Today is Thursday, September 14, 2023. The red meat branch of the MAGA Republican Party, which seems to include almost every repugnican – notwithstanding the latest salvo tossed by departing Utah Senator Mitt Romney who stated this once glorious party is languishing “in the shadow of Donald Trump” and is an extreme party right now – will be overjoyed to hear that the president’s son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018, the first time in U.S. history that the Justice Department has charged the child of a sitting president with a felony. This stunning turn of events is covered in an online article for CNN entitled “Hunter Biden indicted on gun charges,” by Marshall Cohen, Kara Scannell, and Hannah Rabinowitz.

The three charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.

This is an extraordinary turn of events after his original plea deal collapsed and potentially sets up a dramatic trial in the middle of his father’s 2024 reelection bid.

The White House believed the Hunter Biden legal drama would resolve itself this summer, but a plea deal reached with Weiss to settle the matter without charges imploded over the summer amid scrutiny from a federal judge. Not content to let this dubious win put an end to the matter, House Republicans have also announced an impeachment inquiry into the president in relation to Hunter Biden’s business ventures.

Court filings show that a summons was issued today for Biden to appear in court for an initial appearance on the charges, thought it’s unclear when and where the initial appearance would take place.

Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, blasted the indictment as politically motivated, which it is very definitely. He slammed the extreme version of the repugnican party and the pressure placed on the prosecutor to file charges against the troubled son of the president, saying, “As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case.” He added, “The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has and so has MAGA Republicans’ improper and partisan interference in this process. Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice.”

Hunter Biden’s gun-related legal woes relate to a firearm he purchased in October 2018. While buying a revolver at a Delaware gun shop, he lied on a federal form when he swore that he was not using, and was not addicted to, any illegal drugs – even though he was struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time of the purchase.

Thus the president’s surviving son “provided a written statement on Form 4473 certifying he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious,” according to the indictment.

It’s a federal crime to lie on the ATF form or to possess a firearm as a drug user. (Hunter Biden held onto the gun he bought about 11 days in 2018.) Prosecutors have previously said the statute of limitations for some of these offenses is set to expire next month.

Lowell today said the earlier deal means the gun charges should not be allowed. In a statement, Lowell said, “We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr. Biden.” Prosecutors dispute that any deal went into effect.

The special counsel in this matter has been leading the Hunter Biden investigation since late 2018. Over the years, his team probed potential felony tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering, and other matters, largely tied to Biden’s overseas business deals.

The long-ranging inquiry appeared to be winding down in June, when Weiss announced a two-pronged agreement where Hunter Biden would plead guilty to two federal tax misdemeanors and enter into a “diversion agreement” where the gun charge would be dropped in two years if Biden passed regular drug tests and stayed out of legal trouble.

But at a stunning court hearing in July, the deals collapsed under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case. The two sides tried to renegotiate an agreement, but talks reached an impasse and Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to special counsel status in August – a major escalation in the probe.

Weiss is not finished with Biden over the gun charges – he is still weighing whether to charge the younger Biden with tax crimes. He said in a court filing lsat month that “a trial is now in order” on the tax offenses and that “he may bring tax charges” possibly in California or Washington, D.C.

If convicted on all counts, Biden could theoretically face as much as 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000, according to court filings.

The silver lining – if there is any – found here in regard to Biden’s looming case is that defendants rarely get the maximum penalty, especially in cases like these, involving nonviolent crimes and an alleged first-time offender.

The three-count indictment was handed up today by a federal grand jury in Delaware, according to court filings.

Well, there you have it: this marks the first time any children of a current president have been indicted on any crime, and it’s quite sad, to say the least. But I would contend that if nobody is above the law, why not investigate Donald Frump’s shady son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who received billions of dollars from the Saudis for what? no one knows. And there is the scuttlebutt about the old man’s eldest son, Don, Jr. who always seems to be coked out whenever he posts some rant on X, or Twitter, or whatever it’s called these days. What is this guy smoking or snorting? No one says anything when he airs his drivel on social platforms. Thank God he’s been invisible lately since his father began facing his myriad legal woes.

So for those who have been paying attention here, Elliot and I were in Highland, New York, from Tuesday, September 12, through this morning visiting our dear friends “Ted” and “Peter” in their new apartment in the same complex, Vineyard Commons. They moved about a month ago into their spacious one-bedroom apartment and experienced some mishaps with the apartment like water leaks and the loss of power as a result of a fast-moving storm that dumped buckets of water on the grounds of the development about a week ago. They also experienced the loss of their beloved dog, Emily Rose, on August 23.

The ride up was problem free and pleasant, as we drove through New Jersey to the New York Thruway. We stopped for breakfast at the Jackson Hole diner. We had enough time to even stop in New Paltz to browse one of the bookstores in town, Inquiring Minds, before driving to the couple’s domicile. We also had coffee and soup (chickpea and eggplant) at a local eatery called Lola’s Cafe, on Main Street. We sat outside since the weather was extremely pleasant; however, we were soon plagued by a swarm of yellowjackets flying all over the place. One of them even flew into my soup and died there, I think, so I gingerly ate around where the yellowjacket plopped into the soup. Eventually, I returned the soup, uneaten, and mentioned this to an employee inside.

Our stay with Ted and Peter flew by. Our first day we were treated to Peter’s delicious roast beef, masked potatoes, and green beans. For dessert, we had the espresso cake I bought for both of them at Cannelle Patisserie, in the Jackson Heights Shopping Center. The cake was signed with happy birthday to both of them since this Saturday is Ted’s birthday and August 26 was Peter’s birthday. They were very appreciative of our gesture.

One of the highlights of our stay with Ted and Peter was watching weird, old films on their streaming services. One of these oddities was a 1934 black-and-white exploitation horror film called Maniac. The film was directed by Dwain Esper and Hildagarde Stadie, Esper’s wife, who also made the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana.

The film was laughingly bad in this telling of a mad scientist who endeavors to bring the dead back to life. His lab assistant is Don Maxwell, who is a former vaudeville impersonator who is inexplicably working as his aide. When Don kills Meirshultz, the mad scientist, he attempts to hide his crime by “becoming” the doctor, taking over his work, and copying his appearance/mannerisms. In the process, he slowly goes insane.

This 51-minute mess of a movie has women being ravaged by sex fiends, with women having their clothes torn off. There are many instances of bare breasts exposed and overwrought performances. And I kid you not: a Phyllis Diller played Mrs. Buckley in the horrible film. Oh, in the Wikipedia notation, it’s stated that this Phyllis Diller is no relation to the well-known comedian.

Another strange movie we watched the first night was 1974’s All the Kind Strangers. This, I learned, was initially a made-for-television film and that’s why it was not as suspenseful as it could have been. It also had not much gore for such a Texas Chainsaw Massacre knockoff.

This film boasts a better cast than the first one, though: Stacy Keach as the unsuspecting photojournalist who finds himself in the middle of nowhere with a backwoods clan, headed by John Savage (who was in Hair and other films back then), and the second-oldest child in this family lacking a father and mother, Robbie Benson, who was a heartthrob back in the 1970s and starred in many films in that decade and later, and Samantha Eggar, who portrays a woman who is kidnapped to serve as the clan’s new mother. There is some tension as Keach and the parentless brood face off with the threat of violence directed toward Keach and Eggar at any time, as they try to escape the children to go off into the woods. By the way, the children have six mean dogs in their possession and it’s anyone’s guess when these dogs will be sicced on these strangers.

The second day I went into New Paltz again for about two hours as the boys stayed home. Ted drove me to town after breakfast. This time I went into the second bookstore called Barner Books, located on Church Street. I surprised myself when I picked up a thin volume of Grace Paley’s stories called The Little Disturbances of Men. This after I told Ted that I was not going to buy a book that day. So I obviously did! The book cost only $6.

That afternoon we went to Billy Joe’s Ribworks, in Newburgh, New York. We had been to this eatery once before with our late friend “Mark” who we brought up to have lunch with Ted and Peter sometime ago.

When we got back to the apartment, we sat down to watch Jeopardy and then we chose another film from the many streaming services the boys have: a film from the Classic Hollywood streaming service, 1946’s The Strange Woman starring the ever-beautiful Hedy Lamarr as a grasping, ambitious woman living in Bangor, Maine, in the early part of the 19th century. She portrays lusty Jenny Hager, the daughter of the town drunk, who moves up in the world when she weds the town’s widowed, middle-aged shopkeeper Isaiah Poster (Gene Lockhart). She is soon distracted by her husband’s younger son, Ephraim Poster, who is portrayed here by Louis Hayward, and is soon plotting with the cowardly son to dispatch the father so that the two of them can be together. When the older Poster does die in a boating accident, the lady of the house turns her gaze toward a new conquest: the handsome but poor lumberjack by the name of John Evered who is engaged to the judge’s daughter, Meg. This rugged handsome type is played by George Sanders who was in many films until the 1970s.

The film was too poorly lit and was too much of a melodrama for my taste.

The last movie we watched was a “horror” story from 1958, The Screaming Skull. The less said about this production, the better. All I can say is that I guessed who the culprit was who was attempting to drive a rich woman bonkers: her greedy little husband. Oops, spoiler alert! I doubt anyone will want to see this film after my dismissal of it.

Our last day together, today, we drove to Highland to the Gateway Diner. The food here was actually very good and their prices were quite reasonable. I had French toast with scrambled eggs and coffee all for $7. That’s a bargain these days.

We then said our goodbyes to Ted and Peter in the parking lot and we began our trip back to Forest Hills. The weather was perfect: not too humid and sunny. I think we got home around 2 after making one stop on 108th Street to pick up dessert for “Harold” this coming Saturday, which is the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

Anyway, it’s getting late here.

Stay safe and be well.