TOUGH JUSTICE: Attorney General Merrick Garland sat for a five-hour grilling yesterday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee obsessed with the case of Hunter Biden while also accusing the Justice Department of political prosecutions.  They even raised the conspiracy theory that FBI instigators were in the crowd whipping up the January 6^th attack on the Capitol.

  Garland refused to answer questions about internal deliberations, the decision-making in the Hunter Biden investigation, or the two federal indictments of former President Donald Trump.

    Garland said about the Biden matter, “I have intentionally not involved myself in the facts of the case, not because I am trying to get out of responsibility, because I am trying to pursue my responsibility.”

  When the younger Biden was offered a plea deal that later imploded, committee Republicans and right wing media widely espoused the theory that President Biden intervened to protect his son from prosecution. They are even suspect of the Trump-appointed prosecutor Garland named to be special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation. “Everyone knows the fix is in,” committee chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio claimed.

  “I am not the president’s lawyer,” Garland said. “I will add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.”

  This all took place during what in normal times would have been a routine hearing on Justice Department policy and activities including crime, law enforcement, and civil rights. Expecting hostile fire, Garland was combative in his opening statement, denouncing escalating threats against prosecutors and saying, “We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside interference. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.” 

WORK PERMIT: The Biden administration announced that it will allow half a million Venezuelans already in the United States to live and work legally in the country for 18 months. The decision came after the White House was pressured by New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and leaders in Congress. Adams in particular had said New York’s social safety could not bear the weight of more than 110,000 recently arrived migrants unless they could work and support themselves. 

SALUTES: The Senate yesterday pulled an end around on Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blockade of military promotions, voting to confirm Air Force Gen. Charles Brown Jr. as the next chairman of the joint chiefs, replacing the retiring Mark Milley at the end of the month. The Senate is expected today to confirm Gen. Eric Smith of the Marine Corps and Gen. Randy George of the Army as the chiefs of staff for their services. 

  Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military promotions hoping to end Pentagon policies on access to abortion for service members.

  The Senate’s Democratic majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been reluctant to force the issue on lesser promotions and Tuberville has said he will not give up his fight against abortion access policy. 

BLUNT DIPLACY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN Security Council yesterday that if it did not break the grip of Russian veto power over the council that it would be powerless to resolve conflicts around the world. 

  Russia has veto power over anything the council wants to say or do as do the US, China, France, and Britain. 

  “Ukrainian soldiers are doing with their blood what the UN Security Council should do by its voting,” Zelensky said, arguing that “veto power in the hands of the aggressor is what has pushed the UN into deadlock.” He called Russian diplomats “liars whose job is to whitewash the aggression and genocide.”

  American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sat in the seats normally taken by their ambassadors, although Lavrov did not appear until after Zelensky had spoken. Lavrov was dismissive, saying “We hear slogans — invasion, annexation, aggression.”

ORANGE ALERT: Jenna Ellis, a former legal adviser to Donald Trump and one of the 18 people indicted along with the former president in the Georgia election meddling case, came out and said she would not vote again for Trump to be president. Ellis said during an episode of her show American Family Radio, “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Dartmouth College football coach football coach Eugene “Buddy” Teevens, who was instrumental in making the sport safer at both the college and professional level, died Tuesday as a result of injuries sustained in a March bicycle crash. He was 66.

  Hit by a truck while riding his bicycle in Florida, Teevens suffered spinal cord injuries and had to have his right leg amputated. He never recovered.  

  Teevens had been the quarterback at Dartmouth and years later, in two stints running the team, he became the school’s all-time winningest coach, with a record of 117-101-2 and five Ivy League championships.

  In 2010 Teevens had the crazy idea of eliminating full contact and tackling during practices in order to cut down on injuries. That led Dartmouth’s engineering school to create the Mobile Virtual Player, a robot tackling device adopted by other college teams and the professionals. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told The Athletic in June, “Not many people have contributed more to the game than Buddy.” 

THE SPIN RACK: The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged yesterday, but signaled rate hikes are still possible to tame stubborn inflation. — Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims in her new book that Rudy Giuliani groped her backstage during former President Trump’s January 6^th rally, putting his hand under her skirt. Giuliani said, “Totally absurd. I’m gonna grope somebody?” He’s been accused of that before. Eeeewwww.

BELOW THE FOLD:  The artist’s way: In 2021 the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, Denmark gave artist Jens Haaning about 76,000 to create two original works. Haaning delivered two blank canvases and titled them “Take the Money and Run.” The museum is suing to get its money back.

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