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Coronavirus Diary

Today is Saturday, December 9, 2023. The continuing legal difficulties faced by the President’s son, Hunter Biden, were put to the forefront when the Justice Department brought criminal charges against the younger Biden on Thursday, and this could only serve to upend Joe Biden’s inevitable rematch against Donald Chump in 2024. An online CNN article covering this latest embarrassment for the sitting president is written by Kevin Liptak, MJ Lee, and Annie Grayer entitled “Hunter Biden’s latest indictment brings an uncomfortable ordeal to the forefront for his father.”

These additional charges brought against his surviving son amount to an uncomfortable reminder of the personal strain the president will face as he gears up for the coming campaign.

Months after a plea agreement for Hunter Biden collapsed in a Delaware courtroom, reality has set in among Biden’s team that his son’s legal problems – and the ensuing revelations about his lifestyle and struggles with addiction – will stay in the news cycle for months to come as the legal process plays out.

Republicans have relentlessly searched for fodder to damage Biden politically since they have to distract the country from the four, more serious indictments leveled at their Golden Idol and now they have something to make false equivalences between their Dear Leader and the sitting Democratic president. So let’s make no mistake in trying to make comparisons here with charges leveled against Hunter Biden, the son of Joe, and with Donald Chump who is running for president and Hunter, who is not running for president. Therefore, no comparisons should be made here. But repugnicans will try to do so anyway. Biden’s team is confident that voters will make their decision for reasons other than the president’s troubled son.

Still, the unveiling of these new charges does come at an inopportune moment, as the election year looms and Biden’s vulnerabilities are laid bare. His approval ratings have slumped as the American public continues to feel pessimistic – I don’t see why! – about the health of the economy and increasingly question Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Hamas war – a conflict that has been an overwhelming focus for the White House over the last two months.

This week’s tax charges, the second indictment against Hunter Biden this year, include salacious details about how the president’s son was spending money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature” – all while avoiding paying his fair share of taxes. However, many of these details concerning Hunter’s reckless spending were already known, detailed in a candid memoir that tracked his journey through addiction.

In public, Hunter Biden’s representatives argue that their client’s legal troubles have little to do with substance – and everything to do with who his father is. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement Thursday on the heels of the latest indictment, “Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.”

Another possible concern for the president is the public’s growing sense that he had some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Are we going to vote in a fascist because of these insubstantial concerns? I can’t believe Americans would reject Biden over Trump who has said he would act like a dictator on Day 1 of his new administration. Maybe Americans prefer to live in a dictatorship this time out, who knows? We’ll find out next November.

As for addressing the claim that he interacted with so many of his son and brother’s business associates, Biden responded, “I did not – they’re lies.” Despite no evidence that Joe Biden benefited from his son’s foreign business dealings, his surface-level interactions involving attending dinners with certain individuals continue to provide fuel to his political adversaries.

Democrats continue to maintain that repugnicans are needlessly moving forward with their impeachment inquiry to help Chump beat Biden in 2024.

Commenting on this move to impeach Biden, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin, said, “They are completely trivializing and destroying the meaning of impeachment. Impeachment is an extraordinary constitutional remedy that is reserved for high crimes and misdemeanors [which were truly reserved for Donald J. Trump]: grave offenses against the public order. And they obviously don’t have that for Joe Biden, but they want to trivialize it so he can – so Donald Trump can say, ‘Oh well, you know, he’s been impeached twice but there’s also an impeachment investigation going on during the campaign against Joe Biden, and so it’s fraudulent like everything else.'”

Though his father has remained noncommittal about his son’s legal troubles, Hunter Biden has gone on the offensive against ugly repugnicans who have insensitively used his addiction issues for political gain. In a podcast released yesterday, Biden said, “They are trying to, in their most illegitimate way, but rational way, they’re trying to destroy a presidency.” Biden added that repugnicans are “trying to kill me.” Of course, he didn’t mean this literally, but you never know?

So there you have it: news about Hunter Biden’s newest legal entanglements. But don’t forget for a moment how repugnicans will seize upon these indictments in order to snare political advantage for themselves in the bargain. Though these indictments are regrettable, they no way compare to the more severe criminal charges facing the former president. You have to be an idiot to see a similarity between them, in my opinion.

In honor of Chanukah, Elliot and I entertained our third-floor neighbor “Denise” for a meal consisting of latkes and desserts bought at Parisi Bakery, in Astoria, where we had brunch at Sanford’s, right next door. This traditional holiday fare was wonderfully prepared by Elliot around 4 p.m., 90 minutes before Denise was expected to knock on our door. When she did, she brought a kale salad and some vino. As an appetizer, we had hummus with crackers.

Tomorrow we might have to be ensconced indoors if this squall bears down on us as meteorologists have forecasted. So let’s see; the rain I can handle but not winds averaging between 40 to 50 miles per hour. We may have to play Scrabble later in the afternoon.

Have a good Sunday anyway.

Stay safe and be well.

Coronavirus Diary

Today is Saturday, December 2, 2023. I missed yesterday’s blog since I came home late after viewing a new film at the Angelika Film Center. The movie was Eileen and it was a very good character study of a mousy, repressed woman by the name of Eileen Dunlop who lives in a snowy New England town working in a prison for young offenders as a secretary. This young, lonely woman who fantasizes about being raped by one of the prison guards is played flawlessly by Thomasin McKenzie who hails from New Zealand and the other strong character in the film is Anne Hathaway who plays the prison’s new psychiatrist in bleached blonde hair and tight dresses. The two soon form an unlikely bond, as Eileen seems to be smitten by the older, highly intelligent, and intriguing Marilyn Monroe lookalike (the setting of the film is in the early 60s). Soon, Eileen is pulled into Rebecca’s (Hathaway’s) world and finds herself dressing up in her dead mother’s cocktail dresses to sip Martinis with her new friend in local bars. But the film takes a dark turn in midstream when a shocking incident occurs and Eileen is asked to participate in a potential crime with the blonde professional. What results afterward forms the fulcrum of the action -such as it is – that propels the movie to its surprising end.

As for why I wanted to see this film, I was tempted by the announcement of a giveaway of the original 2015 book by Ottessa Moshfegh to patrons watching the movie. After seeing the film, I am now intrigued with reading the novel to see how much better it is than the film adaptation. In order to receive a free copy of the book, I entered the theater as early as 6 p.m. and waited inside before heading downstairs to Theater 3 around 6:30. When I entered the auditorium, a young woman standing to the right was handing out copies of Moshfegh’s book and I happily took one and then walked to my seat in Aisle C. What ensued right before the film started a little after 7 was quite serendipitous.

The row began to fill up with patrons; a young man sitting next to me was the only person I could see wearing a mask in the theater. Before long, two young men stood in front of the aisle asking where certain seats were. I looked up at the first young man, a blonde thirtyish man, and I shrieked out, “Oliver.” I knew this young man from my gay men’s book discussion group that meets the first Tuesday of the month. What a crazy coincidence? wouldn’t you say. That he also decided to see this film at the same time and that he bought tickets in the same row as I. He had one other friend with him and they both sat down next to me. We discussed the upcoming meeting for next week and I confessed to him that I wasn’t attending the meeting since I didn’t read last month’s book, Ghost Town. Coincidentally, he said the same about his not reading the book either and wasn’t going as well. That’s when I mentioned to him that I picked up next month’s book, Other Names for Love, by Taymour Soomro at the Housing Works bookstore on Crosby Street before the film. That was another coincidence, I felt. I would never have expected to see this book on the store’s shelves, but there it was. I had gone to the Jefferson Market Library to return this month’s book and to ask if they had this book there already, and they admitted they did not. That’s when I took the subway one stop to Broadway-Lafayette Street. I could have walked the mile or so, but it was raining at that time. I also expected to get lost since I was walking alone and didn’t have Elliot by my side who knew the neighborhood better than I.

Oh, I didn’t write about the one piece of good news in this strife-torn country since I wasn’t here and that was the expulsion of that no-good joker George Santos from Congress. Santos’s term in office came to an ignominious end yesterday morning when he was voted out by a two-thirds majority of lawmakers who deplored his remaining in office any longer than Friday. I hail the decision to finally get rid of him and I was surprised by the Daily News‘ editorial that called for a “nay” decision instead of a “yay.” I immediately typed a letter to the editor of the paper denouncing their editorial, so let’s see if they print it. How do we keep a congressperson in office if we now know that he spent tens of thousands of donor dollars on Botox treatments, Hermes scarfs, and an OnlyFans subscription? So I couldn’t understand the News’ position here. The backlash against Santos could now imperil the GOP’s slim majority and it’s about time.

An even better piece of news concerned the fate of the Orange Jesus who was slammed with two negative legal decisions concerning his ridiculous claim that he was protected by “presidential immunity” from any charges in connection with the 2020 election because he was still president at the time of the allegedly illegal offenses. That argument was shot down yesterday, both in a civil case and then by Judge Tanya Chutkan in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in D.C.

After the decision, one of America’s leading constitutional scholars, Laurence H. Tribe, made this prediction about Chump’s fate: he’s going to jail, baby! Actually, he said, “The prediction I made two hours ago [about Chump’s losing the decision] proved right more quickly than I expected: Trump is now headed directly to conviction in DC for corruptly plotting to upend the Constitution’s system for transferring the executive power to the winner of the quadrennial presidential election.” So let’s hope that this Constitutional hard hitter’s prediction of a conviction in Chump’s case does eventually come to fruition. It will just take a lot of time, I’m afraid.

Well, enjoy Sunday. Weatherwise, it’s supposed to be a washout. So let’s see.

Stay safe and be well.