Whenever I want to understand what’s going on with corruption in the Biden administration, I turn to The Federalist, and look directly for Margot Cleveland’s column. And she doesn’t disappoint! This is a good primer on the Hunter Biden corruption story, so if you don’t know the full story, read this post. And then we’ll both have somewhere to look if we need to debate it.

So, here’s the article from The Federalist by Margot Cleveland.

She starts with some background:

In 2018, the feds launched an investigation into Hunter Biden, which the son of the now-president publicly disclosed in December 2020, following his father’s election. On Tuesday, news broke that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts and had entered a pretrial diversion agreement on a separate firearms count, unleashing outrage from the right over the absence of any money-laundering or bribery counts. But even worse is the U.S. attorney’s failure to file these charges against the Biden son in 2019, which suggests shielding Joe Biden from scandal is the operative principle of the Department of Justice and FBI.

Do federal laws apply to the son of the Democrat president?

The two tax misdemeanor charges spanned only a page-and-a-half and alleged in count one that the president’s son, during the 2017 calendar year, received taxable income exceeding $1.5 million and willfully failed to pay income taxes on that amount in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. Count two mirrored count one but charged Hunter with failing to pay the income taxes due on his 2018 calendar year earnings.

Wow, if you or I did that, we’d probably spend about 20 years in a federal penitentiary.

Do federal laws apply to the son of the Democrat president?

Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss filed separate information charging Hunter with violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(3) and 924(a)(2), for knowingly possessing a firearm, “knowing that he was an unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance…” Sources say, however, that under the pretrial diversion agreement, Hunter Biden will not plead guilty to that felony gun charge, with prosecutors instead dismissing the count “if he remains drug-free and doesn’t commit additional crimes for two years.”

It’s amazing. Normally in cases like this, my understanding is that the minimum sentence for a gun felony is SEVERAL years in jail, even for a first offense, and even if you plead out.

An interesting connection has emerged between American foreign policy and money received from foreign sources is emerging:

Weiss’s decision to charge Hunter with two tax misdemeanors only weeks after Americans learned that a “highly credible” confidential human source had reported that the Ukrainian owner of Burisma paid the father-son duo each $5 million in bribes looked like an obvious attempt to quell the growing scandal that threatened to engulf the president.

The interesting thing about those charges is that these payments  from foreigners were known BEFORE the 2020 election. But for some reason, federal law enforcement declined to do anything about them:

Weiss sat on those charges before the 2020 election that points to the top Delaware prosecutor protecting the Biden family.

Not just those charges, but the income tax charges too:

Why then did the Delaware U.S. attorney fail to charge the Biden son in 2019 with those crimes? The answer seems clear: politics.

And if politics drove the U.S. attorney to refrain from charging Hunter before the 2020 election, how could politics not also affect every aspect of the investigation into the now-president’s son, including evidence implicating President Joe Biden?

Now, when I look at those millions of dollars being funneled through Biden family members, it makes me wonder whether Joe Biden has been selling out our foreign policy interests to the highest bidder.

Here is what Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said, (reported by The Federalist):

“Since the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden began nearly five years ago, I and my colleagues in Congress have uncovered extensive government and bank records indicative of money laundering as well as foreign business schemes that, in any other circumstance, would raise serious criminal and counterintelligence concerns,” Grassley said. “Hunter’s laptop, which the FBI has had since 2019, contains records corroborating much of this evidence, as well as evidence of other serious criminal violations.”

Got that?

“extensive government and bank records indicative of money laundering as well as foreign business schemes that, in any other circumstance, would raise serious criminal and counterintelligence concerns”

More:

The Iowa lawmaker, who has spent half a decade investigating the first son, went on to highlight recent whistleblower reports from the DOJ and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that claim federal investigators have sabotaged any potential for a significant indictment.

In May, an IRS whistleblower spoke publicly on CBS News about efforts within the DOJ to hamper the federal tax probe.

“There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice,” said Gary Shapley. “These deviations from the process,” he added, “seemed to always benefit the subject.”

More whistleblowers from within the FBI have made similar allegations that the Department of Justice is working to shield the Biden family from thorough investigations. The plea deal on Tuesday comes as President Joe Biden himself faces credible bribery allegations from his time as vice president.

SIX additional Biden family members being investigated:

House Republicans who reviewed “suspicious activity reports” housed within the Treasury Department about Hunter Biden’s finances say they’ve expanded their own investigation of the Biden family to “six additional” members.

One of the the first tasks of the next Republican president will be to clean out corruption in high places in our government. We really have to pick someone who is fearless, and punish the Democrat traitors to the maximum extent of the law. And maybe next time, think twice about electing Godless secular leftists to high positions in government. They clearly don’t have the capability for morality that we need in our political leaders.

How does Canada’s health care system work? Well, when you get paid, they take money from you, and they also take some of the money that your employer wanted to pay you. You keep doing that until you are old enough to be a grandmother, then they deny you health care when you ask for it. But you can die, though. Oh, Canada would love to make you die so you don’t use any health care.

Here’s the story from the True North, an independent Canadian news source:

The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the case of a dying, unvaccinated woman who’s been denied an organ transplant.

Sheila Annette Lewis is dying of a terminal illness. She was removed from the top of the organ donor transplant list after refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Lewis said the Supreme Court owes her an answer as to why it won’t hear her case.

“This is the highest court in Canada that doesn’t want to do right by the people of Canada,” she said in an interview with Rebel News.

Lewis was unsuccessful at both the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench and the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2022, with both levels of court finding that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply to the Covid-19 vaccine policies of Alberta Health Services (AHS), the Alberta Hospital where she would receive her transplant, or her transplant doctors. Both courts also dismissed her claims under The Alberta Bill of Rights.

Actually, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn’t apply to any law in Canada. The basic human rights of Canadians – free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, parental authority, etc. – are regularly violated by the secular left totalitarian government.  The media is funded by the government. The schools are funded by the government. The hospitals are funded by the government. And the government-funded university system discriminates against students who don’t accept the dogma of the secular left. There’s no way to get justice in Canada.

More:

In a November ruling, the appeal court acknowledged it’s a “virtual certainty” Lewis will die without an organ transplant.

In January, Lewis filed a court application asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear her case against Alberta Health Services. In March, she provided her Alberta Transplant Program doctors with a privately funded medical report, known as the Kinexus Report, establishing her natural immunity to Covid-19.

She’s naturally immune, but that doesn’t matter to the high priests of the secular left. She has to comply with their worldview and their values. No one can defy the government, and get services from the government. They can pay the government, but they can’t get anything back if they disagree with the government.

More:

Lewis has now filed a new negligence claim against AHS and awaits a court date.

“I’m not going to go away,” she said. “I have to fight for my life.”

“I don’t want to die. I’m 58 years old and I have reason to live. I have grandchildren and I have children.”

Well, what you have to do if you are born in Canada is that you have to get out. You have to work your way through the state-run public schools, and the state-run universities. You have to block the state-run media out of your ears. And when you get your degree, you have to get out. You have to get away from the fascists who run the country – using your money to violate your human rights, and take away your freedoms.

Canada is going bankrupt because even after taking $15,000 per household for health care, the Liberal party doesn’t have enough money to pay for all the abortions, sex changes, IVF, etc. that they promised to their dysfunctional, reckless, irresponsible supporters. So, what to do? Well, they have to start killing the people who paid into the system for decades, who are now asking for health care.

Daily Signal explains:

According to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Canada saw a sharp increase in government-assisted suicides last year, with an estimated 13,500 taking place in 2022.

This is a 35% increase from 2021, when 10,064 took their lives through the program. The number represented 3.3% of all deaths in Canada in 2021, which is deeply alarming.

[…]In 2020, 7,595 government-assisted suicides occurred in Canada.

[…]In 2021, Medical Assistance in Dying expanded to include people with chronic illnesses. The program has become a convenient tool to push the poor and sick to kill themselves.

[…]At the end of 2022, lawmakers expanded the program yet again to include people with mental illness.

People are literally dying in the streets in Canada, because although they paid tens of thousands of dollars for health care, the government doesn’t see their lives as “worthy of life”. Life unworthy of life. That’s what the Liberal Party of Canada believes. Never let the secular left take over your country.

I found on Cold Case Christianity about the problem of why one of Jesus’ women followers (Mary) did not recognize him at the empty tomb. Now, if you are a skeptic, you look at this story, and you think “that makes no sense” or maybe something worse. But if you give that same difficult passage to a cold case homicide detective, then there’s no problem for him to figure it out.

Here’s the post. He starts by explaining why this problem is important:

Skeptics sometimes question the Gospel eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection, particularly related to the early observations of the risen Christ. In John’s record of the Resurrection, Mary doesn’t immediately recognize Jesus in the garden. In fact, she initially mistakes Him for the gardener (John 20:1-16). How could that happen? Does this passage of Scripture support the claims of conspiracy theorists? Was the resurrected “Jesus” merely an imposter? Was it just someone posing as Jesus? Why wouldn’t Mary recognize the resurrected Jesus; the very man who meant so much to her? A closer examination of the Biblical texts may provide some answers.

Here is his approach:

Given my experience with eyewitnesses, the Gospel accounts contain exactly what I would expect from four eyewitness testimonies; each telling the story from a slightly different perspective and from the innate presuppositions, life experiences and abilities of each witness. I get suspicious when the stories of witnesses are exactly the same, not when they vary within acceptable expectations. When people conspired to lie about an event, they typically align their stories. This is not the case with accurate and true eyewitness accounts. They always vary to some degree. When evaluating multiple eyewitness accounts, it’s my job to assemble the cumulative narrative.

So many times when skeptics get mad at the Bible, they pounce all over it, insisting that it should all make sense to them without any effort. But maybe God expects us to put in the effort, rather than just be passive. Maybe Christianity is work. Maybe God wants to be in a relationship with people who chase after him, instead of people who want their relationship with God to be all one-way – their way. I can think of a million useful skills that would help people to work through Bible problems… knowing Greek, knowing Hebrew, studying the genres of ancient history and ancient biography, etc.

The story of the discovery of the empty tomb is in all four gospels, and after Detective Wallace looked at each passage, he found enough evidence to write this:

Given these four accounts of Mary’s encounter with Jesus in the garden, the following inferences are reasonable:

• The women came to the tomb very early, before it was light outside. They first viewed Jesus in this darkness.
• The women were not looking for a resurrected man; they were looking for a dead man. They did not think it possible someone standing behind them could be Jesus.
• They were afraid and scared, bewildered and wondering. Why? Because they had just experienced an earthquake. This is their state of mind as Jesus approaches.
• Mary is crying; sobbing more likely. This is clear from the account we have, and her sobbing clearly affected her ability to see.
• Mary was standing outside the tomb in the garden when she first viewed Jesus. In this setting, she would expect to see a gardener rather than Jesus.
• Mary turned away from Jesus. She must have turned away quickly and stayed turned from Him for most of the contact and conversation, because the Scripture tells us she turns back toward Him when He mentions her name.

So, there are actually a lot of reasons why Mary the empty tomb visitor might have had trouble recognizing Jesus. I think that’s a pretty good case. What do you think?

I think a lot of people come to the Bible with a list of bad behaviors that they don’t want to change. Then they look for any little confusing passage to claim that the Bible is not reliable history. Well, maybe God wants to give them just enough confusion to let them go their own way. But for the people who accept that relationships are give and take, with two people working at it, they won’t find this to be a problem. They’ll put in the effort to puzzle out how to get things to fit together and make sense.