site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Below is from the whistleblower under oath. Note the whistleblower stated they specifically wanted to charge for evasion; not just failure to pay and that Hunter did in fact evade. Evidently this was agreed to by staff attorneys and it was only when it got to effectively political appointment levels that the charges were rebuked.

And so the way the money worked is there's a document which is the contract between Burisma and Hunter Biden. Those are the two parties. It was for $1 million per year. Of course this was 2014, and it was negotiated in April, so the payments in that year were reduced by the months. So it was $666,000, $83,000 a month he was receiving.

What Hunter Biden did with that is he told Burisma to send that income to Rosemont Seneca Bohai. And then when the money came back to him, he booked it as a loan.

So there's all this machinations of nonsense happening over here in this nominee structure that, "Oh, this is complex, this is complex," and, well, it's not complex, because this is -- it was a taxable event as soon as the income came from Burisma to Hunter Biden. And whatever he did with it after it was really just a scheme to evade taxes for that year.

And to add to it, is that Rosemont Seneca Bohai and Archer, when the money came back to Hunter Biden, they booked that as an expense on their books. So even the two parties didn't treat it the same way.

And then Eric Schwerin realized this and looked into it, and he even told

Hunter Biden on multiple occasions, multiple communications, you need to amend your 2014 return to include the Burisma income. And he never did, and the statute's gone

Correct. His tax fraud scheme is far larger and more complex than the DOJ document indicates. It clearly should have been charged as a felony, and most likely should have been sentenced as a LVL 14 offense (because of the size and complexity elevators). So what should have happened in this case is he'd have 2 level 14 offenses for tax fraud, and one level 12/14 offense for lying on a gun form. That gets you to a lvl 15. Pleading out drops you to 13. But that is still Zone B, so prison time is virtually guaranteed.

That’s ignoring the meth charges, FARA, and transporting hookers across state lines.