It all started when I woke up to this WhatsApp message from my hedgie buddy H in Hong Kong:

Shaking my cobweb-filled head, I quickly checked our Paradigm Press editorial channel on Slack. Good friend and colleague Byron King was already on the case:

This week, Joe is off to Angola. Seriously. Angola? Who goes to Angola? Mining & petroleum geologists, yes. But I suppose if I just pardoned Hunter and dissed my Dept of Justice for doing "political prosecutions," that balmy clime of Angola might appeal to me.

Goodness, is there anyone in Washington who likes Merrick Garland? I didn’t think so…

Then, I checked our #editorialmemebag, where my fellow Morning Reckoning colleague Greg Guenthner posted this peach of a tweet:

No, John, “they” can’t imagine a politician acting on principle and keeping his word. And why would “they?”

As you read this, the above “journalist” is being slaughtered in the comments and by the Community Notes.

Let’s get to what happened.

Hunter Biden Gets Off

Robert Hunter Biden has always been a problem for his father.

His trial laid bare decades of drug abuse and family dysfunction.

As president, Hunter’s daddy always had the ability to stop the trial, but he promised to stay out of it. That is, until George Clooney wrote that letter to The Los Angeles Times. Then, it seems, all bets were off.

And honestly, I don’t blame the elder Biden.

“While as a father I certainly understand President @JoeBiden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Colorado governor Jared Polis tweeted.

Stop it!

I know if my son were facing a good chunk of his life behind bars, I’d pardon him, too.

But if the pardon had the added effect of immunizing me from any Burisma/Ukraine money laundering and biolab blowback, I’d have pardoned him sooner!

The truth is, we’re all anarchists when it suits us. A father is only happy to let law enforcement intervene when he thinks it’ll be good for his son. Not for a decade or more of punishment.

Family comes first, no matter what song you’re singing or what flag you’re saluting. Always. We may not think it’s right or moral, but that’s how it is.

And the elder Biden’s humiliation at the hands of his own party makes this pardon all the more delicious. That the Democrats unhorsed him and then lost isn’t enough. I doubt it’ll ever be enough for the old man.

I never liked Joe Biden, and I never understood how he could darken the doors of the Oval Office. But I certainly understand why he’d not give a toss about how this makes the Democrats look—and it’s not a good look at all.

Righteous Indignation

The New York Post flipped its wig this morning, and it’s excellent.

Joe Biden has told a farrago of lies about Hunter’s misdeeds. It was all “Russian disinformation” — except everything was true. It was “attacking him because of his addictions.” Certainly one would question why a Ukrainian gas company and Chinese energy executives would pay Hunter Biden $11 million when he was, by his own admission, a barely functioning crack addict. But no one was “attacking” or mocking his struggles with drug use. They were questioning what Hunter was promising in terms of his access to the White House, and why Joe Biden didn’t tell him to stop it.

Hunter’s plea deal wasn’t thrown out because of political pressure. It was tossed because a shocked judge realized no ordinary citizen would ever be given the deference given the president’s son. It was a political deal, meant to cover up the entire sordid episode ahead of an election.

And now, months later, as Joe Biden shambles to the door, all the lofty talk about “trusting the justice system” and “accepting norms” goes out the window. All the cases against Donald Trump are righteous and warranted. But the case against Hunter Biden, he claims, is simply political.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden writes.

I sympathize. Biden is flat-out lying for his son. It’s a black mark on the country.

Even CNN piled on.

The pardon means Hunter Biden won’t be sentenced for his crimes, and it eliminates any chance that he’ll be sent to prison, which was a possibility. The judges overseeing his cases will likely cancel the sentencing hearings, which were slated for December 12 in the gun case and December 16 in the tax case.

The broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offenses from his existing cases, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed “from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” This time frame, importantly, covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including in China.

Talk about a “Get Out of Jail Free” card!

“As sympathetic as Hunter Biden’s circumstances might be, a pardon from Joe Biden would still be an abuse of the clemency power,” said Jeffrey Crouch, a leading expert on pardons who teaches at American University. “Presidents should not use clemency to help out their friends, family, and allies in order to further their own personal interest.”

“Should” is a funny word. It implies a moral imperative. Unfortunately, as we’ve diluted national beliefs, we’ve diluted national character.

Wrap Up

The playing field isn’t level, in case you haven’t noticed. The faux outrage surrounding this pardon is nothing short of high-quality comedy. 

Did anyone expect Joe Biden to keep a promise? How many times must one get fooled before their BS detector kicks in?

We’ve got bigger fish to fry anyway, like how DJT now plans to sanction countries for leaving the dollar when they left the dollar for fear of sanctions. Geez…

Have a great week!