Boomer Has It!
Two writers, two cities, two opinions on culture and politics from a boomer perspective. Veteran creatives JB Miller and Jim Gialamas, reporting from London and New York, offer up a surprising take on a world going somewhere on a handbasket, if not a steamer trunk. All aboard.
Jim Gialamas is a writer and former journalist, widely acknowledged as the cultural mayor of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. JB Miller is an author, playwright, and former New Yorker now haunting cafes in southwest London. Drawing on their transatlantic dispatches, they meet here to figure out what the flip is going on.
Boomer Has It!
Hunter Biden Bites Back!
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Carrying on a tradition of troublesome First Family members, Hunter Biden is no exception. Drugs, broads, influence peddling, and an abandoned laptop — it was catnip for the right wing media. Lately he’s been responding to his critics with a combination of humor and indignation. Is he a truth teller or just another troll?
Hunter Biden, Political Scandals, White House, First Family, Media Analysis, Political Commentary, Right Wing Media
Boomer Has It!
The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.
About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.
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Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.
Hello everyone. Today we're covering the career of a contemporary fine artist born in 1970 in Wilmington, Delaware, whose work explores themes of memory, transformation, and the natural world. Working primarily in paint, this artist creates vibrant compositions that bridge the gap between representation and abstraction. At least that's what it says on his website. And that artist is Hunter Biden. From New York City, this is Jim Jelanus.
SPEAKER_01From London, this is JB Miller. And this is Boomer Hazard. It goes back to um Nixon, believe it or not, Nixon had an untrustworthy brother, and so did um Jimmy Carter. There was Billy Carter and Billy Beer. And there were various uh dubious Reagans, and there were dubious Bushes, Neil Bush, and um Roger Clinton, who's I think Bill Clinton's half-brother, I think, uh who got into various scrapes. And um, then there was a um a gap with um um with the Obamas. There was no one who could particularly embarrassing in the Obama family, and then the Trumps, the entire Trump family is the is the uh difficult family members.
SPEAKER_00You know, can I stop for a second? I I was thinking there's a kind of a double indemnity here because I I was looking into it, and you know, you could even talk about Jenna and Barbara Bush, who got busted for using fake IDs and getting drunk.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, but that's so many kids do that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you're missing the point because they embarrassed. I mean, sure, it's it's pretty venal, I guess. Most kids, many kids do that, not my child. Um, but they embarrassed George W. Bush, who you might say was an embarrassment himself to George H. W. Bush.
SPEAKER_01Well, yes, he was a prodigal, he was a prodigal son. He had an alcoholic, he was an alcoholic. Um, he was a real, yeah, he was a screw up. I mean, I always thought one of the most admirable things about uh George W. Bush was that he did quit um drinking. You know, that wasn't an easy thing to do. Uh, that's probably the most I'll ever give him. Maybe he's a weekend painter, um, a bit like um Hunter Biden is. Uh, although, oh, he doesn't sell his paintings. Hunter Biden has a whole website. Uh how do you describe Hunter's Hunter's work? He's no Adolf Hitler.
SPEAKER_00Hardy har har.
SPEAKER_01Hardy har har.
SPEAKER_00You know, I as I was doing some research too, I see that Theodore Roosevelt's daughter had questionable public behavior, including smoking, swearing, and gambling. So which makes you early 20th century, we still have embarrassments um in the White House.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, now she's can that's considered a proto-feminist, I think. So I have no problem with Alice, Alice Roosevelt. Uh, she used to have she used to um say, if you have something, if you have something bad to say about anyone, sit next to me. And that got embroidered on a pillow, I think, that she had in her home. Um, but that's just uh an introduction to say that Hunter Biden is in a tradition of uh troublesome uh first family members, and boy, has he been trouble to to the Biden family, to President Biden. But he had that family has had real tragedy. And I don't think you can discuss Hunter Biden without discussing the the the true the true uh tragedy in that family. He he was in a car when he was, I think, two, with his older brother uh Bo, who was three, and um they got into a his mother got into a terrible car crash, she which killed her and their one-year-old sister, so when he was, you know, an infant. And um Jill Biden became his stepmother. I think they're very close, but then his beloved older brother, um Bo Biden, who really was the uh how would he describe him? He was the he was the favorite son. Favorite son. Yeah, he served in in the Iraq War, and I think he was uh um a political figure, attorney general, maybe somewhere, and then he died of brain cancer um in I think 2015, and that um very much informed uh Joe Biden's decision not to run for president in 2016. Um I think he could have done and maybe could have won that. Um so there, you know, that that's that has left a true mark on that family, including Hunter, and he's had great problems with substance abuse. And I think it's not uh, you know, Bo Biden didn't, but I looked it up and saw that Hunter Biden suffered um brain um trauma uh when he was two, and that may have informed his um substance abuse in later years because Bo Biden didn't uh did not have substance abuse problems, but Hunter did. He's had a tough, a tough life that does not excuse everything he's done for by a long shot. And what has he done? Um Jim, you've got you've been more up on this than I have, but the the whole Biden story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the story is he's he's re-emerged. Um no coincidence that he re-emerged after a presidential pardon, but he'd been quiet for some time and he's been on a on a media campaign lately.
SPEAKER_01But going back, be you you're skipping over uh the you know the the what happened in uh was it 2019 with the with the laptop and um barisma.
SPEAKER_00Do you want to go into that or do you think that's yeah let's talk about because that's that's really I mean, besides his uh addiction problem, um, this is how he really presented himself as a as a White House embarrassment, presidential. Yeah, yes, right, remember, which was that in April 2019, uh he left a laptop at a Delaware repair shop. The owner, who's a known quantity, his name is John Paul Mack Isaac, uh, got his hot little hands on it and turned it over to Rudy Giuliani uh and the FBI, and this is three weeks before the 2020 election. Um, the New York Post published files from the drive, and those files were supposedly incriminating uh evidence that of wrongdoing uh in the presidential administration, linking uh Biden to a board seat of a Ukrainian public utility called Barisma. Um it was supposed to expose the the Biden crime family. Um it did, it didn't. Um Biden sat on this board. He was earning somewhere around $80 some odd thousand dollars a month, which is excessive. Uh a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot of money for anyone.
SPEAKER_00Um he'll make he'll make arguments that he he's qualified to be on boards because he sat on not-for-profits and he's a Ivy League trained lawyer, but um it was clear influence peddling. That's you know, that accounts for the the high compensation and his role there. But the the outcome, you know, once but once Steve Bannon and Giuliani and the New York Post got their hands on it, um it created legal jeopardy because he hadn't paid taxes and he he owned a handgun and and didn't uh um didn't make clear that he he had a sub dis substance addiction problem.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I mean that's no small thing. I would not hire him. I mean, he had he was um you know blackout drinking, you know, he was waking up not knowing. I wouldn't give him a gun for that reason. I wouldn't give him a gun. I would not hire him uh and I would not give him a gun. He he was trouble. And and so I don't think I think as you point it, and he sort of doffed protest too much that he had had a you know a background as what an Ivy League graduate who would worked in the nonprofit. No, he should not have been hired by the only reason they hired him was because he was the vice president's um son.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and and releasing those, you know, what came off that laptop were some humiliating photos of him in the throes of drug addiction, partially clothed, unclothed, using drugs, drinking, looking generally like he came off Skid Row, no offense to our friends on Skid Row. And uh it created a pre, you know, but the pretense was that uh Bannon, Giuliani, the New York Post were exposing again criminal wrongdoing that leads us to the White House. No, it was just a way to publicly shame the president's son, and they were quite successful at it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, um, that's right. And he there there is a there is a moral in this, and that is when you bring your laptop in to be fixed, pick it up when it's ready. Leave it there. When you get that phone call, go over there, pay the repair bill, and pick it up. Uh I don't think he did that. But um, yeah, he's so, but the point is also that they made uh a mountain uh uh out of a mole molehill. I mean, there was not much there, but they they um they don't need much to turn it into innuendo on Fox News. I mean, that's what they're good at doing, right? Is that fair to say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's yeah, it's completely fair. You're you're a fair man, Mr. Miller. You're a very fair man.
SPEAKER_01But but things everyone says so so that's the hunter hunter's background, and uh the backdrop to sort of what's but and he was not in the news for a while, right? He was so quiet, and now he's back in the news. What's he been up to lately?
SPEAKER_00It's um um by Hunter Biden, the fine artist, the presidential son, the recovering addict. He's entrenched in a full-on media campaign, and it's across all news and opinion platforms. He's had a few choice appearances. He's been on Nick Fuentes, uh, Andrew Callahan, and most recently Candace Owen. I mean, talk about strange bedfellows.
SPEAKER_01The crazy Candace Owen. I think you have to give her her her due. Uh, you know, it's that's the her sort of honorary title is the crazy.
SPEAKER_00Again, you you know, you're being fair as usual. Uh I'd say even restrained because I listened to the interview and oh god, you took a lot of paranoid conspiracy when you listen to her talk. What what caught my ear was she thinks there's a second shooter in the Charlie Kirk murder, uh, and that there was some military involvement.
SPEAKER_01Um Israel, Israel was involved with oh, is that did she mention that? Yeah, there's the Israeli um whatever it is, C I whatever they that the the secret security CIA of Israel, whatever that's called. She thinks that they were behind it. That always, whenever I hear rumors, not rumors, when I hear conspiracy theories along those lines, it just sounds pretty anti-Semitic to me, but um she is pretty crazy. She's crazy.
SPEAKER_00She's pretty crazy. She's got a lot of listeners who don't discriminate either. And that's a sad little story for another podcast. But um, this media tour is, you know, if he was lazy about his laptop, he's not lazy about this campaign. He's he's got an active presence on X, he's got podcast stops, major news interviews. And there are a lot of themes that come up in every podcast, which is that he's embraced his public shaming. He's called it a gift because everything was made public. He feels he has nothing left to hide and can't be disarmed by blackmail or public ridicule. Um, and this kind of self-deprecation, um, it it has a rhetorical strategy to disarm political critics.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that's important. That's a good point. Self-deprecation. I live in England, which is the country of self-deprecation. The Brits are experts at it. Um, and we always think here from this from Britain, we look over at the US and we we we don't see enough self-deprecation in Americans. We think of think of everyone wanting to be sort of Superman, everyone thinking they can grow up to be president or billionaire. We all think that's crazy. But I think self-deprecation goes a long way. And as you pointed out, it can disarm your critics because you're kind of doing their work for them and making them look a little silly. How it's tough, it makes it tougher for them to criticize you if you're already criticizing yourself. And it means you have a sense of humor. And I think maybe this is surprising. It's surprising to me that there are figures on the right. We can, I think maybe use the term the loony right, that appreciate a sense of humor or a sense of self-awareness. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00And it it he it enables him to chummy up with them for sure, and you know, he speaks the language of recovery and he tells the story about a morning flight from Europe in 2010 after he had been seven years sober. And it on that flight, an attendant offered him a bloody marry, which he accepted. And in his words, 10 years later, ended up with a crack pipe in his mouth in an hour in a motel somewhere.
SPEAKER_01Um flight attendant say, please be careful to who next time. What was the airline?
SPEAKER_00Maybe just tomato juice next time.
SPEAKER_01That jet blue, what was that?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I mean he's there's something about there's something a bit refreshing about the language of recovery in that it's something you hear, something that's in that's not in surplus these days, which is accountability. He's blames himself for a lot of stuff, he's honest about it, and there's not a lot of accountability around in government these days.
SPEAKER_01Well, where's that? What's that lyric? Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Um what song is that from? Is that the band Janet Joplin?
SPEAKER_00You boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer.
SPEAKER_01Janet Joplin, sorry, of course. Janet Joplin, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. It free it it it it liberates you. He he seems liberated by by feeling that there's nothing that can embarrass him. Do you think that the maybe leaving the laptop so it forgetting to collect the laptop was a blessing in disguise? Maybe he did it on purpose so they can he could be oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Let's start a conspiracy theory that he left it on purpose.
SPEAKER_01Freud, Freud would say that. Freud would say he did it on purpose, obviously. So he is for his own greater good, yes.
SPEAKER_00And what does this banana remind you of?
SPEAKER_01But did you say he's been he's been cozying up to these? He hasn't been cozying up to them, he's been he's been debating them, hasn't he? How he hasn't really been cozying up to them. What is his relationship to these Looney Looney?
SPEAKER_00Fuentes and Owen, you know, they've they've broken with Trump, they're disenchanted for whatever reasons. So bringing him into the discussion, they have some common ground. And he, you know, he has other themes. He defends Joe Biden's presidential pardon. Um, so he's a you know, he's a pardoned man, which gives him freedom, as you point out. And then, you know, I as as debatable as the pardon was, you have to think back about that, you know, sort of an innocent time we were living in when many of us were thinking, hey, if the president pardons his own son, is he is he creating some kind of precedent for future presidents?
SPEAKER_01And it doesn't it seem doesn't it seems like yeah, but that was after uh obviously after Trump's first administration when there was a lot of pardons going around.
SPEAKER_00Now it's um what's the language I would call it pardon abuse, pardon abuse, pardon abuse starting with all the J6 rioters, yes, yeah. No, just pardon them all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the right is no no leg to stand on when it comes to uh you couldn't criticize. I don't think you could particularly criticize President Biden for pardoning um his son. He he knew that if he didn't, it wasn't the the justification was if he didn't, he knew that that they would go after him. The same with um Fauci was pardoned, um uh preemptive part, although it doesn't cover him in all instances.
SPEAKER_00Um well think about it though. If if we had a crystal ball, then we who would we see running the FBI? Would we see a fair-minded prof law enforcement professional, or would we see a cross-eyed goon who drinks too much? Uh what about in you know, heading up the Department of Justice? It's kind of a you know revolving door at the moment.
SPEAKER_01But getting back to, I mean, it's sort of the the the the concept of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So these what are they right-wing influencers who have I don't think they've completely broken with President Trump. Um Lisa Loomer, is that her name, has become very pro-Ukraine lately, uh, which is um a turnaround. Um and Candace Owen, I think, broke with Trump over the Epstein files. Is that was that what caused the break for her?
SPEAKER_00What uh there are there are a lot of women in government who broke with Trump over the Epstein files. Marjorie Taylor Green.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um someone else whose name escapes me. I just read it today.
SPEAKER_01But but what do they have in common with with Hunter Biden beyond Hunter Hunter Biden being against Trump? I don't quite I don't quite s I don't quite see where that leads to. I can see why they'd have him on, because that produces a lot of, you know, that's that's a clickbait. I don't understand where it goes, what it's what it is beyond that.
SPEAKER_00You know, in in the right-wing potosphere, I I don't think there's there's much logic to go around. Uh it it seems to change with the weather. And I I don't know. He he he he it's the you can depend on him to cite these five same five or six topics public shaming, his recovery, the presidential pardon. He also says that, and this may be attractive to someone on the right, that he he personally believed his father should not have sought reelection in 24. He chose not to tell Joe Biden that at the time.
SPEAKER_01Uh no, that would have been helpful. Yeah, and he has a thing against says something about Jake Tapper. He doesn't like Jake Tapper. What's the Jake Tapper problem?
SPEAKER_00He claims that Tapper badgered him while his brother Bo was dying in 2015.
SPEAKER_01Now we should explain who Jake Tapper is for some of our viewers and listeners. Is he with CNN?
SPEAKER_00Jake Tapper's anchor on CNN, he's got great uh press credentials. Yeah, he's uh highly acclaimed, he's a great journalist, basically. And uh he claims that he bought badgered him while Bo was dying in 2015. Tapper denies it, and then Tapper claims that Hut Hunter threatened him at a 2018 Super Bowl uh party in Minneapolis.
SPEAKER_01Uh over why is Jake Tapper? Why is Hunter Biden even hanging out with Jake? Why are they at the same Super Bowl party? That that this is when this is the weird bedfellows of of Politics and and uh we could go into a we could go down a trapdoor, we could fall down a rabbit hole about the whole White House correspondence dinner. Well, you know, you know what?
SPEAKER_00If they were if they were both on the real housewives of some uh heretofore named location, they would have thrown white wine in each other's faces by now. You want to catch that on camera. His main beef is that Jake, Mr. Tapper, wrote a book called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. He wrote it with Alex Thompson, another journalist, which takes aim at Biden's inner circle, including including Hunter, for alleged, alleged efforts to shield the president's cognitive state from the I mean, and that that book came out. I know you have feelings about that.
SPEAKER_01That that book I am stressed. I am feelings. I have feelings about that book too. I didn't I haven't read that book, so I can't, you know, take it apart page by page. You didn't read the book, but uh I read, you know, I I read about the book. I I don't really like political books particularly because they get old fast. I I'd never understood how they I guess they sell well coming out of the gate, and then six months later they're on the uh remainder table. I hate the title of that book, Original Sin. I mean, how pompous is that? It was not an original sin. It was a it was a bad thing, but it wasn't I didn't even I even don't even understand that that title. Um, it came out very quickly in the months right after uh Trump got re-elected. It was so kicking the Democrats when they were down. Um, you can make the case that maybe that was the time to kick the Democrats because it couldn't do them that much damage because they're already so damaged. They lost both houses of Congress and the White House, and it didn't have the Supreme Court. It's been like that the last you know year and a half to two years. Um, but that book, yeah. I guess if I were Hunter Biden, I'd be upset about that book too.
SPEAKER_00But the the you know, it it Jake Tapper, that's he's he's a political uh but call political you you know you have to wonder about the prerogative to do that kind of research. It it seems pretty obvious that Biden wasn't on his game, he'd slowed down everything and there's a concept in newspaper publishing, magazine publishing, and it's the concept of whether a subject is newsworthy or not. Do you publish a scurrulous story just because it's scurrilous? What how does the reader benefit from it? Well, I mean, I and I always I wondered about that book. It was plainly stated, obvious for everyone to see. Why why did we need it? Neither of us read it. But we can only we can leave it to the imagination that there were machinations in the White House.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no, I think I think if I could get it, I think that's the point. There was no need for that book, it wasn't a revelation. Everyone could see what the situation was with that that first uh debate, the presidential debate. It was clear, if it wasn't clear before then, it was clear then, and everybody could see it. And we didn't really need a book going into the machinations, I can never pronounce that word, the machinations in the White House. You know, they lost that election. We lie, you know. What I think if they if if Biden had or if if Kamala Harris had won that election, that book would have been explosive, maybe. Although what difference would it make then anyway? People could see what everyone knew what had happened. So I don't understand the point of that book.
SPEAKER_00And also from an editorial perspective, you know, I would also argue one, newsworthiness, two, did it need to be a book? Could it have been a long magazine article? I mean, for God's sake, you read that you read 8,000 words at a time in the New Yorker, but you know, it could have been a three-part series, 24,000 words.
SPEAKER_01That's the problem with all those books. You know, it's a Bob Woodward is one of those people. You know, the the he's got a contract with the Washington Post. So there are these revelations that come out in the Washington Post. You read them, it becomes a big story. There's nothing else in the book that is particularly worth reading, I'd imagine. And then my original point, six months later, it's old news. Who cares? Um, I think Bob Woodward got something like three books out of the first Trump administration. I mean, he just I don't know what where he's been lately. Maybe he's uh he's uh retired. But these books, you know, yeah, you're quite right. The article, you read the article or read about the art, you read the headline. I think what what else could that book possibly tell? Hunter Biden is different, it's personal, you know, uh for him. But I don't, you know, I don't, I don't particularly my mind, I I my heart does not bleed for Hunter Biden. I would not hire him to run uh my company or in any position.
SPEAKER_00Um but you know, we're talking a lot about this book and Jake Tapper, and I in some ways I feel like we're playing into the hands of um someone who's got uh a disingenuous rhetorical strategy. I think that Hunter by Hunter Biden's obsession and constant reminder in every public forum possible that Jake Tapper isn't his friend. I I would call it a proxy target. I would he calls this this reporting narrative, I find it self-serving. I think it identifies Tapper as he he likes to say it's emblematic of a Washington media establishment that treats his family's personal tragedies as political fodder, but it's a straw man. It makes him friendly to the likes of some right-wing weirdos. It's disingenuous, it curries favor with these listeners, right? It makes anyone who listens to Nick Fuentes, anyone who listens to Candace Own, it makes him think like, well, he's he's speaking truth to power, it's just what we like. And it reminds me of years ago, I remember hearing Joe Scarborough speak publicly, Morning Joe. Yeah. Wherever he went, he routinely mocked and ridiculed Jimmy Carter's presidency. And just a few lines here or there, oh, Jimmy Carter wouldn't have done that. Oh, at least we don't have Jimmy Carter again. But it it really was just used to establish his conservative credentials. Because look at him now, you know, it's not even a conservative.
SPEAKER_01He's a no Trumper.
SPEAKER_00He's by no Trumper, he really resigned his membership of the Republican Party. He's an independent, but uh, you know, he uh he was a rhino and it gave him credibility. And I think this gives this gives um Hunter Biden a little credibility with um because he might have voted for Trump.
SPEAKER_01I'm confused though about what Hunter Biden's been up to because it seems to be two different things. One it's one thing to be self-deprecating and have a sense of humor about yourself, a self-awareness which can easily disarm your critics. But then on the other hand, he's uh he's trolling uh to some degree, right? Uh those are those are aren't those in sort of opposite, aren't those sort of opposites of each other? That's being kind of inconsistent if he's trolling some of the time and being self-deprecating other other parts of the time. I don't quite understand his media strategy. You probably understand it more than I do because you've been you've been following this more than than I have. What is the trolling? He's has he been trolling Jake Tapper or like moaning and complaining about Jake Tapper? That's not being self-deprecating.
SPEAKER_00I think I think on X he he is attacking the administration, and um, but he you know he has these defensive crouches that he uses, you know, but using his addiction and uh his public shaming, and um you know, and then he can always he can always retreat and make fun of Jake Tapper uh for whatever reason. Either way, it's a form of what it is is um everyone should have a teenager in their life or or a millennial, and uh so they can share some of the terminology with them. This is what's called rage bait. And these kinds of declarations, they they draw engagement, they it's it's they draw clicks. It's called rage baiting, and that's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01Jim Jim, are we not are we not raging enough? Uh we need or should we be angrier about things? I'm outraged about something, but I'm not sure what it is. Spider-Man. I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Maybe we should be attacking each other. Yeah, Jim.
SPEAKER_01I don't like your beard.
SPEAKER_00I don't like your beard.
SPEAKER_01Prim your beard. I just shaved yesterday. Um uh so uh so what is what is Hunter Biden's long-term uh strategy? What is what is he is this just about self feeling good about himself? I don't even know what is he even doing. What is he get out of this?
SPEAKER_00I don't know what I don't think there's an end game. I don't think I don't think there's an end game. I think part of it is he's he wants to honor his father. Okay, father stayed with him, and it's sort of an interesting point is you know, when we go back to the pardon question, again, you know, you could there are good arguments for and against, but I have a friend who shall remain nameless, although name is Matt, and he lives. I won't disclose his location, it's in North Carolina 4734. Uh but he uh he asked the question would you pardon your own son? Ooh, yeah, would you?
SPEAKER_01Um well it depends what he'd done. I mean if he shot someone, I don't think I would. And and and by Bunter had a gun. I mean, he could have shot someone. I wouldn't know what he's doing with a gun. Um, I don't know. It depends on the circumstances. I wouldn't, I certainly would not rule it out. Actually, you make a you make a good point.
SPEAKER_00You know, what's the severity of the of the transgression? What did he do wrong? And and when, you know, if if he had if he had taken that gun and shot someone, if Biden had punished him, uh pardoned him for you know, that would have been uh different story, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, does it cover does it cover shooting someone? Those pardons, I guess it must because there was shootings uh at um you know January 6th. I mean, there was real violence, so I guess you can pardon anything. Anyone federal? Is it it's federal?
SPEAKER_00You pardon it for federal crimes, not like uh it would have been a federal crime. The J6ers strangled police officers, one of them had a spiked metal whip that he carried people died of heart attacks.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there were there were fatalities involved in that. But maybe this was all fodder for that website, that Hunter Biden website. You click on the website, it's all about his paintings. It really is. They're all for sale. We talked about this earlier. You know, George W. Bush has become a painter too, but he doesn't sell his paintings. Hunter Biden's got it out there, but he also has well, we looked it up, 17 million dollars um legal, legal bills. 17 million dollars. I that number that amount astounds me. I don't understand how anybody can rack up the 17 million. And I thought one of the reasons for being pardoned was you don't have to hire lawyers. Uh doesn't that? I mean, you can do it just for purely financial reasons, but uh maybe the those bills racked up before he was pardoned. But um go to Hunter Biden's website, buy one of his paintings, and help pay off his legal fees. So some poor Washington lawyer can go back to his five-star restaurant and well, you know, I I just have to step back a second, is when the government makes a pretext and accuses someone of a crime.
SPEAKER_00Uh, I think, I think uh, you know, the most famous being uh our former FBI director James Comey. Um who else is up there defending themselves and paying extraordinary legal fees?
SPEAKER_01Uh well that that that poor guy who uh I guess he's just been uh they canceled the charges against him who put it the the Olympic canoeer who uh put his hand in the reflecting pool and was arrested for for yeah for vandalism. He must have had some legal bills, I would imagine. Sure.
SPEAKER_00I mean, there are a lot of high profile uh uh people who've been accused. And 17 million dollar legal bill is um it actually strikes me as modest compared to some lawsuits out there. And I and and and uh again, there's probably some lawyer out there who will take take the work at discount or pro bono. But the the person I think about the most is uh her name is Lisa Cook, she's a Federal Reserve governor, and she had been accused of fraudulently uh applying for a second home. Uh and the mastermind behind that was Bill Poulty, who was at a pretty um inconspicuous uh government mortgage, government-sponsored organization, and uh who was up to be named to be uh national intelligence director.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, something like that.
SPEAKER_00He's a no-good. God bless Reuters. God bless Reuters, they pointed out that his own parents had done exactly what they accused Lisa Cook of doing, yeah, and they had to pay restitution to uh a jurisdiction in Michigan somewhere. The fact of the matter is Lisa Cook is a federal Federal Reserve governor. No one's going to take her case bro pro bono. When you're when your life is uh interrupted with legal fees, it's a form of torture in itself. The other one I and I'm not gonna I won't keep you too long. Alan Lichtman, pretty boring guy. He emerges every four years with his 15 keys that predict a presidential election. Um he predicted uh wrongly, wrongly, that uh Harris would win the election.
SPEAKER_01Didn't we have Fox News?
SPEAKER_00Didn't stop MAGA from attacking him. This is a guy in his, I think in his mid-70s, who's an academic who had to take out a very costly um security detail.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so they they get doxxed or they get publicly attacked, and so you have to pay for security. If you're not paying for legal for lawyers, you're paying for for security. I mean, these guys, the White House, these people are are bare knuckles. It's a bare knuckles. They're dangerous bullies, and so I mean, in that light, uh, we can you can you can look uh kindly on Hunter what Hunter Biden has been going through, but 17 million dollars. Uh you're saying that's a that's the that's the discount rate. They want to charge him 25, but they're gonna give him a discount for 17 million. I didn't how much are those painting? What are they selling for? I didn't look at the prices.
SPEAKER_00If you listen to his podcast, he says that he made $900,000 selling those paintings, and I think they all his best friend bought bought every single one of them.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a good friend, Jim. If I'm if I was in legal trouble and I did some paintings and put on a website, I hope you would he would buy a whole bunch of them.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, it depends on the content. All right, but okay, and I try to make good ones. So let's uh should we conclude this one with a final vote? Yeah, okay. What's the I'll ask you and I'll ask our listeners, Hunter Biden, truth teller or just another troll?
SPEAKER_01Well, trolling. I mean, we didn't even talk about go into the issues of of of trolling. Um, I I haven't been following this case enough. I I'm a little skeptical of him, to be honest. I um uh I feel so I feel badly for him, that family tragedy and what he's had to put up with. Um but um I don't know if he's a I don't think he's just another troll, but I don't think um he's a truth teller. Oh, that's not good. That's not fair. Um truth teller or just another troll. He's um I think he's maybe almost another troll. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00I I I think he's trolling. I think that uh, you know, the sort of like the quality of his uh of his rhetoric is just kind of lowbrow. He's honoring his father. God bless him. What a good son. Um, but I I don't see heroism in this, I don't see truth, I just see more trolling. Well, what about society?
SPEAKER_01I mean, Gavin Newsom, he got a lot of mileage, what, six months ago, because he was trolling Trump when very few or no other Democrats were, and that seemed refreshing at the time. Now it seems kind of boring. I don't know if he's I don't know if he's even doing it anymore. But um remember, remember in the 2016 Democratic Convention, Michelle Obama famously said, when they go low, we go high. And everybody, everyone applauded her. And that fall, uh, Trump got elected. So um that that that uh that um we didn't go high enough. We didn't, I don't know, what we did something wrong. Um but the uh then people but it's hard to it's hard to troll Trump. There was that saying, never uh get into a fight with a pig because um he'll just enjoy it and you'll be covered in mud. Um uh yeah, never the the never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and the pig likes it. And do you know who said that? George Bernard Shaw of all people. That's a Shavian quote. You can impress your that's a good quote.
SPEAKER_00And I by the way, I think I think Michelle Obama, I think she said that a long time ago. I think she said it before 2016. She might have said it in 2008, or maybe repeated it at another demo.
SPEAKER_01Maybe she repeated it. I what I'm uh I thought it I saw it in 2016, but maybe she'd already maybe she was repeating a hit from the 2012 um convention. I don't know. Um Democrats uh should Democrats be trolling more? Should they be getting in the mud? You know, that's sort of that's sort of what we're questioning in this when we question Biden's strategy. I don't know what the end game is there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I don't I don't think they should. I think I don't know. Is there is there a neutral term for for being statesmanlike, statesperson-like? But uh I I think uh the world is craving leadership where there is a vacuum at the moment, and the the right the right elected official, the right candidate can really, I think, turn heads. But yeah, and it's right, it takes the right message.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, John Osoff, who's my sort of hero of the moment, he's not trolling. You know, I think Gavin Newsom looks kind of kind of cheap after a while when he's you know, it seemed refreshing initially, but now I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear that particularly, right?
SPEAKER_00It's it's a little bit tedious. I you know Bernie Sanders, he has this avuncular way of raising a fist and speaking to the people. It's not trolling, it's it's really is um it's politicking, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think the democrats are democrats are good at that. Um Stephen Colbert used to always depict um Bernie Sanders as saying, we need soup. I want soup. Some kind of Jewish, old Jewish guy who was at the early bird dinner in Florida asking for his soup. Um, but um, yes, it's not trolling, it's just asking for soup. Yeah, political, politically advanced way. So we are we both on the same side of this? We both think that Hunter Biden is a bit of another.
SPEAKER_00Yes, he's a troll. Uh that could be. Yeah, from our from our our ivory castle or ivory tower or ivory boomer tower, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Ivory Boomer Tower. Um, so head. Headquakes. Uh, this week, in lieu of a headquake, I want to make a correction because we did a podcast a couple weeks ago about the movies being back at 2026, was the uh biggest box office year since before the lockdown, since 2019. And that is true. We were right about that. But as it turns out, that's because of higher ticket prices, not because there's more attendance. Um, from at least an article, some articles I've been reading in the last uh within the last couple weeks, attendance is down, but um a lot of movie theaters are making more money, they're charging more for their popcorn. And um when the Odyssey, uh when you see the Odyssey in IMAX or 70 millimeter, the tickets are much more expensive. I think you can pay up to $35. Uh but um but then on Friday, the new Spidey Man, the Spider-Man film came out, and that broke more uh box office records. So um maybe that's bring maybe that is gonna add up to more uh theatrical attendance.
SPEAKER_00So when you say box office records, does that mean does that mean dollars?
SPEAKER_01It was the biggest, yeah. They don't provide numbers for attendance. I think they do that on purpose. They don't say there were you know 14 million uh you know seats were filled on Friday. They say how much money was made. So you don't know. I mean, maybe that's on purpose to to to to obscure the fact that maybe these uh attendance uh numbers are down, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, divide it by the average seat price and sort of figure it out from there.
SPEAKER_01I guess uh yeah, maybe there's a way to. I mean, obviously they would know if the numbers are down, if there was an article about it, but it may be at the end of the year uh we'll find the numbers are are higher. But so far, it looks like the money they're making more money than they did in the last few years um since 2019. But 2019 was not the high watermark. I mean, uh the attendance was already down from years before. Just wanted to make that correction because we try to provide as honest, be as honest as we can, and our information should be credit credible. So I just wanted to make that in lieu of my of my headquake. Do you do have anything to add to that?
SPEAKER_00I uh only that I I approve of your groundwork and your candor uh after uh after correcting the work that we did in a prior podcast, and that's my headquake, too.
SPEAKER_01To good, all right.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're gonna ruin our listenership for me to admire and prove and agree with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're not doing ourselves any favors. Um, we should have remembered count pointer count or um here's a boomer reference. Um, you know, who is it? John uh Dan Aykroyd and and Jane Curtin, Jane, you ignorant slut uh from the first season of SNL.
SPEAKER_00There was a spoof of 16 minutes, was it on the minute segment that called point counterpoint?
SPEAKER_01Point counterpoint, yeah, yeah. And they did argue, and you know, when William F. Buckley had someone on in firing line, they never agreed with anyone he had on. So uh we should learn, learn from our elders and be more combative with each other, yeah. So apologies for agreeing with you, Jim.
SPEAKER_00Uh and I apologize too. This is never gonna work. I'm resigning the podcast. Oh no, I resigned a disgrace.
SPEAKER_01Listeners and viewers, we will try to be more contrarian with each other in future podcasts. But until then, this has been Boomer Has It.
SPEAKER_00I'm JB Miller in London, and I'm Jim Jelamis in New York. Thanks. Bye bye.