House Ways and Means Committee

There’s a nickname for House Speaker Mike Johnson shared among some Hill staffers and observers: “Deacon Mike,” a nod to his quiet Southern Baptist religious demeanor. But it also contains the idea that he is a man elevated beyond his expected station, charged with the monumental task of wrangling an extremely thin Republican House majority when he should rightly be in charge of keeping the worship center donuts fresh and the coffee hot.

The US Army has been facing a recruitment crisis for some time now — and new data shines a light on the demographic that seems particularly uninterested in serving: white people.A Military.com report reveals:A total of 44,042 new Army recruits were categorized by the service as white in 2018, but that number has fallen consistently each year to a low of 25,070 in 2023, with a 6 percent dip from 2022 to 2023 being the most significant drop. No other demographic group has seen such a precipitous decline, though there have been ups and downs from year to year.Black recruitment also fell during this period, while Hispanic recruitment jumped from 17 percent to 24 percent.

A federal judge called a second recess in Hunter Biden’s hearing Wednesday as the plea agreement between Hunter Biden and the US attorney in Delaware appeared on the verge of collapsing. Biden was expected to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors after making a deal in June that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a gun charge. A disagreement between prosecutors and defense lawyers about immunity from other charges threatened to kill the deal. Biden's attorneys came to a limited agreement with prosecutors that stipulated the deal covered specific charges within a time period/ US District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked Leo Wise, a member of the prosecution, if the deal meant Biden would be immune from prosecution for other crimes, to which he responded no.

Confronted with devastating evidence of Biden family grifting, the president’s advocates are abandoning their old defenses and trying some new ones.  Some are attempting to change the subject. Nancy Pelosi offers a sterling example. Asked about the latest evidence connecting Joe Biden with Hunter’s corrupt schemes, she replied that she was too busy defending women’s reproductive rights. Not exactly a full-throated defense of the president. Still others are repeating the familiar refrain, “But Trump is worse.” (More on that in a minute.)  Finally, a shrinking band of Biden supporters are sticking with their old line: you may have caught everyone who shares Joe’s DNA, but you haven’t caught ol’ Joe himself.

The Republicans investigating the Biden family grift had a big week, not that you would know it from reading the New York Times or Washington Post. Just how big a week it will turn out to be depends on whether congressional investigators can actually prove what the two IRS whistleblowers allege.  The allegations, presented at a press conference by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday, are based on testimony from those whistleblowers. They make several key points:  The Department of Justice deliberately delayed and impeded the IRS investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax affairs The Department of Justice rejected recommendations by IRS investigators that Hunter be charged with multiple felonies for tax violations.