August 20th, 2023 – Hunter Biden Roundup

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Two stories on the Hunter Biden investigation today, one from Politico and the other from the Washington Post.

The Investigation

Politico’s post is a medium length read that goes over the history of the investigation.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers either threatened to put President Biden on the stand:

“This of all cases justifies neither the spectacle of a sitting President testifying at a criminal trial nor the potential for a resulting Constitutional crisis,” Clark wrote.

The Justice Department came (and comes) under fire from both sides for being political.

First, it is worth remembering that Trump worked as hard as he could to stir the pot up against Hunter Biden — which included his first impeachment because he wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden corruption.

In light of Trump’s ceaseless demands for an investigation of the first son, charging the younger Biden with tax crimes would be “devastating to the reputation” of the Justice Department, his lawyers asserted. It would look like the department had acquiesced to Trump’s political pressure campaign.

Of course, when administrations flipped, anything other than a hard line looks like going easy on Biden.

 The Wall Street Journal reported that an IRS supervisor was ready to tell Congress that political calculations were infecting the investigation. But unlike Biden’s lawyers, who argued their client was being treated too harshly because of politics, the IRS supervisor would testify that the first son was getting “preferential treatment” from a Justice Department run by his father’s appointees.

It also isn’t clear if the immunity agreement signed on July 26th was executed and is still enforceable:

Before the [July 26th] hearing, Biden and Weiss signed the pretrial diversion agreement, which included the immunity guarantee.

Finally, it is clear to everyone that any plea deal is meant to protect Hunter Biden from executive overreach from the next administration. Effectively, eliminate the option to investigate Hunter Biden in the future for anything already covered by this investigation.

The Special Prosecutor

WaPo has a history of David Weiss.

Highlights: he began as a prosecutor in Delaware, he has worked with parties all over the spectrum, under presidents Obama, Trump and Biden, as well as with Beau Biden in 2010.

The general sentiment is that he is a hard-hitting prosecutor unswayed by politics. While unbelievable on it’s face, it is worth considering given that both parties think he isn’t being fair to Hunter Biden, but for opposite reasons.

Those who have observed Weiss for yearssay his professional intersections with the Biden family over the years will have no bearing on his work as special counsel. They insist he will follow the facts and tune out the partisan noise.


“He was appointed by Donald Trump, and now if he doesn’t do everything Republicans want, they denigrate him,” said Mullaney, the former chief of staff to Beau Biden. He said it was “inconceivable” Weiss would play favorites, saying, “Hopefully he is not paying attention to all the rhetoric.”

If you’re into this sort of thing, give both articles a read.

Politico AI Primer

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Politico has an opinion piece today on nationalizing AI. I don’t agree with it’s conclusion, but it has some important tidbits on AI, that far too often are not explained.

Some highlights

I am going to stay out of most of the politics here, that can wait for another post.

The Black Box

That’s the thing about AI: Not even the engineers who build this stuff know exactly how it works.

Understand — we know how we build it but we don’t know how it works.

…certain aspects of today’s thinking machines are beyond anyone’s understanding… There’s an element of uncertainty — even unknowability — in AI’s most powerful applications. This uncertainty grows as AIs get faster, smarter and more interconnected… They solve problems in ways that boggle human experts.

The AI models are built with thousands to millions of training pieces. The training process is known, but what “knowledge” the model ends up with is not.

It’s like learning anything: we know how to teach and learn, but we can’t peer into the physical brain and understand how thoughts work. That’s about how AI works.

AI Is Everywhere

It isn’t a thing of the future — even if ChatGPT broke out of nowhere. Existing uses:

  • Facial Recognition
  • Radiology
  • Driving assistance

“Electrication”

This is my favorite analogy of how AI is affecting people:

We live in the era of mass AIelectrification, except this time the electricity itself keeps evolving.

There is much about AI we don’t know, but AI experts do agree on one thing: The pace of AI’s disruption of society will never be this slow again.

Regulation Won’t Work

A third option is regulation of AI by current agencies of the U.S. government. As a West Coast techie who has worked extensively in D.C., my first thought is: Good luck with that.

The author doesn’t go into details on why it won’t work, but here are a handful of ideas.

  • The R&D is not geographically constrained. You can regulate usage, but not the creation
  • A lot of it is open source: large portions of AI is already available freely for download.
  • A working definition will be impossible.
    • When Siri recognizes your voice, is that an appropriate AI use?
    • What about when my non-cloud photo catalog recognizes photos of my kids?
    • What about programs that write up short articles on sports and financial releases?

And I’m not “an all regulation is bad” kind of guy! It’s just technically too late to regulate AI creation in a meaningful way.

If you have 5 minutes, it is worth the read today.

It’s Isn’t Settled: Obesity in America

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A recent WSJ article headlined itself: Ozempic Settles the Obesity Debate: It’s Biology Over Willpower. This is absurd on it’s face and unhelpful to say the least.

Absurd: First, there will never be a single answer this topic, or nearly involving biology. It isn’t even clear if WSJ believes their headline, the final two paragraphs:

“Hard to prove” is a long way for definitively settled.

Unhelpful: there are real people where biology 100% holds them back and willpower cannot be enough. It might be innate, in other cases there is a misunderstood disease or chronic illness. This should be unquestioned.

The absurd statement that the issue is “settled” with a drug easily leads to a couple of conclusions: if someone is fat it is either because they are too lazy to take a simple drug that solves everything, or the argument that biology is the driver should be thrown out because of the poor argument made in its favor.

Either conclusion undermines confidence and external perception of anyone who has a biological driver.

Second, in a super-sized country that has more obese people than anywhere else in the world, biology cannot be the only driver. Assuming that American biology has not fundamentally changed since 1960, there is a non-biological factor at work. 

See the increase in obesity in America since 1960:

 

Nationwide obesity rates have more than tripled since the 1960s. Age-adjusted nationwide obesity and severe obesity rates according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys

This accounts for the population between the ages of 20-74. The obesity category already includes severe obesity.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

Image from: https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/
  • Something obviously changed that isn’t biological.

And it isn’t like it is a mystery:

  • US eating habits changed significantly
  • Easily available food changed significantly, especially the advent of highly processed food everywhere
  • General activity decreased, especially at work.
  • There are geographic factors at play
  • There are income factors at play
  • There are racial factors at play

Simplifying the issue to “take a new pill” is laughable at best, and harmful to anyone everyone, both those to who it is a real answer, and to those that have other issues driving. 

 

 

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