News item: Biden Pardons His Son. In another timeline, this news would cause a universal gnashing of teeth as yet another outgoing president abuses the power of the pardon as he passes them out like party favors in the waning days of his term. It’s what lame ducks do, and we’ve all come to expect it.

Remember Marc Rich?

But all I can say, upon reading the headlines on Sunday, that Joe Biden gave his sole surviving son a sweeping pardon for his crimes is “Good for you, Joe.”

This comes after a long drawn-out sideshow of Hunter Biden’s trials, aborted plea deals, stolen laptops, and President Biden’s repeated assurances that pardoning his son was a non-starter. Not since Billy Carter was derided and defiled simply because he was a presidential family member that took advantage of that fact, has a relative been drawn-and-quartered and given public whippings by the Righteous Right.

The abuse had to stop, and we finally got to see Biden eke out a win after all this time, even if it was (literally) by his own hand.

The timing of the announcement couldn’t have been more perfect, coming as it did after Don the Con promoted a former heroin addict to the Department of Health and Human Services, and named a scheming and disgusting former felon to Ambassador to France. What a massive F-You to Americans and the entire world over just these two actions. Given the smelly s–t sandwich that Bronzer Boy just served up to us, the sackcloth and ashes being worn by right wingers over Hunter’s reprieve is laughable by half.

In his way, I think, President Biden simply realized the truth of what was first noted by French philosopher Michel de Montaigne when he considered the negative blowback he would receive over his son’s pardon.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.