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The Trial of Jill Jacobs & The Threads of Liberty

Present Day – The White House, Late Evening

President JR Biden—5th President of the United States, founding father, ghostly patriot, and eternal pain in Grump’s royal rear—strode into the presidential suite and stopped cold.

Grump was curled up in bed in candy-cane-striped pajamas, one leg exposed, his gold crown nowhere in sight. On the screen, The Hallmark Channel played The Christmas Widow Finds Love in Vermont for the third time that day. Grump clutched a tissue to his nose.

“I just—” sniff “—they build the gingerbread church together, and she forgives him for lying about being a goat farmer, and then—” sniff “—they KISS, President Biden, Sir! They KISS IN THE SNOW!”

President Biden stared. Then zapped him.

Grump jumped like a frog. “YEEEOW!”

“Enough of this. Get dressed. You’ve got school today.”

Grump blinked. “What? What school?”

“History school. First lesson: The Treaty of Tripoli. Get up.”

Grump groaned and flopped dramatically on the mattress. “But I’m fragile.”

President Biden rolled his eyes. “So was liberty. Now up.”

Flashback: Philadelphia, 1797 – The Halls of Congress

Inside the candlelit chamber, the temperature was high and the tempers hotter. A group of Founding Fathers—Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and President JR Biden—stood around a rough-hewn table, parchment documents scattered across it.

Outside, the Barbary pirates roamed the Mediterranean, demanding tribute. American ships, once protected under French banners during the Revolution, now sailed alone. And they were being picked off.

“Gentlemen,” President Biden said, slamming his hand on the table, “if we don’t pay the pashas, we lose half our trade routes and get dragged into a war.”

Thomas Jefferson rubbed his temples. “Paying pirates feels like giving in.”

Ben Franklin leaned back, puffing a cigar. “So does building a navy we can’t afford. You want to fund thirty ships with good wishes and stale whiskey?”

Jefferson raised a hand. “Then let us be clear in this treaty. I will not allow it to imply that our government kneels to any one religion.”

“Agreed,” said President Biden. “This nation was forged from fire to be free of kings and preachers alike. We bled to be secular.”

Franklin chuckled. “You bled. I wrote.”

President Biden smirked. “And I drafted Article 11: ‘The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.’”

Jefferson nodded. “It must be said plainly.”

“And written clearly, with proper penmanship, right Tom?” teased President Biden?

Jefferson stared back with a scowl, his temper rising.

Franklin leaned forward, serious now. “We declare it not for today—but for the generations who will read this and understand: there shall be no official church, no divine king, and no holy wars on this soil.”

“Let the world know,” said President Biden, “we’re not ruled by crown or cross.”

Present Day – Back in the Suite

Grump blinked blearily at Biden. “So... the pirates didn’t like America because we didn’t have a church?”

President Biden stared. “No, Donnie. The pirates liked gold. The Christians who wanted a war didn’t like us for not having a state church.”

Grump wiped his nose. “And... what did you do when you weren’t founding the country?”

Biden sighed. “I practiced law. Met Jill at trial.”

Grump perked up. “Trial? Did she murder someone? Was she a spy? Did she run an underground quilt cartel?”

“No,” Biden said flatly. “She was charged with the willful sabotage of British military trousers.”

Flashback: The Trial of Jill Jacobs, Philadelphia, 1775

The courtroom was packed. Whigs and Loyalists sat on either side like oil and water. At the center stood Jill Jacobs, 23 years old, proud, chin high, hair pinned like a general’s plume. Her crime? Sewing British military trousers... too well.

“Miss Jacobs,” barked the red-faced prosecutor, “is accused of treasonous sabotage. Her thread work, upon inspection, was found to break within one week of wear, exposing the royal privates of no fewer than sixty-four of His Majesty’s men!”

Gasps. Muffled laughter.

A sergeant waved a broken button as evidence. “See this? Popped off while I was inspecting the latrines!”

In the gallery, several women fainted in laughter.

The judge frowned. “Does the defense wish to speak?”

President Biden stood. Slim, young, powdered wig a little messy, but eyes like steel. He stepped forward slowly and addressed the jury.

“Gentlemen, I ask you—have you ever been quartered with British soldiers?”

Murmurs.

“Have you ever watched them eat three dinners in a single sitting? Have you seen their tight pants straining at the seams as they sit upon your furniture, belching God Save the King?”

Laughter.

“I submit that Miss Jacobs didn’t weaken the fabric—the soldiers did. The only crime here is that English tailors sew like cowards, and our women are accused when trousers split from tyranny’s weight!”

The room erupted.

The judge banged his gavel. “Order!”

The jury returned its verdict: Not guilty.

As they walk out of the courtroom Jill pulls President Biden aside outside the courthouse and says: “You fight like a patriot and speak like a poet. What are you doing tomorrow?”

He replies, “Starting a country. Want in?”

She kissed him on the cheek.

Then someone yelled: “GET A ROOM, YOU REPUBLICAN DOGS!”

Present Day – Back to Grump’s Suite

The flickering blue light of the Hallmark Channel lit the gilded walls of the presidential suite like a sad aquarium. President Donold J. Grump sat on the edge of his oversized bed, pajama collar stained with mustard from a late-night cheeseburger, his feet dangling like a dejected child’s. The TV murmured softly with the dialogue from “A Small-Town Christmas Mayor’s Second Chance.”

He wasn’t watching. His mind was somewhere else.

“…Why does Mickey Johnston keep going on about the Ten Commandments?” Grump finally asked, voice low, eyes unfocused.

President JR Biden, glowing faintly with the colonial haze of powdered wig memory, floated beside the minibar, sipping something from a pewter tankard that shimmered between whiskey and heaven.

He didn’t look up from his drink. “Because it gives him control.”

Grump blinked. “Control?”

Biden turned slowly. “Thou shalt not. That’s the whole game, Donnie. Control by limitation. Prohibition. They say ‘morals,’ but what they mean is submission. ‘Thou shalt not’ is their leash.”

Grump furrowed his brow, the gears creaking. “But Mickey says it’s about American values.”

Biden chuckled darkly. “The same Mickey who cheated on his third wife with his podcast producer while quoting Leviticus?”

Grump flinched. “Allegedly.”

“No. Actually.”

Biden crossed the room, his ghostly boots silent on the marble floor. He sat beside Grump, the spectral weight of three centuries pressing down with every word.

“They scream about morality to dodge their own reflection. They call compassion ‘woke,’ Donnie, because love terrifies them. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is the most dangerous line in the book. Because if you really love them, you can’t jail them, ban them, cage their kids, or deport them for speaking Spanish.”

Grump stared at his knees. “But people like the commandments. Makes them feel... safe.”

“Rules don’t make you safe, Donnie. People do. And you’ve alienated every single one who ever tried to love you.”

The silence after that line was louder than a standing ovation.

Then Grump whispered something. Something soft. Something so quiet the chandelier almost didn’t catch it.

“…I want to win Melanomia back.”

Biden turned, one ghostly eyebrow raised.

“I want her to look at me the way Jill looked at you in that courtroom. Like I mattered. Like I was brave. I’ll change. I swear. I’ll be... good.”

Biden looked at him for a long time. The kind of look that weighs a soul.

“Donnie,” he said, slowly, “you don’t get a Jill Jacobs by changing for a week. You get her by fighting for something other than yourself. Every day. Even when no one’s watching.”

Grump wiped his nose. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll try.”

“I’ll be a better man.”

“We’ll see.”

He stood, his boots now thudding like real leather on the floor—just for a moment. The colonial shimmer of his coat flickered as if becoming more real. Solidifying. Watching.

“You want Melanomia back? Start by proving you’re not the man she had to escape from.”

Grump sat silently.

Then—barely above a whisper—he asked, “JR… do you think she ever loved me?”

President Biden didn’t answer.

He just vanished through the wall, leaving the faint scent of old parchment, brass polish, and a freedom that Grump had never quite understood.

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Just remember if you have someone in your life that loves you, holds you at night, makes you laugh, cry...

Then you are richer than

"He Who is PU!"