I watched a good part of the hearings yesterday by the House Oversight Committee with the two IRS employees who claim that the DOJ deal with Hunter Biden shows that he was treated differently from the way others would be, that there were unanimous recommendations for felony indictments, and that these recommendations were ignored. Their testimony included some details about Hunter Biden’s tax filings, where it appears that he took as business deductions charges that were related to a sex club membership and prostitution charges, as well as evidence that (1) large sums were received from foreign sources, including about 6.5 million dollars from Burisma (the Ukrainian oil company), and that these sums were passed through to various shell companies created by Biden, and (2) that at least one particular transfer of $400,000, which was treated by the company which paid the funds as a deductible business expense, was treated by Biden as a loan with no income tax consequences, even though there was no evidence that it was ever considered to be a loan.

On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement – not that he received any funds, not that he knew any of these details, and not that he influenced the Justice Department. There is also no such evidence involving Attorney General Garland’s involvement, or any other involvement of higher officials directing Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss (a Trump appointee for what that may be worth) to give special treatment to Hunter Biden.

I have no idea what Hunter Biden was really doing, but I certainly assume it was far from aboveboard either financially or ethically. Unless it involved the president or the attorney general, I guess I don’t really care. I also don’t know whether U.S. Attorney Weiss was directed to be kind to Hunter Biden by refraining from charging him with more serious crimes and with letter certain statutes of limitation expire, and if so, by whom, and I think this is worth exploring. I think that Weiss will also be testifying before this committee.

But I do object to the Republican committee members who don’t stick to the subject of the hearing and instead rail against the corruption of the president and the “entire Biden crime family”, who assume that as vice-president Biden gave certain Ukrainians funds they otherwise would not have received had they not paid Hunter Biden, and that there is a general Biden family conspiracy to get rich and hide everything from the public. There is no evidence to support this at this time, the hearing was not about this, and their grandstanding was inappropriate.

As to the two witnesses, I should say how much I appreciate their testimony and how convinced I am of their integrity and seriousness. Becoming a whistleblower in the middle of their very successful federal careers is extraordinarily brave. Especially, Joseph Ziegler, who is a Democrat, a gay man, and a man married to another man. He said that he was originally an anonymous source because he was afraid to name himself, because he knew there would be attacks because of his sexual preferences, and that making the decision to expose his name was as hard as when he came out as gay and married. There have been attacks on him, apparently, saying that he was a Democratic “plant” in the Hunter Biden investigation, something that is obviously silly. But there are those, of course, who take this sort of thing seriously, and there will most likely be repercussions. This is very sad.

Their testimony, which is simply that they don’t understand how Hunter Biden was let off so easily under the circumstances unless their was inappropriate direction from above. They do not claim to know what direction there was, and where it came from, but believe the situation is unusual enough that Congress should be looking into it. I have no problem with that.

On a more serious note………..I must admit to knowing little about this, but I saw (out of the corner of my eye while I was doing something else this morning) that Ted Cruz is very upset because he believes the new Barbie movie is chock full of Communist Chinese propaganda. If so, this is probably the most scandalous thing that has happened this century and will undoubtedly give us something to think about as the summer winds to an end.

And finally, I end with a question. Have you ever seen the most unlikable crossword puzzle than the one in this morning’s New York Times? Really.