Monday's Final Word

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Closing the tabs ...

Ed: This is the person that Joe Biden insists is the smartest man he knows. Just how smart is it to burn bridges with Hollywood? I guess the Bidens really want to completely destroy their family influence-peddling business, eh?

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“I know exactly what happened in that debate,” Hunter, 55, told YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan in an interview released on the anniversary of Biden prematurely ending his re-election bid.

“He flew around the world. He’s 81 years old. He’s tired. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep and he gets up on the stage and looks like a deer in the headlights.”

A note released by Dr. Kevin O’Connor following Biden’s physical exam on Feb. 28, 2024, makes note of six medications the commander-in-chief was taking — but the popular sleeping aid is not one of them.

Ed: Gee, someone's lying about Joe Biden's health. It must be a day ending in Y. Speaking of Y, why is Hunter Biden making the rounds now? He can't think that he's going to run for office in the future ... can he? Also, not for nothing, but Ambien use is linked to dementia when used for chronic sleeping issues 

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Ed: So he's going after Hollywood, the Obama clique, and "white millionaires." Who else is left to buy Hunter's artwork? Speaking of which ...

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"You know how many stories The New York Times wrote about my art? Like a dozen," Hunter Biden said. "To what end?"

"And they were selling golden sneakers and Bibles to people off their donor list. The New York Times was still writing stories about the legitimacy of me deciding that I wanted to be a painter or not," he said.

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"How do you move forward in this world if every discussion you begin is a defense of, I know why I went on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company?" he said. "A lot of it had to do with money, 100%. You know, I had an organization that was willing to pay me for a service that I was 100% qualified to do."

Ed: Which was ....? No, seriously, what service did Hunter perform that he had 100% qualification to do? He didn't have any experience in the energy industry, and he barely had a legal practice. The only service that seems to have been "performed" is influence peddling, and there is no doubt at all that Hunter was 100% qualified to sell access to The Big Guy. 

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Ed: Hunter is the gift that keeps on giving. Has anyone ever explained the First Rule of Holes to Mr. Mensa?

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The Secret Service found cocaine in the White House in July 2023 and closed the investigation just 10 days after the discovery, blaming a lack of evidence. ...

“I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” Hunter said during the interview.

“Why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the situation room in the West Wing?”

Ed: Good question! Here's an equally good question: why talk about it now, or at all, really? The federal statute of limitations has another three years to run on any potential criminal charges. Besides, who does it help to bring this scandal back to the fore? Will someone please get this man a book on public relations, stat?

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Ed: Savage indeed. He's sore over the collapse of his family business model and wants to drum up business as a talking head or analyst, or maybe a gig on the speaking circuit. Good luck with that. Speaking of which, are you digging the Final Word posts, and ready to join the conversation in the comments? Do you want to help us call out and expose corruptocrats and those that get rich off of their influence?  Join Hot Air VIP  or upgrade your existing accounts to VIP Gold or VIP Platinum! Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.

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President Masoud Pezeshkian delivered a stark warning during a cabinet meeting on the same day, citing an Energy Ministry report that revealed the crisis was more severe than publicly acknowledged.

“The water crisis is more serious than what is being discussed today, and if we do not take urgent action now, we will face a situation in the future for which no remedy can be found,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by state media. “In the water sector, beyond management and planning, we also need to address excessive consumption.”

The gravity of the situation has become increasingly apparent as water shutoffs spread across Iran, particularly in Tehran, amid growing reports of what residents describe as silent rationing, claims that officials have denied, attributing the disruptions to mere pressure drops in the system.

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Ed: It's getting tougher and tougher for this theocratic regime to claim they have been ordained by the Almighty to rule over Iran, huh? They have achieved nothing in nearly 50 years, and have been humiliated by the supposed Great and Little Satans. Now they can't even manage their water supply. This regime will be lucky to last out the year. 

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Ed: The mullahs have a never-ending supply of useful idiots, though. 

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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron has resigned from the company after a video of him canoodling with chief people officer Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay concert went viral. ...

Catch up quick: Astronomer put out an initial statement on Friday, more than 24 hours after the video went viral, saying that its board had initiated a formal investigation into the matter.

Ed: Not a big surprise here. The PR damage was intensifying, and the fact that no one had said anything about the obvious made it worse. However, the duck-and-cover by the CEO isn't exactly a stunning example of courageous leadership and transparency, either. 

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...  a simmering resentment for white people, especially rich/successful/attractive white people. If these two had been obese truck drivers, it would not have been so irresistible for people to mock. Tale as old as time!

Ed: Maybe. There was something a bit icky about the rush to humiliate the couple, in the sense that there may have been a lot of glass-house dwellers among the stone throwers. I am not so sure it was a racial resentment as much as it was class resentment, either. The Karen/AWFL aspect may be a part of it, but most of the ire got directed to Byron, and rightfully so since he was the one cheating on a spouse.

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Because true, it’s hard not to feel that frisson of schadenfreude at seeing a couple of cheaters get theirs—especially when one is an unsympathetic millionaire and the other is very specifically in the business of scolding people that they should not, under any circumstances, and especially not these circumstances, be having sexual dalliances with their coworkers. Oh, the irony! And god, the satisfaction! And as defenders were swift to point out: This is just what people do to each other! Sure, the jumbotron is a novel twist, but public shaming has been a staple of human society since the dawn of time, a necessary correction to the social transgressors in our midst. As the writer Matt Ruff asked on X, “how much of this is genuinely new and how much just a writ-large version of small town social dynamics?”

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And yet, the ability to take small-town social dynamics and write them large—so large that anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world, can log on and get their licks in at whomever has been declared the target of the day—that, right there, is what’s new. The original function of public shaming was to hold people accountable for doing things that tore at the fabric of social trust, to keep the bonds of community strong by punishing those who would weaken them. The worst pain of shaming wasn’t in being called names, or put naked in the stocks and pelted with dung; it was having to look into the faces of the people you’d hurt, people who sat beside you in church, who ate meals at your table, whose children played together with yours.

Ed: It still is. It's just on a global scale now. The difference that Kat Rosenfeld sees here may be in the ability to reconcile with the community, not the scale of the shunning. In smaller communities that use shaming -- like the Amish, or even the Catholic Church in a sense -- there is a process for reconciliation that the community members know and support. In today's globalized community, there is no room for atonement or grace. That's the difference. 

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Ed: Yeah ... first you have to actually confess and atone ... 

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