[HotAir] Special counsel David Weiss signaled eight days ago that an indictment would drop soon. Indeed, it had to drop soon or risk going past the statute of limitation — which Weiss allowed to pass on some of the tax evasion charges Hunter Biden might have faced.
But with as much scrutiny that Weiss and the Department of Justice faced after their smelly plea deal and diversion agreement collapsed, neither Weiss nor Merrick Garland apparently had the stomach to take another hit for the Biden team. Hence, Weiss has indicted Hunter for three felonies in relation to his illegal possession of a firearm in 2018:
A grand jury delivered an indictment Thursday against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter over allegations he unlawfully owned a gun while addicted to drugs.
The indictment, brought by special counsel David Weiss, included three charges against Hunter Biden related to gun possession.
According to CNN, the three counts relate to false statements as well as possession as a prohibited person. CNN also has the indictment, which is blessedly brief. The first two counts both allege false statements on the same form for the same gun relating to his drug use. The third charges Hunter for “knowingly possess[ing] a firearm” despite knowing his ineligibility to do so.
It’s not as if this case will hold any surprises. Hunter bought a revolver at a gun shop in Delaware, and then lied on the form to complete the sale, swearing that he was not a drug user. These kinds of crimes almost always result in prison time if your last name doesn’t rhyme with Schmiden, but Hunter nearly walked without the charges even remaining on his record, let alone serve even a day in jail.
There is one curiosity about this indictment. This charges Hunter with felony possession of a specific revolver during a prohibited period. There is evidence from Hunter’s laptop, however, that he also possessed a semi-automatic pistol in the same time frame. Remember this? The firearm in that image is clearly not a revolver — so where is that weapon, and why isn’t Weiss charging the same felony possession charge with this kind of photographic evidence of it? Perhaps the picture couldn’t be conclusively dated, or perhaps that charge may eventually get added to the indictment. Color me skeptical on any sort of follow-up, though.
In fact, it’s not entirely clear that this will go to trial at all. Expect Hunter’s legal team to demand that the court restore the diversion agreement:
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell previously said that the earlier gun deal with prosecutors “prevents any additional charges from being filed” and that his client “has been abiding by the conditions of release under that agreement.” Prosecutors say that deal never went into force.
That could be a bigger problem for Weiss than it looks, since diversion agreements don’t usually require courts to finalize. If Weiss agreed to it and Hunter didn’t violate its terms afterward, a court might be inclined toward sympathy for Lowell’s position here. And one has to wonder if that’s not what Weiss is counting on in filing this indictment, as a way to cover his own ass after attempting to bail out the Bidens over the last five years.
Even as the federal courts are ruling that this kind of thing flies in the face of the First Amendment, they keep playing the same game.
[CNN] The White House sent a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime.
"It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies," Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter, which was first obtained by CNN.
The letter, which said an impeachment inquiry with no supporting evidence should "set off alarm bells for news organizations," was sent to executives helming the nation’s largest news organizations, including CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press, CBS News, and others, a White House official familiar with the matter said.
The correspondence comes one day after McCarthy announced that he had directed three House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden. House Republicans, most of whom have denied that disgraced former President Donald Trump committed any wrongdoing, have long sought to baselessly portray Biden as a corrupt, crime-ridden politician engaged in sinister activities.
While news organizations have published innumerable fact checks on the matter, they have also often failed to robustly call out the mis- and disinformation peddled by Republicans in their coverage, frustrating officials in the Biden White House who believe that the news media should be doing more to dispel lies that saturate the public discourse.
In its letter Wednesday, the White House asked news organizations to be more clear-eyed in their coverage of the impeachment inquiry, and not to fall prey to the traps of false equivalency in reporting.
"Covering impeachment as a process story — Republicans say X, but the White House says Y — is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable," Sams wrote.
"And in the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth," Sams added.
McCarthy launched the impeachment inquiry Tuesday without a formal House vote in a bid to appease Republicans on his far-right, including those who have threatened to oust the California Republican from his speakership if he does not move swiftly enough on such an investigation.
The Republican House-led investigations into Biden have yet to provide any direct evidence that the president financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s career overseas.
#2
I seem to remember a few of the Major Media outlets publishing the Biden family $$$$$$$ fountain documents a few weeks ago. Proving there was/is serious illegal issues at play.
Did the MSM suddenly realize that if Biden's out.
Then Obama's staff would have to take on the Herculean task of handling and presenting Kamala Harris in just a few months?
#3
There will be an inflection point of this where staffers will realize that they are going to have Biden Administration on their resume and start to bail. Once one goes, it will degrade quickly.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/14/2023 7:58 Comments ||
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Video at link. They guy looks like a caged animal. It's worse for him than it was for Trump because Biden is actually guilty. The big question now is if Senate Democrats will throw him under the bus in the hope that they can still salvage a win in 2024. They're a pack of rats so it wouldn't surprise me either way.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/14/2023 12:09 Comments ||
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#9
Super Hose may be right. If Senate Democrats get wobbly the best option for Joe might be to claim some kind of illness and go back to Delaware for a permanent vacation. In fact, it might be best for him to go now and possibly avoid the House hearings. But then, remembering how Schifferbrains and his crowd impeached Trump after he left office, House Republicans might go ahead with their hearings anyway.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/14/2023 12:17 Comments ||
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#10
It was one thing to install Joe when many people suspected that he was senile but the vast majority of people believed him to be Obama’s incompetent side kick. The majority of people now understand that he is corrupt, compromised and intellectually deficient. For 30% of Americans that works for them just fine, but it would be very risky to try to parlay that 30% into 80M Biden votes again.
Nancy Pelosi said today that she is not sure that Biden will run. That is probably a semaphore signal for everyone to begin to walk to the next position which will be - Joe’s not running so the GOP is wasting money on this impeachment.
Joe will make an official announcement at some point. The longer that they delay the announcement the shorter sprint that their final candidate will have. Ideally, they would like a short campaign from convention to election so that their candidate takes little battle damage. The more people discover about any Dem candidate the more they American people will dislike that person.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/14/2023 15:38 Comments ||
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#11
You know a lot of jobs can be cut and lots of network and newspaper executives shown the door if they would just let the DNC directly run the show rather than fisting the whole propaganda machine.
[Twitchy] Poor Alex Stein. His favorite hot tamale, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, may be officially off the market. Or is she? According to her it depends on how she identifies
This morning, Andrew Kerr and The Washington Free Beacon revealed that AOC has reported her fiancé as her 'spouse' in Congressional filings, even though her office denies that she is married.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) office says she isn’t married. But she has described her fiancé, Riley Roberts, as her "spouse" in forms filed with the House Ethics Committee in 2023, which has a strict definition of that term—"someone to whom you are legally married."
If AOC is indeed married, her spouse's finances are now subject to public disclosure.
But she did not disclose any of Roberts’s reportable stock holdings, assets, or income on her latest financial disclosure, though she did make two references to her "spouse" in the filing.
According to AOC's office, the term 'spouse' can refer to a long-term partner, but this is not the case according to the House Ethics Committee and the Code of Official Conduct, most assuredly for those public disclosure reasons, among others. The term spouse, again very clearly defined, appears 161 times in the House Ethics Manual, so there are plenty of rules in addition to financial disclosure, which govern such a relationship.
The issue came to light because of AOC's international travel schedule.
Oh, Luuuuuucy. You got some 'splainin' to doooo.
Either they are not married, in which case AOC needs to answer for why she completed her travel forms falsely, or they are married, in which Roberts has some financial disclosure obligations. When will AOC let us know which one it is?
#2
^ Nah. I use it all the time, though hardly ever about hair. Once trundled it out for blue and green haired grocery cashiers (two separate people). Both seemed to get it... more or less. Probably heard it in "their shows."
#1
We live in a degenerate world.
Devices several mm in size are called 'nanotechnology'.
Programs that couldn't pass a Turing test in a million years are called 'AI'.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Some of the most powerful people in America assembled in Washington, DC, today to help shape the future of artificial intelligence (AI) safeguards.
The unprecedented meeting took place as the US Senate gears up to draft legislation that will regulate the rapidly advancing AI industry, which many of the world's best minds fear could destroy humanity if left unchecked.
The gathering brought 22 of the most influential voices in the tech sector - who had a combined net worth of over $400billion - and 100 senators under one roof, bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and the nation's capital.
The high-profile event included notorious AI critic Elon Musk, who today called for tighter regulation of AI, as well as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and the CEOs of Google and IBM.
The private meeting was a crash course for legislators on how best to regulate AI: a technical achievement which some of these same industry leaders likened to the 'extinction'-level risk of nuclear weapons.
Those who fear AI fear it could surpass human intelligence and develop independent thinking. This means it would no longer need or listen to humans, in a worst-case scenario stealing nuclear codes, create pandemics and spark world wars.
Names listed at the link, some with a paragraph and photo.
#4
Just get a bunch of kids to stop AI. They’re the only ones who understand technology.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/14/2023 8:08 Comments ||
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#5
In the movie, the Terminator came from the future circa 2029. Not a bad guess from a mid-80s SciFi movie. But who needs to wait for that? In 2023 we have the Bidenator.
#2
I project Biden pulls out 'sick'
'Kamala' names Newsom as VP
'Kamala' chooses NOT to campaign for 2028.
DNC is testing replacement strategies in CA now and popularizing Newsom with trials on reparations, Drag Qweens, No Bail, library books, etc. Once the influence of these marginalized groups is quantified he can shut them down to become a popular candidate.
[NYPOST] Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm "knew charging might be a challenge" on her "four-day electric-vehicle road trip this summer," reports NPR’s Camila Domonoske, "but she probably didn’t expect anyone to call the cops." When a Granholm staffer used a regular car to block a fast-charging station in advance of her arrival in a Georgia town, "a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset" that it did just that. In fact, the trip also exposed the general scarcity of chargers, especially fast ones, requiring "cumbersome planning" for any long trip. Another issue: Even "having a superfast charger doesn’t do you any good if the dang thing doesn’t work," a surprise that popped up multiple times on the trip. Back in the thrilling days of yesteryear, when my father was just a tad and the motorcar was newfangled, you could choose among your means of propulsion. You could get a powerful steamer, but you had to wait for the pressure in the boiler to build up, which was inconvenient. It took extra planning to get to work on time and to make it home in time for dinner. Or you could buy an electric. You could plug it into your house and let it charge overnight, but you had a limited range before you had to stop and charge it, again overnight. Going to see Aunt Hattie in Kalamazoo would take a week or longer because of the charging requirements. Or you could take your gasoline-powered runabout, crank it up (often literally) and take your chances without delay on roads that were often just cross-country sets of ruts. There's a reason gas buggies won that contest.
#2
The haughty attitude that the proles can just wait their turn - and then some - is muted by the fact that the EV road show shows how unsuited EVs are to road trips of any meaningful distance.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/14/2023 3:55 Comments ||
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#3
Hey! Don’t make fun of Kalamazoo. If it was good enough for Glenn Miller to write a song a out it ( something about going there for a booty call), and was the home of Checker Motors ( official taxi ab) of the free world, it deserves some respect. The fact that the lovely Mrs. Ret was born and raised there doesn’t bias me one bit. Nosiree!
#4
You could make a business out of occupying chargers and reserving them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/14/2023 8:06 Comments ||
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#5
Gibson guitar was based in Kalamazoo before moving to Nashville.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/14/2023 8:08 Comments ||
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#6
The NY Post article is a snippet of a much longer NPR Business article, which looks like it does a fair job of reporting the four major challenges, and benefits, of going electric.
In my skipping around, I failed to note the problem of where all that electricity is going to be found.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2023 8:44 Comments ||
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#11
Where all that electricity is going to be found?
Wind and solar are always the answer. But they have been around for at least 40 years now (we had solar--that did not work--in Phoenix in the 80s.) If wind and solar were really viable, they would be taking market share hand over fist by now. The fact that they still don't work after 40 years of legislating and subsidizing tells you all you need to know.
Posted by: Tom ||
09/14/2023 13:45 Comments ||
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#12
Granholm has done a good job of making Buttigeig looking competent.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/14/2023 13:50 Comments ||
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#1
So, "poor, destitute" migrants from Senegal somehow managed to travel all the way to Mexico for the walk across. I'm betting there's an airliner involved.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/14/2023 13:46 Comments ||
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#2
Migrant access to travel dollars looks more than a little suspicious. I have suspected US Gov't funding being sent to various NGO (non-governmental organization) nodes and other entities for the transport of these people to the US.
It would seem illogical that NGO support (and USG funding) would only be initiated upon the migrant's entry into the US, the easiest segment of the journey.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Twitchy] Poor Alex Stein. His favorite hot tamale, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, may be officially off the market. Or is she? 
