"Yet the crackdown had an unintended consequence, one little examined today: it has increased the suffering of patients who experience chronic pain, as medications that were once heavily promoted have since been restricted." —Ann Neumann for The Baffler
On the 1st day of #testimony in #HunterBiden’s federal #gun trial, #jurors heard his audio of his memoir, where he recounted his #drug use in graphic detail. A federal prosecutor told jurors “no one is above the #law,” & defense said the he did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to purchase a weapon.
#HunterBiden had reportedly dropped off the MacBookPro at a computer repair shop in 2019 & never reclaimed it.
The shop owner [for some reason] contacted #Republicanlawmakers & #politicians to review the hundreds of thousands of emails & msgs in the laptop.
An #FBI agent testified that investigators obtained a #warrant to search the laptop’s msgs & “found evidence of addiction.” duh, he’s been VERY open about his struggles w/ [#addiction]
Prosecutors claimed they were attempting to corroborate the battles of #addiction that #HunterBiden described in his memoir w/real-time msgs in his hard drive & iCloud.
#FBI agent Erika Jensen testified that Hunter’s cloud data & laptop held msgs from 2018 which showed drug habits, using codes like “baby powder” & “chore boy” for crack cocaine.
A series of WhatsApp msgs recovered from Biden’s iCloud account were shown to the jury, & appear to show Biden arranging deliveries of drugs.
The #FBI agent said they were able to confirm that the laptop taken from the repair shop was #HunterBiden’s partly from his iCloud data, which contained an invoice from the shop [wait - an invoice for the repair was on the laptop before the work was done? Remember, he never picked it up]
Big show of family support on the 1st day of #HunterBiden’s trial.
In addition to #POTUS’ statement, Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen, his sister Ashley Biden, his friend Kevin Morris, Peter Neal, who is married to Hunter’s daughter Naomi, & #FLOTUS Dr. #JillBiden are in attendance.
President #Biden will be in Wilmington, DL, w/no appearances scheduled. But he has given no indication that he would be in the courthouse — a possibility that would require considerable security arrangements.
The 3 felony charges against #HunterBiden stem from a 2018 #gun purchase in #Delaware. He separately faces 9 tax-related federal charges. The #tax case is scheduled to go to trial in Sept in Los Angeles. Hunter is accused of making 2 false statements on the paperwork to purchase the weapon, specifically when he claimed not to be addicted to or using illegal drugs, & unlawfully possessing the gun for 11 days. It’s against the law to possess a weapon while using illegal drugs.
The trial is not televised, & reporters are not permitted to send live updates from the courtroom or the overflow room.
If convicted, the maximum sentence for the most serious #crime in the indictment is 10 yrs in #prison. Under federal sentencing guidelines, however, #HunterBiden — who has no prior felonies & has acknowledged being addicted to drugs at the time of the gun purchase — would probably face less.
Many people, pundits & politicians are comparing & commenting on #HunterBiden’s trial in reference to the #TrumpTrial that concluded w/34 felony guilty convictions last week.
However, there are vast differences in the 2 cases — chief among them that Hunter Biden is NOT running for anything, NOR has he ever held or aspired to hold any ELECTED OFFICE.
Still, #Republicans are certain to seize on these difficult episodes in the Biden family’s past.
Prosecutors plan to use highly personal evidence in #HunterBiden trial
Special counsel #DavidWeiss filings provide a look into prosecutors’ plans & how they may reopen some of the most painful moments in the Biden family’s past.
Court papers detail the depth of family members’ turmoil as they struggled to grapple w/the death of President Biden’s oldest son, Beau, in 2015, and the drug & alcohol #addiction of his younger son, Hunter.
In #HunterBiden’s trial, jury selection highlights #UnitedStates’ drug epidemic
The nation’s political divisions were also laid bare as 6 men & 6 women were chosen…. #JurySelection for the trial of #POTUS#Biden’s son Hunter turned into an impromptu but painful indictment of the nation’s drug epidemic, w/person after person telling the court of their loved ones’ battles w/ #addiction.
Judge Maryellen Noreika swore in 12 #jurors — + 4 alternates — to determine the #legal fate of #HunterBiden, who is on trial for 3 #felony#gun charges….
A substitute #teacher, a fmr #SecretService employee & multiple #GunOwners were among those chosen to report back to court Tues morning, when opening arguments are expected to begin.…Most were people of color, &…appeared to range from mid-20s to 70s.
…The responses of dozens of prospective jurors to questions in open court reflected some of the most pervasive & divisive issues in American society, w/jurors discussing their views on #gun ownership & #mistrust of the #judicial process.
And in a trial where the #criminal defendant has been public about his struggles w/ drug #addiction, the #jurors told the court about similar battles fought by their parents, children & friends.
Many offered their own versions of a written statement from #POTUS#Biden…. He said he found his son’s #recovery from #addiction inspiring & knew that many families of addicts could relate to #HunterBiden’s journey.
“My daughter’s been given a 2nd chance,” said one prospective juror who was not chosen for the panel, but like many others said his experience watching a family member struggle w/drugs would not prevent him from judging Hunter Biden fairly. “Everyone deserves a 2nd chance.”
…Many #jurors said they had read or seen headlines about Hunter Biden’s #gun case over the yrs in local & natl news, but few said they delved into the details. One woman, selected as an alternate, said she first learned #HunterBiden was going to trial on Mon …on her drive over to the courthouse.
She told the court that many of her relatives are gun owners & that she has lost multiple friends to drug #addiction. “I feel it’s an everyday part of the world nowadays,” she said.
Also me: Come on a 12” sony vaio from 2004 for the equivalent of 44$ ? This thing could run 32 bit #HaikuOS . 1.5GHz and 1GB RAM should be enough for everybody.
@santiago yeah, my exactly same problem : #addiction 😂
It's a week that I'm playing with an old ThinkPad with a celeron 500, 64mb ram & win98
Btw congrats for your new computer!
#TheMetalDogArticleList #louder
“I could walk out of here, go get a drink and within a week I could be dead. But I’m not interested in doing that”: how Trent Reznor pulled back from the abyss to make Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero
In 2007, Nine Inch Nails released their fifth album, Year Zero – and Trent Reznor, the man behind it, had finally thrown off his demons
People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.
The city was once hailed for its response to #addiction. But as #fentanyl flooded streets & ofcls shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights.
This is the first part in a series exploring #Baltimore’s overdose crisis.
In the past 6 yrs, nearly 6k lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly DOUBLE that of any other large city, & higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic.
A decade ago, 700 fewer people here were being killed by drugs each year. And when fatalities began to rise from the synthetic #opioid#fentanyl, so potent that even minuscule doses are deadly, #Baltimore’s initial response was hailed as a national model. The city set ambitious goals, distributed #Narcan widely, experimented w/ways to steer people into treatment & ratcheted up campaigns to alert the public.
But then city leaders became preoccupied w/other crises, including #GunViolence & the #pandemic. Many of those efforts to fight overdoses stalled….
Health ofcls began publicly sharing less #data. City Council members rarely addressed or inquired about the growing number of #overdoses. The fact that…[it had become]…so much worse…was NOT KNOWN to the mayor, the deputy mayor…or multiple council members until they were recently shown data compiled by Times/Banner reporters….