It's Important For The Animals To Be Diverse And Inclusive

I found a typo in Sunday's post with the problematic image of a hotdogging W Mark Felt, and even though it had been flagged as sensitive, I decided to fix the typo for the record. When I went in to edit it, I found a new button saying REQUEST REVIEW, although in my research I'd found no reference to any ability to appeal such decisions, and there was wording in the guidelines that suggested this couldn't be done. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I clicked on REQUEST REVIEW, and when I visited my account this morning, the flag and message for that post had been removed, though I've received no other message.

This confirms my view that Blogger's algorithm had somehow been triggered by the image of a G-Man doing his thing, when at least for now, bien pensant opinion actually favors the FBI, which protects us by raiding Area 51 bloggers and former presidents. But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to stick with non-controversial titles and cute pet photos at the top of my posts, at least for a while. I've got to assume that my reach as a blogger is so limited that it really isn't worth anyone's time to review my posts in detail, although the mere fact that a post can be flagged out of the blue for random reasons does create a chilling effect for anyone.

In the matter of the Biden scandals, there's been little new since the weekend, but Rep James Comer, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, seems to be on the right track:

“We’re trying to trace the money,” Comer told the Examiner. “We’ll be looking at bank statements. We’ll be looking at bank violations. That’s the next phase of our investigation because we’re trying to figure out who these anonymous sources are that are sending so much money to the Biden family schemes — the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Hunter Biden’s artwork.”

. . . “For years, Mr. Biden has attempted to profit off his father’s position in government, and the art deals are merely the latest iteration of these efforts. The investigation into Mr. Biden’s business ventures, and those who have aided him in his dubious endeavors, has been ongoing for over two years, and, if necessary, will continue into the next Congress,” Comer said in September 2021 before Republicans took control the House and gained subpoena power.

According to Comer, recent revelations that classified documents have been discovered at the Penn Biden Center and at the president’s Wilmington, Delaware, home only underscore the need for transparency around Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Sen Ted Cruz has an additional take:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to search President Joe Biden’s Senate records that are stored at the University of Delaware to see if they contain more classified materials.

. . . Cruz said on an episode of “The Verdict” that the next step was for federal officials to look into Biden’s Senate records at the University of Delaware.

“Let me tell you what the next step in this scandal is going to be,” Cruz said. “The next step in this scandal is going to be, okay, if Biden’s Senate documents include classified documents outside of classified settings — which is illegal — how many more classified documents are illegally in his Senate papers? And here’s where this matters in particular, which is the University of Delaware has more than 1850 boxes of records from Joe Biden’s Senate tenure which he gave to the University of Delaware.”

. . . "During the 2020 campaign, there was a concerted media effort to try to get access to those documents in particular, there were allegations of sexual harassment raised against Joe Biden, and the media wanted to examine the documents on those allegations of sexual harassment. The University of Delaware has said, ‘Nope, they’re not releasing the documents to anybody until two years after Biden retires from public life.’”

All the Bidens appear to have extravagant lifestyles, and in some cases, the extracurricular funding sources are already public: Keven Morris, a Hollywood lawyer, paid Hunter's outstanding $2 million tax bill and is reportedly paying the rent on the Malibu home where Hunter currently lives, although reports have placed Hunter visiting the Wilmington Biden home with his father, so he may be back in Washington now. It would be worth asking if Morris is making these payments on behalf of someone else -- and another good question is who is paying for Joe's personal attorneys, which include three partners that we know of at Covington & Burling:

[S]enior partners there now bill up to $2,500 an hour, which would top other publicly reported billing rates at U.S. law firms.

Covington’s website does not list anyone with the title of senior partner, and a firm spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on who would qualify or how many attorneys bill at that hourly rate.

Let's be conservative and estimate that the three Covington partners we know of are billing at a rate of only $2000 an hour for 40 hours a week. 3 partners X 40 hours X $2000 = $240,000 a week. We don't know how many weeks they've been on the case, but Dana Remus became a partner in October and is thought to have been working on Biden matters there, so let's estimate it's been 16 weeks. 16 X $240,000 = $3,840,000. But this leaves out newly hired Bob Bauer, it leaves out Covington associates who are billing on the case, and it leaves out other lawyers whose names keep popping up, so Biden's personal legal expenses are piling up in the multimillions at minimum, and this isn't likely to stop.

Where is this money coming from? But this leaves aside the question of how so much has already been spent on the case, but more docs keep popping up. That in turn suggests to me that it isn't Biden's own money he's spending.