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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Hunter Biden to Avoid Jail Time in Plea Deal

Just the News: Hunter Biden has struck a deal with federal prosecutors to avoid prison by pleading guilty to two tax crimes and admitting to a gun charge that could be dismissed, court records released Tuesday show. Under the deal, President Joe Biden’s son will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges. Prosecutors also charged him with felony possession of a firearm while using illegal drugs, but that charge would be dismissed if he successfully completes a two-year probation. The tax charges accuse Hunter Biden of not paying timely taxes in 2017-18. As recently as last month, President Biden said his son “has done nothing wrong” (Just the News). Rep. Tom Tiffany: Any other American would be facing up to 15 years in federal prison for lying on ATF Form 4473. As well as up to five years in prison for failing to pay federal taxes. Hunter Biden gets a sweetheart plea deal because of his last name (Twitter).

James Comer on Hunter Biden Deal: “two-tiered system of justice”

National Review: House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer and a host of fellow prominent Republicans savaged the Department of Justice on Tuesday over the news that Hunter Biden will likely avoid jail time despite being charged with illegally possessing a firearm and failing to pay taxes for two consecutive years. “Let’s be clear: the Department of Justice’s charges against President Biden’s son Hunter reveal a two-tiered system of justice. Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” the Kentucky Republican wrote in a statement released Tuesday morning (National Review). Brett Tolman of Right on Crime: DOJ is violating its own internal policies on this case. The Ashcroft Memo requires they charge the “highest provable offense” and seek consistent sentences with other cases brought by DOJ. This prosecution is an absolute laughable joke. Thousands have been sent to prison for long terms for the same charges (Twitter). Ryan Reilly: Worth noting that the addict in possession of a weapon charge is very rarely brought. It’s been used as a catch-all for white supremacists in the past when the feds needed something to stick (Twitter).

Donald Trump’s Trial Date is Set for August 14, 2023

National Review: Judge Aileen Cannon set a date for Donald Trump‘s trial in the federal case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. The trial is set to begin on August 14, 2023 and the parties must file all pre-trial motions by July 24, according to the order released Tuesday. The former president is facing 37 criminal counts, including willful retention of national-defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The schedule is an aggressive one but it is highly likely that the trial date will be pushed back as Cannon negotiates particulars with Trump’s attorneys and the Department of Justice (National Review). Townhall: The first GOP primary debate of the 2024 cycle is scheduled for this August 23 in Milwaukee — hosted by Fox News, Young America’s Foundation (YAF), and Rumble — smack dab in the middle of the period during which Judge Cannon ordered Trump’s trial to begin, even though an as-ordered start seems exceedingly unlikely (Townhall).

China, Cuba Nearing Deal to Place Chinese Soldiers on Island

China wants to stage thousands soldiers just a few hours away on an island. Wall Street Journal: China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast, according to current and former U.S. officials. Discussions for the facility on Cuba’s northern coast are at an advanced stage but not concluded, U.S. intelligence reports suggest. The Biden administration has contacted Cuban officials to try to forestall the deal, seeking to tap in to what it thinks might be Cuban concerns about ceding sovereignty. Beijing’s effort to establish a military training facility in Cuba hasn’t been previously reported (Wall Street Journal). Townhall: This latest development comes as more information on the Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the United States comes to light, namely that it had more and better capabilities than the Biden administration previously knew while it sought to assure Americans that the balloon did not pose a threat and that countermeasures had negated the balloons abilities (Townhall).

Arkansas Judge Strikes Down Law Protecting Minors from Gender Surgery

Axios: Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for patients under age 18 was struck down by a federal judge on Tuesday. Arkansas was the first state to prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming treatments to transgender youth after overriding then- Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of the ban in 2021. District Judge Jay Moody, who previously issued a permanent injunction against the ban, said the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of transgender youth, their parents and their medical providers. Moody, who was appointed by former President Obama, said the state failed to prove that its ban was necessary to protect adolescents from treatments that are ineffective or experimental (Axios). Recount: A federal judge has struck down Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors, saying it violates trans kids’ and families’ due process and equal protection rights under the Constitution (Twitter). CBS: At least 19 other states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors following Arkansas’ law, and federal judges have temporarily blocked similar bans in Alabama and Indiana. Three states have banned or restricted the care through regulations or administrative orders (CBS).

Border Patrol Has Already Apprehended 127 Terrorists on the FBI’s Watch List in Fiscal Year of 2023

Washington Examiner: Border Patrol agents on the Canadian and Mexican borders have caught 127 noncitizens listed on the FBI’s terror watchlist who tried to enter the United States illegally since the start of fiscal 2023, according to newly released federal data. Numbers published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday showed terror watchlist apprehensions between the eight months of October 2022 and May 2023 were higher than last year’s 98 arrests over 12 months, which until now was the highest level in at least the last four years when comparable data are available (Washington Examiner).

Teachers Caught Helping Students Transition, Concealing it From Parents

Daily Mail: Dozens of Midwestern teachers met online this week and traded tips on helping trans students change gender at school without their parents’ knowledge, while criticizing a raft of new Republican laws on sex and identity. In the four-hour workshop, they discussed helping trans students in the face of new laws in Republican-run states on gender, pronouns, names, parents’ rights, bathroom access, and sports teams. Some teachers said they followed the rules, but others discussed being ‘subversive,’ how their personal ‘code of ethics’ trumped laws, and how to ‘hide’ a trans student’s new name and gender from their parents. At no point in the session did any teacher say parents might know what’s best for their own kids, nor question whether affirmation-on-demand was the only way to help a trans-identified student (Daily Mail). Townhall: Recently, a school district in Ohio was exposed for instructing teachers to report child abuse to protective services if a “transgender” student’s parents are not supportive of their gender identity. And, guidance issued by the New York State Education Department instructed school officials to keep a student’s gender transition concealed from their parents if the student does not give the school consent to inform them (Townhall).

Bud Light Sales Drop 30 Percent Compared to Same Week Last Year

Newsweek: Bud Light off-premise sales have continued to see sustained contractions compared to the same time last year, as the beer brand suffers its worst decline in year-on-year volumes since its brief partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney brought on calls for boycott. The latest tracking figures by Nielsen IQ show that in the week ending June 10, Bud Light sales volume—the number of units of beer sold—was 30.3 percent lower than in the same week in 2022, the largest such drop since the week ending April 1 (Newsweek). Newsmax: Anheuser-Busch, parent company of Bud Light, was accused of alienating its customer base with its partnership with Mulvaney. The beer company, fighting to recover from the backlash, told its customers, “We hear you.” But in a statement posted on the company website, Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO, offered no apology for the controversy (Newsmax).

American Medical Association States BMI is Racist

Daily Mail: A leading US medical organization is urging doctors to ditch body mass index (BMI) as the primary measurement for a healthy bodyweight, citing its ‘racist’ roots. The American Medical Association, the largest organization of doctors in the US, said the metric has been used for ‘racist exclusion’ and fails to consider differences in body composition that vary based on race and sex. Body mass index (BMI), devised by a white man considering white bodies, is measured by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms or pounds by the square of height in meters or feet, and it has been deeply ingrained in the medical system as a way to measure population health more broadly (Daily Mail). New York Post: Men and women with high BMIs have long been considered at grave risk for disorders such as heart disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. However, the AMA found that BMI, while useful in forecasting the well-being of a general population, is mostly inaccurate in predicting an individual’s long-term wellness. In fact, the researchers found that BMI sorely falls short as a health indicator due to the scale’s disregard for how fat is stored in different body types across racial and ethnic groups, sexes, genders and ages (New York Post).

10.

Democrat Doner Arrested for Igniting Wildfire Initially Blamed on Climate Change

Spencer Brown: Last summer, a large wildfire that came to be known as the Oak Fire scorched its way across California’s Mariposa County and threatened Yosemite National Park. First reported on July 22, 2022, the Oak Fire burned more than 19,000 acres of land, cost more than $90 million, and evacuations forced the displacement of thousands of Californians and visitors in the fire’s path as it rapidly expanded. Taxpayer funded (in part) PBS emphasized that the Oak Fire was one of the “devastating consequences” of the “global climate crisis.” Democrat politicians, such as Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), also couldn’t let the devastation caused by the fire pass him by without demanding “climate action NOW” (Townhall). Washington Free Beacon: Democrat Donor Arrested for Starting Massive Fire Democrats Blamed on Climate Change (Twitter).