1. How can the White House not have a response prepared for this question?
2. How long can the mainstream media refuse to give this slowly exploding story the attention and coverage it obviously deserves?
3. It is true that everybody—I think literally everybody—knew that Joe Biden was lying when he said his son had “done nothing wrong” and when he said that he never discussed Hunter’s dealing with foreign governments with him. But is it possible that the President, his advisors and his party really think that they can duck the scandal with the Clinton “Deny, deny, deny!” formula?
4. Ethics Hero Jonathan Turley has dropped all—well, most— of his usual professorial reserve on this matter, writing in his latest blog post in part,
While many of us have stressed the need to authenticate these statements, Hunter Biden has notably not denied that he sent the message and the allegations from the investigation have self-verifying elements. The news blackout again raises concerns over a de facto state media in the United States that operates by consent rather than coercion…
I recently wrote that Garland, by his own measures, hasfailed as Attorney General in restoring trust in his department. However, this is far more serious than allegations of negligence. It would constitute a knowing effort to delay and obstruct efforts to investigate the Biden family — and to mislead Congress.
The evidence also creates new problems for President Biden, who has repeatedly claimed as a presidential candidate and as president that he had no knowledge of any foreign dealings of his son.
Those statements were long ago proven patently false…there remains a striking lack of curiosity among the Democratic members who have opposed every effort to investigate these allegations.
Even the recent disclosure of a trusted FBI source alleging a possible bribery scheme with a corrupt Ukrainian official has not reduced this opposition.
The lack of curiosity of Democrats in Congress is only matched by the media. A year after the New York Post broke the laptop story, I wrote a column marveling at the success of the Bidens in pulling off one of the neatest tricks in political history. I analogized it to how Houdini used to make his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear on a stage in front of a live audience….
In the same way, the media wanted the Hunter Biden scandal to disappear — they still do. They are invested in the trick.
So, the Democrats and the media will continue to insist that there is a lack of evidence while opposing efforts to establish the evidence behind these allegations. After all, if there is an elephant behind this scandal, it is an indictment of their concerted efforts for over three years.
6. Now I momentarily regret banning the Trump-Deranged trolls recently, as I would love to read the best efforts of any of them to explain how this is all a right-wing conspiracy theory concocted by a MAGA cabal. I suspect that they would default to the approach of Turley’s usual knee-jerk critics when he has their party in his sights: they just start writing about how Trump was worse.
7. A tangential note: now that is is clearer than clear that Merrick Garland is a corrupt, unethical, partisan hack, I am reading various pundits’ claims that Mitch McConnell has been vindicated for his indefensible (but legal!) refusal to let Garland’s nomination for SCOTUS to even come to a vote. It was wrong then, and is wrong now. McConnell’s stratagem had nothing to do with then judge Garland’s character or qualifications. That the AG has disgraced his office and harmed the nation since becoming a Biden lackey is pure moral luck.
Ethics Alarms 
Righty Pounces…heh!
The banned paid Dem trolls would simply say things like, “There’s no proof of anything,” and “Biden has done nothing illegal.” The usual talking points that have been sent around. They’d close with a “But Trump!”
Regarding the administration’s “unpreparedness.” They’re totally prepared. The media is burying the story and the Democratic voters simply don’t care. Joe’s their guy. Hunter has been given a deal completing what Turley calls the “controlled implosion.” So, “the investigation has been closed.” And besides, “Joe Biden loves his son.” [My personal favorite misdirection talking point.] “And doesn’t every family have an addicted child?”
What do you think about impeaching Garland?
He has failed to carry out the duties of his office.
It may send a message to the establishment.
It would likely be less harmful than a petty attempt to impeach Biden.
-Jut
Less, but still harmful. Some House members wanted to impeach Barr. Both of Obama’s AG’s could have justifiably been impeached. Its another dangerous precedent.
It pays to be the king, doesn’t it? Queen Elizabeth, may she rest in peace, used to say the best approach is “never complain, never explain.” She could do it too, because she didn’t answer to anyone. Democrats in office have a tendency to believe that they answer to no one, and given that Biden supposedly got the most votes of any president to date, more popular even than his old boss, why should they think otherwise? The thing is, it’s one thing for Buckingham Palace issue a statement saying that his majesty is done discussing a wayward, publicity seeking second son, it’s quite another to simply refuse to address obvious corrupt dealings and tell the press to pipe down.
1. It’s not a matter of incompetence for the White House not to have an answer prepared for this question. It’s a matter of the White House refusing to answer this question until the media gets the point, and moves on.
2. Until the public gets the message, that this issue is over, and moves on to re-electing our most competent president yet and making sure we keep dangerous demagogues out of the White House.
3. It worked for bill, didn’t it? Deny until you can no longer deny, then trickle information out so slowly that the media and the public forget about it, then say it’s a closed issue and you have important work to do, so let’s move on, already.
4. Turley is absolutely right, but his being right has no more value than classmates who see the class bully beating up the least popular member of the class. No one is going to do anything about it. .
6. If you wonder what they would have said you can always go over to Democratic underground or dailykos. Same effect without having to put up with garbage from blue Kool-Aid drinkers and Bidenbots who display all the intelligence of a slug.
7. It looks like the nation dodged a bullet. McConnell did the wrong thing I refusing to grant a hearing to a nominee, he did it for the wrong reasons by trying to shaft the sitting president, but in the end, it got the right result, which was keeping a partisan hack off the Supreme Court. Frankly, Obama has no one but himself to blame. He was the one who refused to build the relationships with members of Congress from the other party that he needed in order to work effectively with them and get important things done. He was the one who looked down his nose at the other party and characterized them as the enemy. He was also the one who was not able to persuade the notorious RBG not to step down while the stepping was good, so she died just in the nick of time that she could be replaced by (horrors!) a conservative woman. In effect, it’s as much his fault as anyone else’s that Roe v Wade is history. Chuck the Schmuck helped set the president, though, when he said that the Senate should basically declare judicial nominations closed when there was 18 months still to go in George W. Bush’s second term.
It really all boils down to one political party having to eat the bitter herbs of their previous errors.
That said, all of this has a chance, maybe even a very good chance, of blowing up in the Democratic party’s face. Maybe it gets to the point where the media can’t ignore it, or maybe someone in the mainstream media grows a backbone. Maybe someone at Fox gets in touch with a contact like Woodward and Bernstein. It’s a race between this fuse finally reaching the keg of TNT and the next election, and no one really knows how long this fuse is. I hope it goes kablooey before this nation can be deceived into giving this senile old puppet and his masters a second chance, but we’ll see.
Great comment, Steve.