So the result of this five-year long investigation is that a recovering drug addict who paid his taxes late and lied about using drugs to purchase a firearm will be convicted of tax evasion, and be given pre-trial diversion for lying on his gun ownership application. It is likely that any other drug addict who was not the son of a sitting president would not have been prosecuted for these charges.
Friday, June 23, 2023
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Hunter Biden Got Special Treatment — Especially Harsh
If Hunter Biden were not the president’s son, it’s not clear whether prosecutors would have investigated for as long or as hard as they did, or that they would have decided to spend additional federal resources prosecuting misdemeanors instead of moving on to the next case.
Revealed: The Mystery Benefactors Who Paid George Santos’ Bail
Santos’ father and aunt both donated thousands to his congressional bid, according to federal elections data. Preven’s social media accounts reflect a particular interest in Brazilian politics, as she has posted material critical of the country’s left-wing President Ignacio Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and supportive of his far-right foe and predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. A United States Postal Service worker, she owns properties in both Queens and in Brazil.
Purple from Holy Temple objects traced to snail guts at 3,000-year-old Haifa factory
The true purple argaman dye and its associated azure techelet variant are mentioned dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible and Sennacherib’s Cylinder (690 BCE), among other texts.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Fox News has normalized a lie about the origins of the Russia investigation
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277089/fox-news-steele-dossier-lie-trump-witch-hunt
As America awaits special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report, Fox News has gotten in the habit of pushing a false talking point about the origins of his investigation — that it began after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2016 alerted the FBI to the Steele dossier, an unverified intelligence document that contains a number of claims, some of them far-fetched, about the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia.
“Keep in mind that all of this seemed to have started with this dossier that was essentially an oppo research paper funded by the Democrats, after the Republicans originally started it — dirt on Donald Trump,” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy said on Friday. Doocy’s not alone. Hosts and guests alike on Fox News have been pushing this talking point with impunity. Trump ally Dan Bongino made the claim during Tuesday’s edition of Fox & Friends. Last Saturday, host Ed Henry falsely claimed the FBI relied on the dossier “to get this whole thing going” — the “whole thing” being the Russia investigation. On March 10, Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said of the dossier, “I think that’s the way the investigation got kicked off.” Trump himself tweeted out a video clip on Monday from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in which Carlson framed “the Russia hoax” as stemming from the “dirty dossier.”
Justice Department inspector general concludes Russia probe was justified
https://www.axios.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-justice-department-russia-investigation
Horowitz determined that the controversial Steele dossier did not play any role in the FBI's opening of the investigation, but it did play a "central and essential role" in FBI lawyers' decision to support the Page surveillance request. Horowitz concluded that the FBI fell short in ensuring that Steele's information was accurate.
Steele defended his reports to Horowitz as not designed to be "finished products," and called allegations that he was biased against Trump "ridiculous." Steele claimed that if anything, he was "favorably disposed" toward the Trump family because he had been friendly with one family member for years, which ABC News has reported is Ivanka Trump.
Horowitz debunks the conspiracy theory that the so-called "Deep State" was out to get Trump, but he also chastises FBI officials for failing to meet standards for highly intrusive surveillance activity.
Sorry, MAGA World: If Hunter's Name Wasn't 'Biden,' He'd Never Have Been Charged
Sorry MAGA world, but that's the truth: Most people who do what Hunter did don't get prosecuted. Both the tax and gun charges are rarely brought against first-time offenders and almost never result in jail time. This is the conclusion drawn by many legal experts, folks like Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel, and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. People charged with the kinds of crimes Hunter is accused of tend to pay their back taxes, as Hunter arranged to have done, and then they are fined.
Tamar Epstein Heter: R' Greenblatt said he simply accepted whatever R Shalom Kaminetsky told him - Retraction of heter can not be far away
With this announcement it is clear that the retraction of the heter must follow since the facts on which it was based are clearly not true. The question now is what happens when the heter is retracted?
A translation for those interested:
To whom it may concern:
I certify here what I said in writing to several talmidei chachamim who asked, and that is that I do not know Mr. Aharon Freidman, may he live and be well, or Ms. (?) Tamar Epstein, may she live and be well, and it is certainly not possible for me to know anything about their marriage or any detail [that transpired] between them. Rather, Hagaon R' Sholom Kamenetzky shlita asked me: When there is testimony by expert doctors that someone is mentally ill in a way that disrupts his marriage, if it is possible to nullify the kiddushin due to this. And I said that if the matter is clear and is similar to the incident in the responsum in the Igros Moshe, it is possible to permit it under certain circumstances.
Nota tzvi Greenblatt
Michigan GOP Chair Says Outrage Over Holocaust Tweet Was ‘Completely Hilarious’
Figures in both parties criticized the tweet as an offensive trivialization of the Holocaust; the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition called it “absolutely inappropriate” and called on the Michigan GOP to take it down “immediately.”
In her remarks at the Lincoln Day dinner in Montcalm County, Karamo made clear she did not care about such concerns—even dismissing the continued anger over the tweet “hilarious, completely hilarious.”
“Us being armed is not about stopping a burglar,” she said. “It’s not about hunting. It’s about stopping a tyrannical government. And if you know a thing or two about history, we know that governments have a tendency to be very abusive to the citizenry.”
Trump’s Home Run
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trumps-home-run/
Trump’s interview with Bret Baier has, understandably, gotten a lot of attention. It’s been pointed out that Trump didn’t help his legal case, but since there isn’t much help to be had there, I’m not sure how much that matters.
I believe Trump’s legal defense has to be, first and foremost, getting elected president to squash the case; and, failing that, getting pardoned by a Republican president in the event Trump doesn’t win the nomination; and failing that, convincing enough people that the case is unfair so a juror simply refuses to convict.
Trump Can’t Say Why Republicans Hate Vaccines So Much
“He said you may have saved…throughout the world 100 million people and you never talk about it,” Trump told Baier. “I said I really don’t want to talk about it because, as a Republican, it’s not a great thing to talk about because for some reason, it’s just not.”
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Legal experts say the charges against Hunter Biden are rarely brought
Like the gun charge, the tax charges are rarely brought against first-time offenders and even more rarely result in jail time, Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel and NBC News contributor, tweeted Tuesday. "This is if anything harsh, not lenient," he wrote.
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti agreed. "It insults the intelligence of the American people to compare misdemeanor tax charges to a scheme to steal Top Secret documents and obstruct justice when the government asked for them back," he tweeted, comparing the charges against Hunter Biden to the recent federal indictment against former President Donald Trump. "If anything, Hunter Biden was treated harshly — those crimes are rarely charged."
Christie: Maybe Trump should’ve gone through boxes with classified documents instead of golfing
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4058124-christie-trump-boxes-of-classified-documents/
“He said the reason he didn’t give the documents back was because he just so very busy, and he didn’t have time to respond to a grand jury subpoena because he needed to get his golf shirts and pants out of the box,” Christie said on “CBS Mornings.” “I mean, does anybody in America believe this?”
“Look, I think the problem is going to be, for him over time, is that people are just not going to buy it,” the 2024 presidential hopeful and former New Jersey governor said. “And when you think about how many days of golf he’s played since he left office, maybe he could have skipped a couple of rounds of golf and gone through the boxes to respond to a subpoena from a grand jury.”
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