Today is Tuesday, June 20, 2023, one day before the first day of summer. Today another personage in politics, but albeit in a relational manner to the current president of the United States, this time Hunter Biden, agreed to plead guilty to federal tax charges and struck a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge. As expected, the new fascist party already announced they are not even happy with these charges, despite their “Dear Leader” (as The Banter writer Justin Rosario refers to him) being charged with 37 counts under the Espionage Act, a far more serious charge one might say. This new development is reported online in a CNN article by Kara Scannell, Evan Perez, and Paula Reid entitled “Hunter Biden to plead guilty to federal tax charges, strikes deal on gun charge.”

As part of the plea agreement, the Justice Department has agreed to recommend a sentence of probation for the two counts of failing to pay taxes in a timely manner for the years 2017 and 2018, according to sources. Hunter Biden owed at least $100,000 in federal taxes in 2017, and at least $100,000 in 2018, but did not pay what was due to the Internal Revenue Service by the deadlines. A judge will have final say on any sentence.

This plea deal will have immediate reverberations in the 2024 presidential race. It has already jumpstarted political criticism from repugnicans of the Biden administration and the Justice Department in the wake of the 37-count federal criminal indictment filed against the Orange Menace for his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

The charges were detailed in a criminal filing in U.S. District Court in Delaware, where the U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Dumpf appointee, has been conducting the investigation that at one time explored allegations of money laundering, foreign lobbying, and other potential charges.

Therefore, the investigation is ongoing, the Justice Department said today. However, it was Biden’s attorney, Christopher Clark, who said in a statement that the deal with federal prosecutors will “resolve” the Justice Department’s long-running criminal probe into the president’s son. Clark said, “Hunter will take responsibility for two instances of misdemeanor failure to file tax payments when due pursuant to a plea agreement.” Clark also noted that Hunter made obvious mistakes during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. Who cannot sympathize with someone in Biden’s position who just lost a brother and his mother and sister in a horrific car accident many years ago? Republicans can’t! They are heartless!

In a brief statement, the White House said the Bidens “love their son.” What else would you expect from loving parents at this time?

What extraordinary hypocrisy we have here when we have an alleged criminal commenting on this latest indictment of Hunter Biden posted on his ridiculously named “Truth” Social platform: “Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” Yes, Mr. Dumpf, our system is definitely broken if you’re not taken to account by our justice system, not with Hunter Biden.

The President’s surviving son’s personal troubles have been widely disseminated since Hunter himself came out with his 2021 memoir in which he wrote openly about his addiction to alcohol and drugs. His 24-year marriage came to an end in a 2017 divorce, where his ex-wife had accused him of spending extravagantly on liquor and strip clubs. In 2017, he also admitted to a relationship with the widow of his late brother Beau. Hunter Biden remarried in 2019 and shares a child with his wife, Melissa Cohen.

Like any other proud parent, Joe Biden has said he is proud of the strides his son has made to deal with his addiction issues. The elder Biden issued a similar defense in an interview with CNN last year, telling Jake Tapper that he was “proud” of his son for being straightforward about his battle with drug addiction. In that interview, Biden said, “This is a kid who got – not a kid, he’s a grown man – he got hooked on, like many families have had happen, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that. He’s established a new life.”

Ever since he was elected, Biden has gone out of his way to stay out of the Justice Department’s prosecutorial decision making, unlike the actions of his predecessor who “weaponized” the Justice Department under William Barr – much of the same thing that repugnicans are now accusing Democrats of doing, albeit quite ridiculously and without any merit.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has indicated time and time again that there will not be interference in the DOJ’s investigation into the president’s son and said the President “is committed not to interfere, not only in that investigation but any kind of investigation.”

The gun charge came about when Hunter Biden purchased a handgun at a time when he was addicted to drugs. The firearm was later thrown into a dumpster in Wilmington by his then-girlfriend, who is also his brother’s widow. This incident occurred in 2018.

As for the other pressing criminal probe, the one involving a former president and many hundreds of classified material, there was a fascinating Fox News interview which I did not watch, God forbid, in which the wanna-be dictator “just confessed” to the very charges Jack Smith indicted him on in a very “incoherent” interview with Bret Baier. I’ve always maintained that Dumpf is showing signs of early senility, but no one wants to admit that. It’s that hair dye and his obsession with Diet Coke.

In a Huffpost article by Josephine Harvey entitled ‘Just Confessed’: Viewers react to Donald Trump’s ‘incoherent’ Fox News interview,” the nation got shocking corroboration from the ex-president regarding his involvement in the charges laid out in Smith’s indictment. During the cringeworthy sit-down, the Fox News host pressed Dumpf to explain details from the grand jury’s 37-count indictment, which stemmed from his mishandling of sensitive documents after leaving the White House.

Addressing specific claims from the indictment, Dumpf answered Baier’s queries in a decidedly incoherent manner, no two ways about it. At one point, Baier confronted Dumpf about a July 2021 recording from a meeting in which the former president acknowledged holding onto a classified document about a potential attack on Iran, seemingly contradicting his defense that he declassified everything he took.

Dumpf’s answer was difficult to decipher, but he initially is heard saying that he couldn’t declassify it “because I wasn’t president” at the time, echoing what he said in the recording. He then inexplicably pivoted to saying that “there was no document” at all. So which one is correct here? Was there no document after all? Why did he admit to not declassifying the document if it didn’t exist? Hmmm, something is afoot here.

Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) tweeted, sharing a clip of that exchange, “Trump just confessed to Fox News that he stole and shared classified materials.”

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Mika Brzezinski said the interview “did not go well for the former president,” describing it as “incoherent and possibly incriminating.”

The Twitterverse was lit up with ridicule of the former president’s illogical performance and praise for Bret Baier who conducted a strong and tough interview. He was certainly no “Fucker” Carlson who couldn’t disguise his unwavering infatuation with the Orange One if he even tried.

As part of his latest absurd excuse for not returning the classified documents, Dumpf stupidly admitted the materials were mixed with personal items like golf shirts and shoes. In the exchange with Baier, Dumpf retorted, “Because I had boxes, I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things,” in response to Baier asking him, “Why not just hand them over?” Here the clueless former commander in “grief” just confessed to the crimes he was recently charged with.

Anyway, enough with the news. I wanted to write about the play I just saw with my friend “Gene” last night: Love + Science, playing at New York City Center Stage II, located on West 55th Street.

The play starts in this country during the early 80s when two medical students, Matt and Jeff, meet at a white coat ceremony for Columbia medical students in 1981 and realize they have the hots for one another. You see, they are both gay, but it’s Matt (Matt Walker) who is more pristine and reluctant to get involved than Jeff who is openly gay and more comfortable with himself. The attraction is instantaneous, though, especially when Jeff discovers Matt speaking with his mentor, a virologist named Diane Gold (a commanding but nurturing Thursday Farrar).

Throughout the less-than-two-hour production, the two men carry on a passionate affair early on that peters out after more people come down with this mysterious disease and die from it, as the illness known as AIDS soon emerges in the growing numbers of gay men afflicted with GRID (the earlier form of AIDS that stands for “Gay Related Immune Deficiency”). The play serves as a brief distillation of the entire AIDS plague as witnessed by two dedicated research scientists and their battle to find a cure or at least learn what is striking down young gay men in the prime of their lives. Throughout the play, there is much scientific talk about RNA, DNA, protease structure, and other scientific jargon that might confuse the ordinary playgoer, but I had no trouble with the language at all.

Some of the other characters in the play are portrayed by the same actor. For instance, Imani Pearl Williams provides a standout performance as Melissa, a grad student coming up behind Matt in the lab. She infuses every line with warmth and humor and provides a very good foil to both Jeff and Matt when they are at odds with one another. She also portrays Jane, a woman who Matt goes out with once in order to experiment with heterosexuality during the height of the AIDS crisis to disastrous results, particularly when Jane determines Matt is gay from the onset and she leaves him in a huff after a dismal date.

The only quibble I had with the play – and it is a major one – is the forty-year span the play covers which goes by too quickly and not very convincingly. The intent of the playwright, David J. Glass, was to tie the plague of AIDS to our current one in 2020, in which more than a million Americans died. Here he does not succeed very well. There is no resolution, as we see Matt still working as a researcher in the lab now confronting a graduate student who wants him to serve as a mentor to the LGBTQ+ group he was forming at Columbia. Matt is hesitant to do this initially, as he informs the student he will think about it. Then the play ends. What happens to Matt and Jeff? It’s not entirely clear.

The play runs until July 6, so if this is your cup of tea, go see it. If not, I recommend Randy Shilts massive volume on the AIDS plague called And the Band Played On, written in 1987 and was adapted into a HBO film in 1993. The book chronicles the discovery and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), with a special emphasis on governmental indifference and political infighting to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease. Shilts contends in the book that AIDS was allowed to happen, as incompetence and apathy toward those initially affected allowed its spread to become much worse. A very sad postscript to the publication of the book is that Randy Shilts himself was tested for HIV while he was writing the book; he died from complications from AIDS in 1994.

I have to say that our seats were practically abutting the stage and Gene and I enjoyed being able to see both male characters strip right in front of us. I definitely didn’t need to bring my binoculars for this play.

Enjoy the first day of summer.

Stay safe and be well.