Poor Hunter

As the impeachment trial of the President winds down, there are still unresolved issues that need to be addressed about Hunter Biden’s involvement in various business endeavors and why closer scrutiny wasn’t paid to those activities.

We make character and integrity major issues when it comes to selecting our elected leadership. This also plays an important role in the selection, vetting, and legislative confirmation of political appointees. What doesn’t draw as much scrutiny are relationships these individuals may have with friends, family, or other associates. The younger Biden falls into the latter category.

Ashley Madison was a website dedicated to helping individuals conduct extra marital affairs. That’s right, there actually was a website that encouraged and assisted you in cheating on your spouse or significant other. Back in 2015, the site was hacked and the personal information of its members was released into the wild, so to speak. One of the names identified was that of a Robert Hunter Biden (he denies the account being his, but there are multiple indicators that say otherwise). To make a long story short, Hunter and his first wife, Kathleen, went their separate ways, but not before she accused him of spending extravagantly on other women, including those he had been having affairs with, engaging in illicit drug use, and an all too frequent patronage of strip clubs.

In 2017, Hunter confirmed he had been dating Hallie Biden, the widow of his late brother Beau. That in and of itself isn’t an issue since neither of them were married at the time.  But there’s a wrinkle. Lunden Roberts is a former stripper who worked and lived in the DC area from 2015 to 2018. Sometime during that timeframe Hunter met Ms. Roberts while he was a customer at a local strip club where she worked. The two became involved in a relationship while he was dating his brother’s widow (hmmm, this sounds eerily familiar). Hallie and Hunter broke up sometime in April of 2019. A month later he met and married Melissa Cohen, a South African native. In August of 2018, Lunden Roberts gave birth to a child she claimed was fathered by Hunter Biden. She sued for child support, both future and in arrears.  Hunter underwent a paternity test which conclusively proved that he was the father of “Baby Doe”, the name given to the child for legal purposes. The suit also includes discovery into Hunter’s finances to see if he’s hiding anything from her. None of this will ever see the light of day though, since the records of cases like this are normally sealed (the petition to do so has already been filed).

There are no federal laws governing Hunter Biden’s behavior, and no definitive link can be drawn between his activities and his father’s position. That doesn’t mean that such behavior shouldn’t undergo some sort of scrutiny. It has been shown by his conduct that young Mr. Biden is not, nor will he ever be, a paragon of virtue. In an email to his Step-father’s Chief of Staff and his Deputy at the State Department, Chris Hines stated he was surprised that Hunter and Devon Archer were accepting seats on Burisma’s Board of Directors, given the company’s history. He also made it patently clear that he himself was going to steer clear of any involvement and was making sure that their firm did so as well.

What has been expounded on so far, isn’t an attempt to disparage or indict Hunter Biden. His actions will speak for themselves. What’s at issue here is his moral turpitude and how that played out during his father’s tenure as Vice President. Remember, Joe Biden was the point man on U.S. policy dealing with both Ukraine and China. Places where Hunter got sweetheart deals, either for himself (Burisma board membership) or for the firm he was a partner in (Bohai Harvest RST). The Chinese have a name for people like Hunter and his partners (Devon Archer and Chris Hines). They call them princelings. With princelings, political influence takes a more indirect route, rewarding those close to the principals, but not the principals themselves. To drive this point home, JP Morgan recently had to pay a $264,000,000 fine to the SEC for doing the same thing with the children of Chinese officials. This scheme, formally known as the “Sons and Daughters” program, was apparently a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

So, the big question that needs to be asked, in light of all that has transpired, is this: Can an individual, who seems to have no apparent moral compass to guide his behavior, be trusted not to do the same thing if his father becomes the 46th President of the United States? Given the additional fact that he was a commissioned officer who was separated from the Naval Reserve in 2013, after testing positive for cocaine use, I’d say that the chances of a relapse are pretty doggoned good.

Gratitude

Rant on. I am getting damned tired of these woke-ass, broke-ass, stupid-assed cancel culture snowflakes! Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to ruin just about everything in our daily lives, now they’re going after the holidays! Check it out:

Thanksgiving. It used to be over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go. But not so fast pilgrim, you don’t need to be traveling anywhere this Thanksgiving since you’ll be contributing to climate change if you are. Okay, fine, you can always celebrate turkey day at home. But, wait, you shouldn’t be eating that turkey either, because raising the fowl that we devour every year, produces a large carbon footprint that’s environmentally unacceptable. Alright, at least you can use it as a day for giving thanks. Nope can’t do that either, since the Pilgrims were interlopers on land that the indigenous peoples claimed as their own, so how can anyone be thankful for something like that? Enough already! Squanto (full name Tisquantum), the native credited with saving the Pilgrims’ bacon, was kidnapped and taken to Spain where he was sold into bondage. Fortunately, he was sold to an order of local monks who educated him and gave him back his freedom. He made his way to England and eventually was able to return to his native village in America, only to find that it had been wiped out by a plague. Since he spoke English, he became instrumental in assisting the Pilgrims in their negotiations with the local Pokanokets Indians. He introduced them to the fur trade and taught them how to sow and cultivate native crops, since the seeds they brought with them mostly failed to germinate. Maybe it’s just me, but why wouldn’t you want to give thanks for having an individual like this in your corner?

Christmas. Most of us have seen that Peloton commercial and know about the blowback the company received calling it sexist, misogynist, an example of the patriarchy, elitist, you name it. It’s gotten so bad that the company has lost approximately one and a half billion dollars of its market value, that’s billion with a “B”. I’ve watched that commercial enough times to be intimate with its content, but figured I’d watch it a few more times with a critical eye towards the events in question and do a little dissection on the side. So, here’s my take on things. This piece of equipment costs two grand. Anyone who’s going to give this as a gift is most likely doing so because someone’s been dropping hints, or they plan on using it themselves as well. The fact that this wife was filming herself on her phone means that she’s either keeping a video journal of her endeavors, posting on social media, or both. How many of us would voluntarily engage in such acts if we weren’t instrumental in the purchase of this gear or were feeling some sort of pressure to use it? Towards the end of the commercial, she’s watching this journal on the big screen TV with her hubby, expressing her gratitude and talking about how this journey of hers has stretched back over the past year and the metamorphosis that she’s undergone. Any idea on the cost of an exercise subscription? Thirty-nine bucks a month. That’s almost four hundred eighty dollars for the year. That’s a health club membership right there. Again, who’s spending that kind of coin unless they’re serious about what they’re doing?

So yeah. Gratitude is a big thing for me, and in both cases, it was pretty obvious that these idiots were long on the criticism aspect and short on the gratitude side of the house. But then again, I’m not surprised. These knuckleheads would see the glass as half empty despite everyone else calling it three quarters full. So, my recommendation to these fools would be to grow up, get over it, get on with your lives, and if you don’t have one, get one! That way, the rest of us can get on with ours!!  Rant off.

Impeach Trump, please!!

Apparently, there have been several recent national polls taken that indicate critical mass may have been reached for the impeachment and removal of the President of the United States. This, in and of itself, is no small task and is not something to be taken lightly. If this is the case, then a vote before the full House should be a no-brainer to officially kick off an impeachment inquiry.

What we’ve been witness to instead, has been a series of investigations by various committees (Judiciary, Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) being conducted with the express purpose of stitching together enough “evidence”, I would assume, to bring about a vote for Articles of Impeachment. The majority in these committees gets to decide the rules of the game, so to speak, which includes who they want to call as witnesses before the committees, evidence to be admitted, conduct of the committee meetings, etc. The minority on the other hand, has little to no say in what happens and is along for the ride. Were there to be a vote to actually begin an inquiry, the minority would have the same abilities and authorities that the majority currently enjoys. Problem is, that vote would put a lot of Democrat legislators on record as having voted for impeachment (even though it was only to begin an inquiry). These same legislators ran on getting business done in DC and won their seats in districts that the President carried in 2016, and that has a lot of them very fearful about their chances for re-election.

Speaker Pelosi has been handed a conundrum of sorts, courtesy of the more radical elements in her party. Either press on with an attempt to impeach the President, satisfying the radicals, or play it safe and not go down that road, in the hopes of preserving her majority in the House. Her compromise (and not a very good one, at that) has been to commission the aforementioned committees. The ability of the majority to control the messaging coming out of these bodies, courtesy of well-placed leaks and an all too compliant media, have helped steer the narrative and public opinion in a direction more favorable to the Democrats.

For the President to get a fair shake, given all that has occurred, his only recourse may be for this mess to wind up in front of the Senate in a trial. At least there he’ll have the benefit of due process, a measure of reliable judicial processes and other rights accorded to the accused in a criminal proceeding (although this process is more political in nature). Since these proceedings will be no doubt be made public, it’s here the hoax that has been foisted on the American people will finally be laid bare. They will finally see the veil of secrecy that has masked these House investigations pulled back, exposing corrupt intent, a complete lack of candor and transparency, and an unwillingness to follow the rule of law.

Americans are a fair-minded people. They understand that politics at times can be a rough and tumble game played by some unsavory characters. What they cannot and will not accept though, are repeated attempts by one side at railroading an individual for no reason other than the fact that their candidate didn’t win the last election and that they don’t like the bedside manner of the individual who did win. This sort of behavior is sure to invoke the ire of an electorate that feels it has been lied to and used as a political prop on multiple occasions. Speaker Pelosi would do well to remember this, but I already think she does.

If I were to take the long view and offer up a plausible hypothesis as to all that has transpired and what is yet to come, it would go something like this: Mrs. Pelosi realizes that the only way to placate the bloodthirsty hordes is to try and offer the President’s head on a silver platter via the impeachment process. Knowing full well that “there’s no there there”, blowback is sure to follow if there is a trial in the Senate.  A trial that would lead to the eventual acquittal of the President and potentially cost her party its Majority in the House. Even if she managed to hold onto her majority, the aftermath would afford her and Democrat leadership the opportunity to re-exert influence over the party, since the more extreme elements would no longer have a leg to stand on. Once the dust has settled, I see two clear winners coming out of this, Speaker Pelosi and the President.