Joe biden

Hunter’s sweetheart deal goes bust

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of Peachy Keenan’s report that Hunter Biden, having caused such trouble for the Deep State, has been invited to go paddle-boarding at the Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate. That’s probably just one of those mean things that right-wing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals like, well, like me would say. But literally true or not, it is, as Algernon Moncrieff observed in other context, perfectly phrased and “quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be” — especially, I might add, any observation that touches upon the Bidens. The chief thing to keep in mind as you savor the soap opera of Hunter Biden’s faux prosecution is that Hunter’s story is inseparable from the story of dear old dad, “the Big Guy,” Mr.

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Hunter’s plea deal confusion in Delaware

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.

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The Biden family dog’s biting spree

The Biden family seems to care more about its dogs than the men and women who work to keep them safe every day. After numerous biting incidents, often but not exclusively of Secret Service agents, their dog Major was expelled. Now it may be Commander’s turn to hit the road — the question is how many agents need to get bitten first. The New York Post reports that over the course of four months, September 2022 to January 2023, the German Shepherd bit seven people, and there are likely more incidents outside that block of time. Cockburn finds it a bit strange that neither Joe nor Jill are willing to take the proactive step of muzzling their dogs — after all, hasn't this White House been all too eager to muzzle Americans?

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Hunter’s court date is the least of his worries

Hunter Biden will appear at a Wilmington court on Wednesday to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes. These charges are the result of the prolonged investigation that has been the subject of serious claims of political interference from two IRS whistleblowers. Along with a pretrial agreement relating to a felony gun charge, the misdemeanors make up what many in Washington see to be a sweetheart deal for the president’s son.  Assuming Hunter’s lawyer can concentrate between bong rips, and Hunter himself manages to tear himself away from Nobu Malibu and make it to court on time, it should be a fairly routine appearance.

Here comes Kamala

One of the few notable things about the low-key launch of Joe Biden’s reelection bid earlier this year was the prominence of his unpopular deputy. Kamala Harris featured heavily in the video in which he announced his run.  At the time, White House insiders acknowledged sotto voce that Biden’s age meant his vice president would have to take on a bigger role than is normal for running mates. An octogenarian candidate might not be able to handle the punishing campaign trail schedule, and voters would need to be comfortable that the woman only a heartbeat away from the presidency was up to the job.  For the White House, acknowledging the need for a bigger role for Harris meant addressing her unpopularity: Joe needed a Kamala relaunch.

chuck grassley

Will Chuck Grassley’s Burisma bombshell finally get the Bidens fired?

A famous clip from recent history: “I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.” That was Joe Biden in 2016. He was relaxing among friends at a chummy event at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ha, ha, ha, tittered the appreciative audience. What a lark! Here was a former vice president of the United States bragging about how he (naughty word) blackmailed an official from a foreign government who was investigating the company on whose board Joe Biden’s son sat. This is old news, of course.

No Labels puts its cards on the table

The centrist group No Labels held a coming out party for itself in New Hampshire this week. In an event at St. Anselm College — a regular stop for presidential hopefuls — West Virginia senator Joe Manchin and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman talked up the prospects of a third-party run and the market for a ticket that appeals to the exasperated and underserved middle ground of American politics.  Meanwhile, No Labels is getting more specific about what its approach to 2024 will be. Until this week, the group had been noncommittal about exactly which Democratic and Republican candidates it would challenge, and when it would make a call on entering the race.

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Could the Teamsters’ fight with UPS shut down America?

A pugnacious union president is setting up a little-noticed showdown with United Parcel Service (UPS), in what would be the largest labor strike in American history, potentially complicating President Joe Biden’s rollout of “Bidenomics.” At issue is mainly wage increases for part-time Teamsters, who earn roughly $20 an hour; Teamsters want that increased by around 30 percent. Earlier this month, both sides made significant progress on core issues like ending forced overtime on drivers’ days off and establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday.  However, talks soured earlier this month and both sides are barreling towards the July 31 deadline; if no deal is reached by the end of the month, the Teamsters will fully strike.

Operation Get Trump

Humankind, said T.S. Eliot, cannot bear very much reality. A case in point was the chyron that Fox News posted briefly on June 13. That was the day that Donald Trump was arraigned in Miami. The news story featured a split screen. On the left was Joe Biden speaking at an event in Washington for the secretary-general of NATO. On the right was Donald Trump addressing supporters in New Jersey. Underneath ran the unspeakable truth: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” That fresh-breeze-of-truth window was open for a total of twenty-seven seconds. Then it was slammed shut. But that was long enough. Our Guardians on the internet erupted in fury. Fox issued a public apology and canned the veteran producer responsible on the spot.

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An eye-opening trip to the local ICE processing center

I recently had an astonishing trip to the former correctional center in my town that entered into a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to become a processing center right after President Biden took office and issued an executive order cracking down on private prisons. The processing center is a big job creator in this rural place — and the people employed there, by all accounts I’ve heard and witnessed, are dedicated, hard workers. Yet what their jobs entail is astonishing. At a community outreach luncheon, I learned that as blue states refuse to allow ICE facilities to operate, central Pennsylvania has become a “hub” of the northeast for detainees. We receive immigrants from Maryland, New York, New Jersey and occasionally Ohio.

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Biden catches a break on inflation

Things are looking up. Today began with some very good economic news in Washington: Labor Department data shows inflation falling to a two-year low. The consumer price index rose 3 percent in the twelve months to June. That is a steep fall from the 9.1 percent price rise in the twelve months to June 2022, and perhaps the clearest sign yet that the US is on course to tame inflation while avoiding a recession — the soft landing that Joe Biden, Jay Powell and every other policymaker in Washington has been praying for.   Core consumer prices increased by 0.2 percent in June, the smallest single-month increase since August 2021 and an indicator that the pressure on prices is easing.

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Biden chickens out on Ukraine and NATO

Shortly before his trip to Europe and the NATO summit in Lithuania, President Biden told CNN that he does not think Ukraine has an easy path to NATO membership. “I don’t think it [Ukraine] is ready for NATO,” he said to Fareed Zakaria. “I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of the war.” “I mean what I say," Biden continued, "we are determined to commit [defend] every inch of territory that is NATO territory... If the war is going on, then we are all in a war.” That Ukraine would not join NATO in the middle of a war has generally been accepted due to the risks. Membership would come, albeit on a longer timeline, and after the war is over.

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Meritocracy now!

Last Friday, a day after the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, I noted the gap between the Democratic Party’s leaders and its voters on race-based admissions. Polls find a majority of Democrats opposed to using race as a factor in admissions. The party’s elite, however, is almost universally in favor of affirmative action — as hysterical reactions from the president and others made clear.  But that was last week. Now that the dust has settled, and everyone has had a chance to cool down over July 4, have the Democrats gained some Independence-Day perspective on the end of race-based decisions? Not really.

Cocaine is a helluva drug

Welcome to Thunderdome, where this week our podcast is all about cocaine and cocaine accessories as the guys discuss the latest speculation for a White House that seems out of control. If you’ve got bad news, you wanna kick them blues — so listen here, and subscribe here!So let’s get one thing straight: the betting odds on this White House cocaine thing are totally out of whack. BetOnline, an offshore gaming platform, opened up the bidding at +170 for Hunter, followed by +800 for... Travis Kelce? The Kansas City Chiefs tight end was at the White House a month ago — how often does BetOnline think the White House gets inspected? Kelce is at +800, followed by “One of the Jonas Brothers” at +1000, followed by a string of nonsensical celebrities.

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Who left their cocaine at the White House?

After party at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? The New York Post reported Tuesday morning that a substance found in the White House’s West Wing this weekend tested positive for cocaine. Cockburn, who won't complain about this massive win for federal drug legalization, only wants to know who would leave such an expensive substance at the White House. It's a total mystery. Secret service agents found the white powder during a routine round of the White House on Sunday evening while President Biden and his family were away at Camp David. The complex was evacuated at 8:45 p.m. as fire and emergency crews were brought in to investigate the substance.  “We have a yellow bar stating cocaine hydrochloride,” a DC firefighter stated in a radio communication at 8:49 p.m. Sunday.

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The president versus the court

Joe Biden’s best days may be behind him, but the president’s talent for feigning moral outrage is undiminished. That much was clear from the president’s reaction to Supreme Court decisions in the last few days, in particular his remarks in response to the court’s rulings on affirmative action and his administration’s student debt forgiveness program.  This week has served as a reminder that Biden is a president who knows his survival depends on drawing the most demagogic caricature of his opponents he can get away with.

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SCOTUS has made the right call on student debt forgiveness

The Supreme Court correctly overruled President Joe Biden's attempt to use executive power to forgive student loan debt on Friday. As the court explained, while the HEROES Act gives the president the emergency authority to "waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to" student loans, the intention of the legislation was for modest, mostly procedural, changes. It was never meant to confer the power to cancel debt entirely, and certainly not to the tune of over $400 billion on the taxpayer dime. Further, Biden justified forgiving student debt under the HEROES Act by defining the Covid-19 pandemic as a "national emergency." Unfortunately for his legal chances, he declared the pandemic "over" just weeks after announcing the forgiveness plan.

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Biden’s decline deepens in MSNBC interview

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace conducted an interview with Joe Biden (if you can call it that) that came across more like twenty minutes of a middle-aged daughter trying to help dad remember where he is. It was a rarity for Joe — nearly all of his conversations with the media of any length these days are pre-taped, not live — and it did not end well. In fact, it was so awkward that the video posted by the network cuts off abruptly so as not to show Biden wandering off the set as if seeking a bowl of porridge and a nightcap.  https://twitter.

Troubled artist Hunter Biden uses paintings to settle paternity suit with former stripper

Hunter Biden has settled his long-running child support case in Arkansas. The president’s son has reached an agreement with Lunden Roberts, the mother of his illegitimate daughter Navy, that involves giving some of his own paintings to her. This makes Cockburn ask, hasn’t that child been through enough? Per the settlement: "Defendant additionally agrees that he shall assign to the child [redacted] of his paintings over the next [redacted] which shall vary in size with a minimum size of 24x24. The child shall select the painting which shall either be sent to the child or sent to a gallery designated by Lunden Roberts. The child shall select the painting which shall either be sent to the child or sent to a gallery designated by Lunden Roberts.

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donny republicans

Republicans can’t quit Donny

Welcome to Thunderdome! For the latest edition of our podcast, head over here — this week, we talked about steel manning the legal woes of Trump and Biden, DeSantis’s plateau, Christie’s surge, the Kamala problem, what’s a Uighur and, in a new tradition, named our King of the Week. Listen here and subscribe today!  Republicans can’t quit Donny Try as they might, and much as many of them want to, Republicans just can’t quit Trump. Everything about this moment suggests that nominating a candidate in 2024 who has just a modicum of likability would be a genius play. Joe Biden’s job approval hovers around 40 percent, and only a quarter of voters are positive about the direction of the country.