 Dear Weekend Jolter, Eddie turns 100, more on that below, but first . . . We knew the emperor was buck naked, but back in October the Fifth Estate was adamant (watch this Newsbusters' compilation) he was indeed finely clothed, no doubt sweating from all the layers. "What Hunter Biden scandal?!" they thundered at the charged-and-convicted conspiracy theorists, whose conspiring was about, well, the truth. Post-election polling evidence shows that the U.S. media's hellbent and often sanctimonious suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal — which in part pointed at president-elect Big Guy getting his beak wet thanks to Sonny Boy's global access-selling, including to the ChiComs — was consequential in keeping just enough Biden voters in the dark. But now, oh my, an admission: There's some there there after all, as Hunter admits the FBI is investigating him for tax issues (Al Capone is holding on Line One). That'll teach him for forgetting his laptop at the repair shop. David Harsanyi tells it like it is in a piece appropriately and accurately titled "The Disgraceful Hunter Biden Cover-Up." Do read it, and here's a slice to wet your . . . interest: In October, left-wing sites such as the Daily Beast were featuring headlines that read, "Russian State Media Is Desperately Trying to Keep the Hunter Biden Story Alive" and "FBI Examining Hunter's Laptop As Foreign Op, Contradicting Trump's Intel Czar." Today we learn from the same outlet that, "Evidence of [a money laundering] probe [into Hunter Biden] was apparent in the markings on a series of documents that were made public — but went largely unnoticed — in the days leading up to the November election." Indeed. Today, NBC News reported, "Hunter Biden, president-elect's son, says federal prosecutors probing his taxes." But in October, NBC News had "reporters" Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny producing serious-sounding articles such as, "How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge" and "Inside the campaign to 'pizzagate' Hunter Biden" to undercut the Post's reporting. Ken Dilanian, a leading voice in the debunked Russian collusion coverage, had a mid-October headline that read, "Feds examining whether alleged Hunter Biden emails are linked to a foreign intel operation." It's peculiar that reporters could so easily confirm alleged counterintelligence investigations but not one into the family of the front-running presidential candidate. Then again, you may recall the interview with National Public Radio's public editor in which Terence Samuel, NPR's managing editor for news, explained: "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions." It is the default position of many journalists that anything undermining Democrats is by default a distraction.
This missive's godfather, Morning Jolter Jim Geraghty, piled on: Why did Hunter Biden's life go so awry, and why is Joe Biden now taking office with his son reportedly under FBI investigation for tax evasion, money laundering, and shady foreign business partners? In part, it's because Hunter has been insulated from the worst consequences of his bad decisions for at least two decades now. If Time magazine had ever done a cover story on "the senator's son who's making a fortune lobbying his dad's colleagues," or 60 Minutes had done a devastating expose, the current situation might be different — very different. Barack Obama might have selected a different running mate. The Democrats might have nominated someone else, and the country might have elected someone else.
Now let us get on to our SOP: Leading the WJ cliché-mixing parade are frills-free links to many a swell NRO editorial and article. Then follows a rewind, where many of those same links get a second walk down the runway, this time with fat, juicy excerpts. Strap on the feed bags! Links Short, Links Sweet Editorials That kraken won't hunt: Texas Unleashes an Absurd Kraken. No more know-towing: A New Consensus on China? Our policy cannot get lost in the weeds: The Feds Should Decriminalize Marijuana. The road leads back to you: Holding the Senate in Georgia Is Vital. Never met an abortion he didn't like: Xavier Becerra: Biden's Health Secretary Nominee Should Be Rejected. Time to brush: Section 230: Defense Authorization Bill Not the Place to Debate Internet Regulations. NRO Examples of Brilliance and Controversy David Harsanyi lays into the MSM's growing assault on free speech: Journalists Turn Principles of Free Expression. Victor David Hanson seconds the motion: Progressives Are Killing Free Expression. Tobias Hoonhout watches the Gray Lady deal with Trump cooties: Coronavirus & Public-School Closures: New York Times‘ Shifting Narrative. Rich Lowry sees cruelty: COVID-19 Restrictions Hit Lower-Income Workers the Hardest. Ryan Mills gives chapter and verse on the Georgia lefty: Raphael Warnock’s Black Liberation Theology and Radical Politics. Andy McCarthy on next possible steps: Hunter Biden Investigation: Indictment or Special Counsel Could be Imminent. Frederick Hess and R.J. Martin lambast a promise to undo due process: Biden's Pledge to Repeal DeVos Title IX Fix Is Misguided and Hypocritical. Colin Dueck contemplates foreign policy post-Trump: Conservatives Divided into Three Camps. Isaac Schorr looks at Xavier Becarra’s bloodlust: Biden Taps Abortion Enthusiast to Run HHS. Russell Pulliam remembers the great Stan Evans: The Bill Buckley of the Midwest. Jack Crowe remembers Chuck Yeager: RIP to an American Original. Orlando Watson remembers a great economist and America: Walter Williams — A Tribute. John Hillen contemplates the date which will live in infamy: How to Remember Pearl Harbor Day. David Klinghoffer discovers something hellish: When Erik Saw the Devil. What Matters? Capital Matters! David Bahnsen sees the moral fog filling the Bay City's air, and he cares: San Francisco Wealth Tax Misguided & Destructive. Eric Grover reminds that there is a terrible danger in corporate wokery: Virtue Signaling in Financial Services Is Destroying Wealth. John J. Cochrane worries as we glibly borrow trillions: U.S. National Debt Denial. Steve Hanke says it's high time we treated H20 like the commodity it is: Water-Futures Contracts Help Farmers & Consumers. Lights. Camera. Review! Mank One: Armond White sees myth: David Fincher’s Facile Fascism. Mank Two: Kyle Smith sees Hollywood navel-gazing: David Fincher Puts Style Over Substance. Armond White is impressed by a documentary: The Plot Against the President Documents Anti-Trump Scheme. Links Adorned with Plump Excerpts Thus Sprake Us: The Editorials 1. The Texas lawsuit to overturn the presidential elections is — an understatement — weak. From the editorial: The state isn't exactly scrupulous in the evidence it musters. It contends that Biden had less than a one in a quadrillion chance of winning any one of these battleground states after Trump established a lead on election night. The chance of winning all four, per the suit, was less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power. Of course, it was expected and predicted that Trump would establish an early lead in states that counted in-person ballots first and then Biden would gain as the states began to count in mail-in ballots, which were heavily Democratic. The last-counted ballots were universally understood to be the Democrats' turn at bat, given who and where they came from. The suit rehearses arguments against the validity of the outcomes in the four battleground states that have been extensively litigated and rejected in other courts. Texas, for instance, makes much of the Pennsylvania secretary of state issuing guidance allowing counties to give voters the opportunity to "cure" faulty absentee ballots and the Pennsylvania supreme court permitting late-arriving absentee ballots to count, but there is no reason to believe either of these jerry-rigged measures involved enough votes to call into question Biden's 80,000-vote margin in the state. Texas argues that such acts contravened the electors clause of the Constitution that gives state legislatures the power to determine the manner of selecting electors. And in some instances, it might be correct. But the answer is not for the Supreme Court, at the urging of one state a month after the election, to reverse the duly certified election results in four other states. This would be a grotesque violation of federalism and our constitutional scheme, not to mention democracy. There is a proper, but limited role for the federal courts in election cases: They can rein in violations of federal law based on evidence that the violation was ... READ MORE
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Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
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