Recently in The Bulwark:
CHARLIE SYKES: A Bonfire of Ignorance and Hypocrisy
TIM MILLER: No Actual Republican Politicians Are Wasting Political Capital on Nikki Haley
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KIM WEHLE: Hunter Biden’s New, More Serious Indictment.
ON THURSDAY, SPECIAL COUNSEL DAVID WEISS secured a federal grand jury indictment in California charging Hunter Biden with nine criminal counts—three felonies and six misdemeanors—allegedly arising from “a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019.” The indictment claims that Biden didn’t pay his taxes while simultaneously spending money “on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature”; that he repeatedly failed to file federal tax form 1040; and that he failed to identify a slew of personal expenses that were wrongfully paid with corporate funds. (He reportedly paid these owed back taxes—plus penalties and interest, reaching a total of about $2 million—in 2021.)
The indictment feels like an unmistakable “eff you” from Weiss after a deal to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors fell apart in open court in July, with Hunter Biden’s lawyer heard saying to prosecutors, “Rip it up.”
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Charlie Sykes: Will Saletan: Political Delusion [Ad-free🔐]
Beg to Differ: Dictator on Day One (with Rachel Kleinfeld [Ad-free🔐]
Next Level Sunday Show: The Pivotal Moment (with David Grann) [Ad-free🔐]
The Focus Group: Unreliable Narrators (with Jonathan V. Last) [Ad-free🔐]
Tim’s Take: Trump's D List Future Cabinet
Bulwark Goes to Hollywood: The Year in the Box Office
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Welcome to The Dark Side
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Monday! The D.C. area got some unexpected snow last night, more than we’ve gotten in recent years… which is to say “very little.” But it supercharged the Christmas Cheer inside my house with my little ones and our dogs.
Let’s spread some cheer! Read this thread and consider helping out a teacher in need.
How they made Elf… To get genuine NYC reactions, you have to go guerilla style.
Place matters… New research from the Connors Institute on how communities impact children's life chances in the United States.
Christmas without Yaroslav… A must read at The Counteroffensive.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has gone missing… his spokesperson says.
They watched their husbands win the Heisman… then lost them to CTE. A tough read in The Washington Post.
He went to SCOTUS… Jack Smith asked the high court to keep the Trump trial on track before the election.
At World Central Kitchen… José Andrés Is in the Middle of a Mess.
The Hamas-Israel War… Obliterated the Campus Microaggression, argues Anthony Fisher at The Daily Beast.
What if Harvard, MIT, and Penn presidents… said too much, not too little?
In Missouri… Financial troubles threaten the survival of colleges across St. Louis. But the problems facing colleges in “the Lou” might be ones yours are facing, too. This line from Richard Staisloff stuck out for me: “The reality is we have overcapacity in higher education. It is impossible to imagine a future in which every institution is going to be able to continue on.”
The College Presidents Were Right About Campus Antisemitism… Schools should regulate conduct, not speech, argues Jonathan Chait.
Inside Trump’s Plot to Corrupt the 2024 Election… With ‘Garbage’ Data. A harrowing read.
#OurKevin… The exit interview.
Jesus called... He wants his phone back, writes Holly Berkley-Fletcher.
25 years in search… Google tells us what we’ve been searching for.
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