Month: December 2024

All politicians lie, obfuscate, exaggerate, and omit certain information. Otherwise, they would never win an election. Most of us are cognizant of this and accept it. We may not like it, but we accept it.

Some examples to illustrate my point: (1) FDR and his aides hid his polio from the public. (2) JFK hid a plethora of diseases. Despite his slim, athletic-looking physique and skill at sports such, as sailing and golf, he suffered from a variety of health issues, including spinal problems, osteoporosis, and Addisons’ disease, which damaged his adrenal glands and caused fatigue, digestive difficulties, low blood pressure, severe allergies and urinary tract infections. In fact, he was probably one of the unhealthiest presidents. (3) LBJ continually disseminated false and incomplete information regarding the Vietnam War. (4) During his campaign Bush the elder famously asserted “read my lips. No new taxes.” Of course, once in office he did just that. (5) Bush the younger dragged us into the war with Iraq based on the “certainty” that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction.” Such weapons were never found and probably never existed. (6) Most politicians engage in questionable deals with people seeking favor or influence.

Yes, we are aware and accept a certain amount of the foregoing. We may not like it, but we regard it as a “cost of doing business,” if you will.

However, the Bidens have taken these activities to a whole new level. They have been aided and abetted by a biased mainstream media for the past nine years. Moreover, they have benefited from a huge legal double standard. Those of us who get our news from legitimate sources such as Fox News have been aware of this. The “Kool-Aid drinkers” among us have probably not been and may still deny it. At this point, the mountain of proof of their corruption is evident to all those who care to look. I could write an entire book about this, and someday someone will likely do so. But for purposes of this blog, below please find just the highlights or, rather, the lowlights.

Trump was not supposed to win the 2016 election. Supposedly, it was Hillary Clinton’s “turn.” The Washington insiders had it all planned out. Clinton would serve two terms, continue the Obama-Clinton agenda, and then hand it over to another Dem Party politician. When Trump declared his candidacy, most of us were shocked and skeptical. Few people took him seriously. We figured he was on a lark and would soon get tired of the process and withdraw. He fooled everyone. He dominated a crowded and weak GOP field, won the nomination, and then, shockingly, upset Clinton in a very close election. Suddenly, the entrenched “deep staters” panicked. Trump was a “wild card,” a “fly in the ointment,”, a “monkey in the wrench” who could not be controlled. He had pledged to “drain the swamp.” They feared that he would. He was a threat to the entrenched, powerful “deep staters.” He had to be thwarted.

We all know what happened next. In an effort to besmirch his character and hinder his presidency Trump’s enemies conjured up a series of “crimes.” Some of them included the “Russia hoax” and “dossier,” the mischaracterization of the phone call to Ukrainian officials, the FISA warrants, calling him a “fascist,” “Hitler,” and a “threat to democracy,” and the two impeachment trials, among many others. Their goal was to damage his reputation, foil his presidency and/or get him out of office. As we know, eventually they succeeded. In 2020 Trump lost to Biden in a close election,

When he declared for the 2024 election their plan was to prevent him from winning at all costs. First, they sought to keep him off the ballot in some states. When that failed, they conjured up criminal cases. As a convicted felon they figured he would be incarcerated or, if not, so severely damaged that he would lose the election. They subjected Trump to such an unending spiel of hateful rhetoric that some deranged person shot him and came within a hair of assassinating him.

As justification for attacking a sitting president and later a former president seeking re-election, they continually spouted the mantra “no one is above the law.” How many times have we heard that from Dems over the last several years? Incidentally, now that Trump has won the election isn’t it funny how all these criminal cases have withered away?

Meanwhile, the Bidens were and still are involved in a plethora of illegal activities including bribery, corruption, influencing-peddling, human trafficking, and possibly espionage. Much of the evidence has been hidden or destroyed, so we are unaware of the depths of their crimes. Likely, we will never know everything, but what we do know is bad enough. Again, there is way too much to discuss in a simple 1,500-word blog. If you doubt me, I suggest you follow the late Casey Stengel’s advice and “look it up.”

There is ample evidence that Hunter Biden has been the point-man for these activities. In addition, there is ample evidence that Joe Biden has been deeply involved. The whole point of these schemes was to sell access to Biden first as VP then as President. Like the mafia capos he, the “big guy,” has been getting a “taste” of every deal. Moreover, it appears that other Biden family members may also be involved.

The media has protected the Bidens. They have not pursued these stories, most notably Hunter’s infamous laptop and “pay for play” deals and Joe’s Biden’s declining cognitive abilities. During the 2020 election they denigrated the contents of the laptop as “Russian disinformation.” The cash payments to Hunter were swept under the rug. The media aided and abetted Biden’s campaign strategy of avoiding the public as much as possible. Had those matters been made public Trump would likely have won the election.

And now, we come to the current Biden-family malfeasance – THE PARDON. I will stipulate that all presidents issue pardons as is their right under the Constitution. However, the scope of Hunter’s is unprecedented and excessive. Most pardons are issued to convicted persons who have already served some or all of their sentence. Hunter’s covers not only the tax fraud and gun convictions that we know about, crimes for which he has pled guilty but not yet served a day in prison, but also any and all crimes between 2014 and 2025 that he may have committed. Basically, it is an unlimited get-out-of- jail-free card. So much for “no one is above the law.”

Before the election Joe had continually asserted that he would not pardon Hunter. Many of us knew better. It was a virtual certainty that he would do so. So, the announcement did not surprise us, although the scope of it did. I would not be surprised if he issues pardons to other family members and cohorts as well as himself before he leaves office. His intent is to bury all of his family’s prior nefarious activities, and that would be the only way to do it.

Donators and other supporters who believed in Joe were shocked, disillusioned and even despondent. Even the DOJ was reported to have been surprised. They all had taken Biden at his word. CA Governor, and Presidential hopeful, Gavin Newsome, who has consistently supported Joe, told reporters “I’m disappointed, and I cannot support the [pardon].” The outspoken James Carvill, who has been brutally honest about the ill-advised direction of the Dem Party, in general, and the 2024 campaign, in particular, was irate. He railed that “Biden’s delusional self-belief, mendacity and corruption [have] wrecked the country and now, on his way out the door, [he’s] wrecked his party.” He added, “it’s hard to see his extraordinarily broad pardon for his son and the lies he told about it as anything but self-preservation.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Many donors and other supporters, who apparently believed his denials, felt betrayed, not just by the pardon but also by the campaign’s missing $2.5 billion. No one seems to know where it went, or if they do, they are not saying. Many of them, particularly the myriad of small donors, feel they were “ripped off.” The Party has some repair work to do there.

As justification, Joe claimed Hunter, being the President’s son, was “singled [out]” for harsher treatment. Most people recognize that as an outlandish lie. In fact, the opposite has been true. Merrick Garland, the president’s own AG has had hands-on involvement in the case. In addition, the DOJ has bent over backwards to protect the family and otherwise impede the IRS’ investigation. It has consistently blocked any evidence that could have led to Joe’s involvement. Furthermore, it slow-walked the prosecution of some of the more egregious crimes to allow the statute of limitations to lapse.

In their testimony under oath Joe Ziegler and Gary Shipley, the two IRS whistleblowers, disclosed that they had produced “mountains” of evidence that Special Council David Weiss failed to follow up on. Furthermore, there have been numerous similar cases where ordinary citizens without Hunter’s connections have been penalized to the full extent of the law.

Mark Scarsi, the federal judge who was about to sentence Hunter, also scoffed at Joe’s claim and strongly criticized the pardon. He commented that “the Constitution provides the president with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons …. but nowhere does [it] give the President the authority to rewrite history.” Finally, Scarsi denoted that “11 different Article III judges appointed by six different presidents, including [Joe], [have] considered and rejected the defendant’s claims [of harsher treatment].”

CONCLUSION

Based on the evidence that has come to light Joe’s corruption and influence peddling can be traced back to his years as VP and, quite possibly, to his time as a Senator. He once described himself as “the poorest man in Congress.” Recently, Forbes valued his net worth at $10 million. Not bad for someone who has lived exclusively on a public servant’s salary for 50+ years.

The revelations of the past several years have shattered Joe’s reputation as an honest politician who was a champion of the working class (“Joe Sixpack”). According to columnist Michael Goodwin writing in the NY Post these revelations of family-wide influence peddling “proves” that “he’s been corrupt for decades.” Goodwin added that “those who refused to consider the possibility that Joe personally profited from the $20 million foreign sources paid his son and brother [despite having no useful experience or expertise] … simply refused to see the evidence.”

His pardoning of Hunter was the crowning touch of the demise of his reputation. In my view, the problem was not the pardon, itself. It can be argued that he was within his rights to pardon his son. Rather, it was the extent of it (11 years encompassing acts for which Hunter had not even been accused) and the fact that Joe continually lied about it. As I said, many of his allies and supporters had believed his denials, and they were shattered and disappointed. At the moment, Joe’s standing within the Dem Party and indeed the country as a whole has sunken to a new low. As I said, in my opinion Hunter’s pardon is only the beginning. I expect Joe to pardon any and all others who were complicit, both family and non-family.

In the words of pollster Nate Silver Joe has been unmasked as a “selfish and senile old man.” Longtime chief of staff Ted Kaufman once labeled him as “an equal-opportunity disappointer.” In my opinion, the extent of his corruptness rivals that of any other president in history. We may never know the true extent of it.

At some point, Trump will undoubtedly issue pardons to certain people whom he feels have been imprisoned unjustly. The Dems will howl, but they will have no basis for complaining. Now anything goes with respect to presidential pardons. Biden has established the precedent.