The summertime used to be the quiet time for politics.  We got a little breather, and the political nonsense didn’t start up again until after Labor Day.  But not this year.  The 2024 presidential campaigns are underway.  Republican candidates are making appearances in early primary States.  Trump remains far ahead.  RFK, Jr. is running against Biden, so Democrat hacks are busy assassinating his character. Maybe that’s a poor choice of words.  Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden is running his reelection campaign.  Sleepy Joe has a unique campaign strategy which consists of going to the beach in Delaware, lying about the economy, denying he ever heard of his son Hunter, getting lost, falling down, and repeatedly indicting Donald Trump.  So far, Trump has been indicted for making payments to a woman in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement, which isn’t a crime and is barred by the statute of limitations; possessing classified documents, which the Presidential Records Act says is legal, something no ex-president has ever been charged with, and something Biden has done without consequences; and the latest – being a political figure who made a false statement about an election, which is a crime that special prosecutor Jack (The Knife) Smith just made up, despite a little thing called the First Amendment, and the fact that such an offense would send 99 and 44/100ths percent of our elected officials to prison.  Another State indictment is expected in Georgia.  The Biden plan seems to be, if you can’t beat ’em, jail ’em.  The idea is to pile criminal charges on Trump, and have him run for election while under indictment, already convicted of some offense, or preferably from a prison cell.  Unfortunately, Donald Trump is prepared to do just that.  Which brings us to the point of this week’s exercise.  Republicans are complaining about Biden’s weaponization of the justice system, and the two-tiered system, which ignores or minimizes blatant crimes by the Bidens, while persecuting Biden’s foes for things like fake Russian collusion, and things that aren’t crimes, based on novel prosecutorial theories.  Democrats, of course, refuse to acknowledge the obvious special treatment afforded to their own.  Case in point, the curious treatment of Hunter Biden.  Many have criticized the prospective Hunter pleas as a “sweetheart deal.”  Democrats, of course, deny this, as their desire to see justice done is wholly dependent on whether doing it will give them a political advantage.  Being experienced liars, Democrats continue to tell us Hunter got no special treatment, and that he shouldn’t have been prosecuted at all just because he had an addiction.  Let’s examine the facts.  The Hunter Biden prosecution was a long time coming.  The special prosecutor slow-walked the investigation, which had little to do with Hunter being an addict, and much to do with his suspect business activities, which brought in millions of dollars from foreign companies, who hired Hunter to do … well, nobody knows what.  The money came in, it got shifted and sifted through some 20 shell companies, and wound up in bank accounts of Biden family members, generating more than 100 Suspicious Activity Reports.  Meanwhile, Hunter neglected to pay taxes on much of the money, or even to file tax returns for a number of years.  Hey, he was busy.  He also, throughout this period, was distracted by a divorce, an affair with his sister-in-law, an illegitimate child with a stripper, and oh yes, his out of control addictions to alcohol, crack cocaine, and just about any other drug he could get his hands on.  Hunter’s descent is chronicled on the laptop he left in Delaware, in graphic photos and messages detailing debauchery, constant drug use, and misuse of a gun, which wound up in a garbage can.  Now, Democrats are against gun possession, but don’t fret.  Hunter got no special treatment.  His father just sent the Secret Service to get the gun back.  And while all this wholesome activity was going on, Hunter was selling his family name, now known as “The Brand,” to any foreign government interested in buying influence.  And so it came to pass that the special counsel, David Weiss had to do something with Hunter.  He stalled long enough to put Hunter’s 2014 and 2015 tax evasions beyond the statute of limitations, and gave Hunter a deal on two misdemeanor tax charges (no jail), and a diversion program on the gun possession, meaning, stay clean for two years and it gets dismissed.  The phony “legal experts” on MSNBC dutifully said this was not special treatment for a Biden.  Others, more attuned to reality disagreed.  Rapper Ja Rule had  similar gun and tax charges and got 24 months for the gun and 28 months for the taxes.  Another rapper, Kodak Black, got 46 months for the same gun charge on which Hunter got the diversion.  Here in New Jersey, there is a mandatory prison term of 12 to 42 months for gun possession, without the possibility of parole.  Then there’s the case of 2007 Biden donor Chris Tigani.  Hunter Biden asked him for $75,000 to pay for billboards for Joe’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Biden campaign financial director Dennis Toner suggested Tigani structure the payments as coming from his employees.  This turned out to be illegal.  The Obama Justice Department prosecuted Tigani for illegal campaign contributions.  Tigani cooperated, and offered to wear a wire against the Bidens.  The FBI said “No.”  Toner didn’t remember telling Tigani anything, and he got 24 months in prison, from the same David Weiss who’s prosecuting Hunter.  Tell me again how the Bidens don’t get special treatment.  So as for the Hunter plea deal, let me officially call it sweetheart.  Last week, when Hunter went to court to put the sweetheart deal through, the judge in the case refused to accept the pleas.  Democrats howled about a Trump-appointed judge, but now the facts.  What the judge did in temporarily derailing the deal was as much for Hunter’s benefit as for that of the public.  A guilty plea requires a meeting of the minds on both sides.  The government must understand what it is giving and getting, and the defendant must fully understand the consequences of the plea.  If not, no judge can take the plea, and there were some problems here.  Biden was under the impression that the pleas ended all investigations into his conduct.  The government had to admit that’s not true, as he’s still under investigation for other crimes.  The judge asked, “Is there any precedent for such a deal?”  Weiss said, “Uh, no.”  That doomed the deal, and here’s why.  Justice Department plea policy is to have the accused plead to the most serious provable charge.  That wasn’t done here.  The parties disagreed on the terms of the agreement, so you can’t take the pleas.  And most importantly for Hunter, if you’re getting into a diversion program, the program comes with a long list of dos and don’ts, like, do stay off drugs and alcohol.  The biggest don’t is don’t get charged with another crime.  You can’t put Hunter in the program today, and tell the court we may come back next week with a new indictment that will bounce him out of the program.  As a result, the sweetheart deal is on hold, for now.  I’m sure it will be back.  Meanwhile, the same Justice Department is trying to put Trump in prison for 400 years.  Justice may be blind, but she peeks out every now and then to see who’s in front of her.