Fresh off that Thanksgiving turkey, the political world is abuzz with chatter about Joe Biden pardoning his son ... and there's an awful lot of noticing happening.
The Biden-Ukraine arc of American history is coming to a close. It started with Joe Biden pressuring Ukraine to fire the prosecutor that was investigating Burisma after his son joined the energy company's board:
[Warning: Language]
And it's ending with Joe Biden protecting his son (and himself) from prosecutors in the United States.
But while people are out here marveling at the fact that Joe Biden is gonna Joe Biden, I'm out here noticing something completely different in his official pardon.
Look way down here at the bottom of the document:
Did you catch it?
I'll help you:
You'll notice that this official presidential pardon ends with this strange language that marks the passage of time with two specific moments in world history: First, this year of the unknown "Lord" 2,024 years ago, and second, the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Which Lord is this referring to?
This clause has been added to presidential pardons since the early days of the Republic. Here is one from Trump in 2017:
And here is one from Thomas Jefferson in 1801:
I've been told that America is a secular country founded upon the presupposition of a state devoid of any semblance of church or religion.
I've been told that the Founders were not trying to implement a government founded upon any particular belief system or beholden to a particular deity, and since said Founders were diametrically opposed to the monarchy, I have to wonder which "Lord" Joe Biden is referring to when shielding him and his son from their many, many crimes?
Certainly not Jesus Christ, right?
And yet, for all the revisionist history, the "but akshuallys," the "Jefferson wasn't a Christian" arguments, there it is, right at the bottom of the most self-serving, corrupt pardon in American history.
Despite all the attempts to erase the obvious, there are still vestiges of what the regular American knew as fact up until our "progressive" modern age.
For years, these vestiges of America's Christian founding went mostly unnoticed. After all, the new atheists were the cool kids a decade or so ago!
They loved to do things like post quotes from the Treaty of Tripoli to prove how America is not a Christian nation. 👇
The clause in question was added to the English version of the treaty (curiously, not the Arabic) in order to assuage the fears of the Muslim powers that there was no religious motivation in America's shipping interests, considering the long campaign of Islamic wars against Christian nations and the growth of Christian nations that was happening in the late 18th century.
At the time, the addition of this clause caused fierce debate. Secretary of War James McHenry wrote this to Secretary Oliver Wolcott Jr. in 1800:
The Senate, my good friend, and I said so at the time, ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that 'the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.' What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow [the diplomat who authored the treaty] was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion.
The treaty paid the pirates tribute to guarantee the safety of American ships. The next president, Jefferson, stopped trying to negotiate with terrorists and sent in the Marines to kick the pirates' butts (which they did). At that point, the treaty and its dumb clause was considered moot.
And yet the powers that be would have you believe that an obscure, hotly contested clause in an archaic treaty dealing with foreign trade in 18th-century north Africa is more important than the living faith of millions of Americans who took up the effort to found a new nation because of their obedience to Jesus Christ.
