Poor little rich boy, Hunter. His life existing in the shadow of his late older brother. The family gopher and bagman. Dilettante and drug addict, now crying before the court about the collapse of his career as an artist.

My shocked face has been on vacation for weeks so let me just make up a large pitcher of schadenfreude and toast to Hunter’s latest round of crocodile tears. Because, frankly dear readers, his public displays of humiliation are an act. The Big Guy counts on them.

After 50 years of Hunter Biden profiting off of his father’s power in public office, the younger Biden‘s consistent revenue stream has run dry. In his request to dismiss his lawsuit against a former White House staffer to President Donald Trump over the now-infamous laptop leak, the former first son has confessed that nobody wants to buy access to Joe Biden — er, I mean, the younger Biden’s “artwork” — now that the former president has been exiled from public life.

“Given the positive feedback and reviews of my artwork and memoir, I was expecting to obtain paid speaking engagements and paid appearances, but that has not happened,” a bitter Hunter Biden, who noted that sales of his paintings and 2021 tell-all Beautiful Things dropped off a cliff after his father’s political fortunes disintegrated, laments in his latest filing. In the final months of 2023, as panicked Democrats saw Joe Biden’s sliding polling against an ascendant Trump, Hunter Biden’s book sales collapsed by two-thirds. Whereas Hunter Biden sold 27 pieces of artwork for an average price of $54,481.48 in the first three years of his father’s presidency, he admits he has only sold one piece since the end of 2023 for a mere $36,000.

We’ve seen the “poor me, I’m broke” schtick from Hunter before. It was one among several ploys to avoid paying child support for Navy Joan Roberts. Now he’s claiming homelessness because the rental house in the Pacific Palisades burned and the money-laundering-via-finger-paintings scam has dried up.

What? Daddy and Step-mommy (net worth $10-15 million) can’t part with enough cash to get Hunter a studio apartment in, say, Van Nuys? Or have him move into a bedroom back home in Delaware? Weird, eh? that Hunter somehow blew through everything from his $50,000 per month stint at Burisma and every dime and nickel he received (with 10% for The Big Guy) peddling access to Good Old Middle-Class Joe.

I could say Hunter worked pretty hard for the blanket, ten-year long, pardon from daddy. A real sacrifice that Hunter moved into the White House after Joe’s meltdown during the debate with Trump to become co-President with Jill.

Li alleges that, following Biden’s disastrous debate drubbing, Hunter essentially took over White House operations. Speaking with podcaster Shawn Ryan, she painted a picture of dysfunction at the highest levels of government: “After the [CNN] debate, Hunter basically commandeered the White House. He sat in on all of the White House top-level meetings. We had a former cocaine addict sitting in on the most sensitive meetings of the most consequential and most important government in world history. Does that sit right with you?”

That is why this poor, pitiful me routine from Hunter is chutzpah on steriods. He’s not broke, he’s not homeless. In the sick co-dependent dynamics playing out in familia Biden, Hunter is still playing his part. He wants to see an inheritance and Jill wants him to keep his mouth shut.

Pass the popcorn.

featured image original art by Darleen Click