally allowed to own a gun. He could go to jail for that, but probably not the tax part. Tax cheats routinely negotiate out of court settlements, which almost happened with Hunter, before a judge decided to block it (maybe for political reasons)
Edit: sorry, he was not convicted of drug charges, but laws prohibit users of some drugs from owning guns and he lied about his drug use to buy a gun (something I’m sure is pretty common given the prevalence of gun use and the opiate epidemic)
I love that this puts the Republicans in a position where they're rabidly gung-ho about enforcing restrictions on gun ownership.
I highly recommend enthusiastically agreeing with anyone who says Hunter should be in jail, and congratulate them on their progressive stance on gun control.
I mean, if he broke laws then he broke laws.
It always amazes me how openly amazed Republicans are about their opponents actually wanting the laws to be enforced against "their own side." Laws are, generally speaking, a description of how we want people to behave. Republicans (again, generally speaking) instead see them more like weapons to be used against people they don't like.
There are some laws that I think are just plain bad and should be resisted, but most of what I've heard about the Hunter Biden allegations suggest that they're just routine with no grand principle at stake.
So the change is that a judge blocked the norm of a negotiated settlement?