Republicans Are Smearing the Bidens Like They Did Hillary Clinton

 https://newrepublic.com/article/173811/republicans-smearing-bidens-like-hillary-clinton

The point of the GOP-led investigations into his actions wasn’t to actually find evidence of criminal activity, as much as they would have welcomed it, but to create an aura of corruption and criminality around the 2020 and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate in much the same way they did against the party’s 2016 nominee. To their immense frustration, Republicans haven’t yet succeeded in that enterprise against Biden.

Lieu blasts ‘dumb’ Durham hearing: Republicans focused on ‘stupid stuff’

Supporters blast Netanyahu trial after report shows bribery case falling apart

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-747353

"After years of media and legal persecution against the prime minister, a persecution that has turned an entire country, today the judges also say clearly that there is no chance of a conviction for bribery," said Education Minister Yoav Kisch in response to a Channel 12 report about a secret meeting about Case 4000 between the judges, State Attorney's Office representatives, and Netanyahu and Bezeq owner Shaul Elovitch's lawyers.

Behind the Hunter Biden hype: GOP scramble to keep up the outrage — but they've got nothing

 https://www.salon.com/2023/06/21/behind-the-hunter-biden-hype-scramble-to-keep-up-the-outrage--but-theyve-got-nothing/

I would have thought that no sentient being on the planet would have the nerve to compare what Donald Trump is accused of with the charges against Hunter Biden. Not even Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. But as long as we're talking about him, perhaps McCarthy would care to comment on the big story By Eric Lipton in the New York Times yesterday about the Trump family's latest "sweetheart deal" with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Was Actually Pretty Harsh on Hunter Biden

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/attorney-general-merrick-garland-was-actually-pretty-harsh-on-hunter-biden

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.

Hunter Biden Got Special Treatment — Especially Harsh

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/22/hunter-biden-got-special-treatment-especially-harsh-00103184

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

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/gercino-dos-santos-jr-and-elma-santos-preven-bailed-george-santos-out-of-jail-report?ref=home?ref=home

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

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/purple-from-holy-temple-objects-traced-to-snail-guts-at-3000-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.

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

 https://www.newsweek.com/sorry-maga-world-if-hunters-name-wasnt-biden-he-would-never-have-been-charged-opinion-1807993

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.

Michigan GOP Chair Says Outrage Over Holocaust Tweet Was ‘Completely Hilarious’

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-audio-michigan-gop-chair-kristina-karamo-says-outrage-over-holocaust-tweet-was-completely-hilarious?ref=home?ref=home

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

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wont-say-why-republicans-hate-covid-vaccines-so-much-in-fox-news-interview?ref=scroll

“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.”