A lot of people here missing the point. We don’t care about this because Hunter was the target of a witch hunt. The actual “crimes” weren’t impactful at all. The Republicans literally spent 8 years dragging him through the mud, digging for anything that he could be charged with, just because who his dad is. And Hunter didn’t even touch politics in the slightest.

The gun charge is the moral equivalent of crucifying someone for having pirated music on their hard drive. It was a nothing crime, never enforced, and the only reason it was in this case was because they happened to find something they could latch onto.

I don’t know anything about the tax evasion conviction. If it was serious, then sure, fuck him. But I’d want them going after every politician AND their family with equal vigor. But guess what? They aren’t.

That’s why most of us don’t really care. The man is not important. He holds no position of power, nor has he expressed any intent to. He is not important, except as a whipping boy for their propaganda. And a pardon for such preposterous prosecution is fine with me.

We can defederate them now. Content will move as it reaches fewer eyes.

I also thought VLC was a bit shaky on their legality as well, but since their HQ was in a Nordic country (iirc) with more lax copyright laws, they got away with it.

So I wouldn’t blame an app store for not wanting to take on legal gray area risk.

Can we finally focus on real estate reform now?

This latest housing crisis has made it abundantly clear that allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to own single family homes is destructive to society as a whole.

The priority should be owner occupied homes. People need housing security. If even the middle class with career jobs can’t afford a modest house in their peak working years, the system is broken.

We can attack this runaway housing inflation by doing the following:

1. Ban companies (including hedge funds, etc) from owning condos and houses. Apartment complexes are still fair game, because society needs high occupancy buildings which require more capital to build and run.

2. Limit individual ownership to 3 (as an example, number doesn’t matter) dwellings. This will curb the rampant “buy for short term rental, parlay into next purchase for short term rental” scheme. We still need rental properties, and small local landowners should be the priority.

3. Heavy penalties for selling in under 2 (as an example) years. This will also curb the short term rentals due to added risk, as well as curbing the flippers relisting at 30%+ (and I’ve seen 100%) markups after 3 months.

Each of these wouldn’t be outright bans which would potentially too big of a disruption. But in phases, using increasing tax penalties as the stick.

We need to stop treating homes as a commodity. They are a basic essential.