Note: Behind the green door I have a post about college football and the war on tradition, a post about the bunker mentality in Washington. Due to holiday sloth there was not Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.
Over the long holiday weekend, President Joe Biden pardoned his crooked son Hunter, which surprised only the enemies of Donald Trump. Everyone else knew that the old man would not leave office without cleaning up the mess of his son. Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids, perhaps too much. At some level, you must respect his family loyalty. There is an old world gangsterism about his willingness to help his family loot the political system.
An interesting part of the pardon is that it is not just a pardon for specific crimes that have been alleged by the Department of Justice. It is a blanket pardon for all things he may have done since 2014. This does not cover state crimes like murder, but outside of something extreme like that, it means he has been given the sort of get out of jail free card reserved for important gangsters. Henry Hill, of Goodfellas fame, was given this type of deal so he would become a rat.
If the 2014 start date seems important, that is because it is when the Biden family started feeding at the Ukraine trough. This was when the State Department engineered the Maidan coup that toppled the Ukrainian government of President Yanukovych, who refused to sign a deal with the EU. Once he was gone, the State Department helped put Petro Poroshenko in charge, who was followed by Volodymyr Zelensky. It is funny how so much has revolved around Ukraine for a decade.
That is what keeps many people in Washington up at night. Trump returning with a vengeance could mean him directing his people to investigate this long running scam called Project Ukraine. After all, it was his decision to question Ukraine that got him impeached, so Ukraine should be at the top of his vengeance list. That and the Ukrainians are desperate to cut a deal with Trump. There may be more Ukraine related pardons coming before January 20th.
That is what makes the timing of this interesting. Normally, the president leaving office signs the pardons on the way out the door or maybe over the Christmas holiday, in order to minimize attention. Bill Clinton pardoned the Jewish gangster Marc Rich on his last day in office. At the time, Rich was on the lamb hiding in Switzerland, but his wife was loading the Clinton family down with cash and prizes. Rich got rich as part of the looting of post-Soviet Russia, in case you are wondering.
As an aside, once word got out that Clinton had pardoned Marc Rich there was a hue and cry in Washington demanding that the incoming Republican administration investigate the matter. It was not just Republicans pretending to be outraged. All the beautiful people were playing along as well. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to look into it, but she took the job seriously, so she was replaced with James Comey, who could find nothing wrong with it.
That aside, it would have made much more sense for Biden to have done this on the way out the door, so it suggests this is part of a process. Everyone involved in the very dirty dealings in Ukraine must remain silent or face the prospect of Hunter Biden talking without fear of prosecution. Given how the Biden family has operated over the years, it probably means the next six weeks will be a pardon auction for those who ever did business with the Biden family.
The hilarious part of this is how the people we call the left are having a collective meltdown over this news. Twitter/X is now full of angry denunciations from Trump haters about how this makes them look stupid. The people who serious thought Kamala Harris was a good choice are also very vexed. They see this as proof that their girl boss was undermined by a conspiracy of pale penis people. They are now determined to make sure this never happens again. That should be fun.
Official Washington sees the problem with this pardon. They have been running with the narrative that Trump is a say anything to win dictator who will then grow a small mustache as soon as he returns to Washington. That sort of self-righteous indignation does not work when your side is issuing blanket pardons to family members and potentially anyone with a fat wallet. It is hard to claim Trump is corrupt when Joe Biden is putting pardons up on eBay.
In a way, it is a fitting end point for this long moral panic that kicked off during the Obama administration and came crashing down in this election. The subtext to all of it was that the good guys, the people launching the pogroms and panics, were surrounded by an invisible army loyal to Old Scratch. This required any means necessary to reveal and then defeat this threat to our democracy. It turns out that the threat was in the mirror all along.
Not only has the “crying Trump” run its course, but the moral panic that has been the basis of it has also run its course. The public no longer believes any of it now and the people doing the point and shriek are running out of energy. It also means there is no more money to be had from monetizing these panics. The relatively muted response to the election is the result of exhaustion. The Hunter Biden pardon is the start of a great sweep up from a party that went on far too long.
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Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids… I have to disagree with that one when it comes to Hunter. Joe’s favorite child, the one Joe had chosen as his successor, was Beau. Hunter was the embarrassment, the unloved one who turned into the piece of human garbage he is because of his monstrous father favoring the son who died, who he constantly talks about, instead of him. Make no mistake, if it benefited Joe, Hunter would be in jail, because the son he loved died years ago. Hunter is expendable. Pardoning him is less about… Read more »
The pettiness of that old man is amusing. His dementia seems to stave off when scheming to screw over people. Not the best thing for a man about to meet his maker, but at least he can make us laugh.
He can meet The Devil 😈 with a smile 😅.
And probably will.
That line about loving his kids was an oblique reference to his daughter’s diary.
Hunter sure “loved” his dead brother’s Jewish wife, LOL.
But the apples don’t fall far from the tree. Old Joe started banging Jill (who was quite hot back in the day) when she was married to a dude who was contributing to his Senate campaign, and she volunteered to work for the campaign.
What a bunch of real upstanding people.
Hunter is just following ancient Jewish practice:
”The ancient Jewish practice of a brother marrying his deceased brother’s widow is known as levirate marriage (from the Latin levir, meaning “brother-in-law”). This practice is outlined in the Torah, specifically in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. It was intended to preserve the deceased brother’s lineage and inheritance by allowing the widow to have children in his name.”
😉
ZOG is real, bro…
I doubt Hunter has the slightest idea about Jewish custom.
On the other hand, I do not doubt that, assuming Beau’s wife is Jewish, that she understands it. Or that she could manipulate a crackhead into following Jewish law, even though he was clueless.
Westerners are so clueless about how other cultures function…
“Hunter is just following ancient Jewish practice:”
Deuteronomy is outlining an ancient Israelite practice, from the Mosaic law. Modern Jews are doing whatever it is they want at random from the those pages.
Twitter-heads saying that Hunter was dropping heavy hints about writing a “tell all” book which is what spurred the pardon.
We’ll never know.
Joe loves Hunter, but understood his limitations and destructive tendencies and knew Hunter could never successfully run for public office. Beau was the one who had his act together and could have taken over for Joe. Once he “died in Iraq” all that Joe could do was use Hunter as a cut out to get bribe money, still useful to Joe, but not the same.
“Died in Iraq”?
Biden frequently brought up Beau’s death in a cynical attempt to get sympathy from voters. He usually said Beau died in Iraq when in reality he died from cancer caused in part from chemical exposure he had while serving there years later.
Like Z alludes to, the word is that Hunter threatened to talk. Maybe Hunter ends up being Hillaried.
Joe put the knife to the Dem aristocracy when he selected Kamala and then submarined her campaign. The Pelosi coup conspirators were obviously plotting revenge via his lifelong history of corruption, and very likely Hunter was in the crosshairs as payback. The pardon was thus intended as another FU to those who deposed him in August. It’s revenge all the way down.
Yes. It’s been fun watching the Dem’s Knives Out fiesta since the Biden debate fiasco. First Obama/Pelosi/NYT piling on to demand Joe suicide himself, peaking with the George Clooney (!?!) NYT Op Ed. Poor George, no Italian Ambassador appointment for you! Then when the hit men are sent that fateful weekend in Delaware to force his hand, Joe/Jill snap right back with the Kamala endorsement to the shock and horror of the plotters. No, not her! Worst candidate ever! But he stuck them with her. Rage and revenge seem to really sharpen what’s left of Joe’s mind. His regime really… Read more »
let’s not forget how complicit the gop was in all this.
The Washington Generals of American political theater.
A comprehensive audit of the Ukraine grift would show Republicans like McConnell got comparative crumbs (millions vs. tens of millions), but given how the GOP allegedly negotiates on everything else, that itself was a triumph for them. The same probably took place with the Covid plunder, which likely was far larger. Like with the Keating Five and John McCain, there will be Republican shoplifters implicated along with the Democratic bank robbers if the ledger books ever have to be produced. The Help and the Hos never had it better and will be sad to see it end. It is small… Read more »
The GOP makes the greatest jobbers in pro wrestling look like amateur hacks.
The GOP is more akin to enhancement talent than jobbers. They’re at the level of S.D. Jones, Iron Mike Sharpe, or Tim Horner. The kinds of guys who would provide a creditably competitive match on TV but who inevitably do the job.
Aye. Never forget. Never ever forget…
This and most (not all) of the replies are why I propose we drop the R from DR. We can’t wait for the Ls to make the case against the nominal R. We seem to have this crazy notion that if we foul our own side, we win. Yas, yas, McConjob et al. were eating too, but at the kid’s table. Rs are more than happy to throw “their own” under the bus, something you will never see from the Ls.
Speaking of the Washington Generals..,.
“If the 2014 start date seems important, that is because it is when the Biden family started feeding at the Ukraine trough.”
Ukraine is the rosetta stone of what this government is about; cia coups; political slushfunds and kickbacks, and sending millions into a meatgrinder war against Russia for the crime of being Christian, not anal, and opposing global financier domination.
and how could i forget secret labs making safe and effective plagues.
…and surrogate wombs for the rich.
The WSJ had a sob story in 2022 about an apartment complex housing surrogate Ukrainian mothers (“baby dealership”) which was hit by the evil Russians.
It’s the other country—very, very like us—whose population the regime uses as cattle. 2014 is when it was decided to kill them all (or when that decision was made visible). It’s tempting to say they’re “culling the herd” but that’s killing as a means, so it doesn’t fit. The stolen money and land, corruption (misc.), etc., is what’s incidental. Death is a chance to do it, like impulsively rooting through the purse of a hooker you just strangled. You’re not a robber, you’re a sex killer, but there it is on the floor, pulled half open as she reached for… Read more »
You’re not a robber, you’re a sex killer, but there it is on the floor, pulled half open as she reached for it…
Your written imagery is fantastic and uncanny. One problem with the above excerpt, though, is the pronoun “she.” It’s more John Wayne Gacy than Ted Bundy. Otherwise it is perfect.
The pardon is not nearly as problematic as the fact that Hunter was basically being bribed by Ukraine. His father then gave billions to Ukraine not only for military aid, but to bankroll the entire Ukrainian government, yet the entire Washington establishment was totally blasé about it The fact that Biden was completely given a pass on this by the Left and the media and is simply incredible. I remember what things were like in the 1970s… imagine what the reaction would have been if Tricia Nixon had been a drug addict and she was paid millions to be put… Read more »
The main purpose of the pardon was the Ukraine aspect. Hence, it was backdated until the time Hunter Biden’s management skills became invaluable.
Doesn’t this pardon also serve as a de facto pardon for the big guy as well?
It actually could have the opposite effect. In a federal conspiracy case against Joe Biden, Hunter could be compelled to testify since self-incrimination would be impossible. It is why I expect Daddy Biden will pardon himself and his brother James, and/or Hunter will dine pretty soon at the Jack Ruby Cafe. There has been massive and unprecedented theft since those in the capitol of the Banana Empire decided to plunder the peasants under the guise of propping up non-existent democracy in the Ukraine, so nothing probably can happen even if the cowards able to force the issue grow a pair.… Read more »
The Trump administration needs to go into full on lawfare on day one. If the corruption can be rooted out at all, it will only be with prodigious enforcement of the law including against the GOP clowns. Reward your friends and punish your enemies.
It cannot be rooted out. The system IS corruption. But that doesn’t mean fun can’t be had imprisoning enemies.
Are you saying Hunter is NOT a natural gas expert?
Joe is the natural gas expert. He regularly spouts hot methane from two orifices.
With what he knows….could Hunter become the next Epstein…?
one can only hope…
Did not think about that, but I would not be shocked if he gets some bad crack.
HEAVILY laced with Fentanyl. Sourced from the finest dealers who just snuck over the Rio Grande.
Perhaps Snake Island gets rebranded as Biden Atoll…
(Blatantly stolen from Cheers) …which would then be aptly renamed No Brains Atoll.
What astounds me is that among all the hue and cry, nobody suggest that the presidential pardon makes a mockery of the American judicial system, that it’s just naked, unabashed clientelism.
Sort of the same attitude to presidents routinely employing family member in key cabinet positions, and that being related to a president is a legitimate political reason why you have a good shot at becoming the future POTUS.
Get civilized, y’all.
Getting civilized doesn’t pay enough yet.
I think every political system has a built-in top executive pardon mechanism. It’s the old royal prerogative of mercy which, I think, has been around since the days of the pyramids
Should we get as civilized as England?
The British king can’t pardon his friends, neither can European prime ministers.
The whole point about the rule of law is that it everybody follows it, even kings and presidents. It’s understood that rich and powerful men don’t go to jail and so forth, but you’re supposed to go through the motions.
You could try but that would mean reducing your murder rate to a third of what it is now so…
Divorce rate ,suicide rate, drug addiction rate…all need to be cut by a lot.
Then there’s the street-pooping issue you have.
Why not aim for Venezuela?
Diversity is antithetical to civilization. As Europe follows the Blackberry Fruitcake Empire’s descent into the diverse abyss, it will come to know more of the joys of murder, rape, filth, ugliness, mistrust and social dysfunction. But it’s already getting a taste of rape and murder, most frequently, it seems, during local diversity jubilees.
I like the presidential pardon, it’s like this vestige of monarchy that they put in the Constitution. I just wish Trump used it on people who were unjustly punished by the regime under his watch, as opposed to crooked Jewish criminals and degenerate rappers.
The “executive pardon” is a (antiquated) continuation of the Divine Right of Kings—the King being the law so to speak. It extends to the level of the States here in the USA and their Governors as well. However, some States have sought to limit this power a bit by running such *first* through a Clemency Board. The Board being in charge of recommending such pardon. I’m not for eliminating this executive power, but it definitely needs to be restructured in light of the modern abuse of such at the Federal level. The breaking point will be the first President to… Read more »
Genuinely curious. What is the first pardon you would point to as having been abuse of the system?
Well, the system itself is an offense to the Western notion of justice, is my point, so pardoning as much as a parking ticket is abuse. Arbitrary pardoning crime is as bad as arbitrary enforcement.
But there’s Marc Rich, as Z mentions, and there’s Trump pardoning that Jewish meat packing guy, that was pretty brazen too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/president-trump-iowa-commutation.html
I’m not so sure. There should have been some way of negating the atrocity that was visited upon Alex Jones by an out-of-control judiciary. Or attorneys being disbarred because they represent people who questioned the election. In practice, there really isn’t, but because of the difference in wording between the 1st and 2nd, a good case can be made for pardoning everyone being punished for at least non-violent “gun crime”. Yes, I was having trouble coming up with any troublesome pardons before Clinton, too. Well, Nixon. As @Compsci points out, Ford should have waited for Dems to squander political capital… Read more »
The system of appellate courts are supposed to handle wrongful convictions. Putting in another layer on top of that, doesn’t solve the quis custodiet ipsos custodes-problem, it just shifts it to president or the governor.
“Supposed” is operative there.
Like @Jack Dobson implies, the appellate courts are often filled not by people who intend to apply the law, but rather make it. Different states have different ways of filling the judiciary and the appellate, but generally speaking, a leftist state is going to end up with a leftist judiciary, top to bottom. This includes the federal level, which is why the 9th Circuit is such a disaster. Which is also why attorneys tend to jurisdiction-shop for somewhere likely to rule in their favor.
That is precisely what such power it is designed to do. There are also implied powers under the Constitution which allow commutation of sentences and pardons after the fact, This corrects certain judicial “mistakes”. Your analysis implies that there is no such thing as a judicial mistake since there is an appellate court process. Doubtful. Appellate courts can get it wrong as well.
My point was that there will always be miscarriages of justice, no matter what or who you put on top of the appellate system, or how many layers you put on it.
But when you have an option that arbitrarily circumvents the whole system, and that option depends on some politician’s judgement call rather than law and procedure, you inevitably invite abuse.
Right now, Oprah Winfrey, in connivance with Kim Kardashian and various true crime-podcasters, are busy pressuring elected officials to get black murderers who only killed white people sprung from jail, and making big bank on the grift.
https://x.com/itsDevonTracey/status/1804281245485941058
As the GAE descends into totalitarianism, even devices antithetical to the once laudable, now-antiquated Western notions of justice are to be celebrated.
Trump also pardoned Jared Kushner’s Jewish sleazebag father Charles: “In 2005, he was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering after hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two, and sending the tape to his sister. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, which he served in the Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery. As a convicted felon, he was also disbarred in three states. The case was prosecuted by Chris Christie, who said Kushner had committed “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he had ever prosecuted.[5] He later received a pardon issued by his son’s father-in-law, President Donald Trump…” Charles… Read more »
And now Charles Kushner gets to be our Ambassador to France! Its turning in to a great year for convicted felons…..
Felix, anyone can pick a specific instance and ignore the good instances. For example, Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft dodgers, which allowed thousands to return to the USA.
The proper procedure should’ve been that Congress passed a law.
And while the court system may be defective, adding an arbitrary number of arbitrary get-out-of-jail-free-cards to the system doesn’t fix it, because the buck has to stop somewhere. I’d rather that was at the Supreme Court, rather than some random dude that’d pardon a turkey if you put it in front of him.
Joe Biden makes my case for me.
The bottom line, from the standpoint of our side, is that Hunter’s pardon is another thumb in the eye of the Democratic party from Biden…It’s a beautiful thing….
I would say it was nice of Hunter to take all the heat off of the Pelosi, Kerry, and Romney children who also sat on the boards of Ukrainian gas companies, but it turns out he was never in any danger, so it wasn’t exactly selfless on his part.
Trump, having first pardoned and now nominated Charles Kushner, possesses no moral authority to denounce any of this.
Ambassador to France, not to anything important.
Granted, Ambassador to Mars would have been better, but what trouble can he cause us in France? Just make sure to revoke his passport and we are golden.
Did you see Trump named Chuckie Ambassador to France? I would say that shamelessness knows no party, except, as Z put it over the weekend, it is so hilariously insulting to the French.
And Tiffany’s father-in-law pere Boulos as special advisor on the Levant. Talk about strange bed fellows (Boulos and Kushner) – but it seems that Trump is hyper focused on personal loyalty uber alles. Tiffany and Ivanka must have an interesting sibling relationship.
One thing I will never fault Trump for is valuing personal loyalty above all else
President Biden’s pardon of son Hunter isn’t so much a revelation of leftist hypocrisy as it is an indication of paranoia about possible cracks in the system. After years of ruthless lawfare against Trump and his acolytes, might some Republican placeholders be angry enough to actually go after a bit of the lawlessness and self-dealing among the nomenklatura? Contrast this with Murkowskie and her Republican Senate colleagues’ refusal to confirm Trump nominees not on good terms with the FBI. This reads like the usual boob-bate for constituents, but also demonstrates a reliance on the system to keep themselves out of… Read more »
If trump doesn’t pardon every j6 protester, well, I’m gonna be ever so mad!
there’s definitely a case to be made for it. Like why did Enrique Tarrio get convicted of sedition, when he wasn’t even in DC on J6?
He could be excused for not pardoning the ones convicted of assaulting officers, but otherwise, I can’t excuse his not pardoning a single one. Not even the “seditious conspiracy” convicts. But sometimes Trump surprises to the upside, so maybe he’ll pardon the “violent” ones too. I wouldn’t complain.
There are definitely no excuses for reaching close of business on Jan. 22 without any of this happening.
I think he needs to work on prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecutors and judged denied defense access to exculpatory evidence at all, let alone in a timely fashion. Impeachment and imprisonment in genpop at the very least for their malicious prosecution, abuse of rules, and willful violation of due process.
Put the Civil Rights division of DOJ on something real instead of investigating imaginary redlining.
I’d go one step further and begin a very public prosecution of Michael Byrd on whatever charges can be made to fit, even if it’s only jaywalking. Force regime media to tell the people at home who this guy is and why he’s disliked by much of the country.
I, for one, will be most put out…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/12/02/donald-trump-asks-joe-will-now-pardon-january-6-hostages/
Trump made this connection himself. He didn’t actually criticize the pardon. He just aid that Biden’s stated logic applied exactly to the J6 prisoners.
Sam dixon and Marc Weber talk about loyalty and America. Most Americans think of “family” as their parents or their children and maybe their first cousins. Lower class whites live more around the extended family so that could include second cousins but everyone else is the same: a Somalian is equal to a your next door neighbor. so old joe being loyal is not so impressive to me. Where is the loyalty to one’s people. Neither conservative nor liberal have this. there is no we in America so it’s impossible to be loyal to anyone but your immediate family. I… Read more »
Not bad points, but the tendency to put your thumb on the scale for family members is worldwide. Maybe it’s to varying degrees depending on the culture, but at this point in the history of our world, nobody’s going to put “the state” before a family member except maybe the “it takes a village” people.
That’s also what was infuriating about W. Bush. I think Cheney tried to get Scooter Liddy a pardon. Everybody knows Liddy was railroaded, yet Bush’s loyalty remained to the institutions of government, even as corrupt as they are.
Without wading into whether prospective crimes without charges or convictions can be legitimately pardoned (they seemingly can be), look for ol’ Joe and his brother James also to receive Get out of Jail Free cards if his D.C. shysters can devise a theory to allow it. There may be others who were involved in the Ukraine grift who also receive these if they pony up enough for the Joe Biden Presidential Library. Those will happen on the last day Biden spends in his White House Old Folks Home. Bargain Basement Ukraine grifters like the Brothers Vinman probably will be left… Read more »
It seems like he is giving Hunter blanket immunity. I did not think the president had the power to give immunity at that scale. I was under the impression there needed to be a conviction for a crime for there to be a pardon. It seems I do not know much.
The tradition is that specific charges, specific people, or a person-charge class (draft dodgers, fugitive slaves) can be pardoned. A “blanket pardon” for a well-connected criminal isn’t unusual (anymore). But, e.g., Trump couldn’t pardon the January 6 people while he was in office because they were unknown persons charged with unknown offenses (I’m sure he was told).
Of course none of that is true. The law is: Some people can do whatever they want, and some can’t do anything. Politics is those categories being sorted.
“The public no longer believes any of it now and the people doing the point and shriek are running out of energy.” Well, kind of. I think most of “the public” knew it was b.s. and went along with it because you’re supposed to cheer for the home team. Same with the various hoaxes and the fake election in 2020. The country has been in two camps for awhile now – those who know it’s all b.s. and want something done about it vs. those who know it’s all b.s. but they’re happy with the result. The Ends Justify the… Read more »
Mexico is NOT caving on the border. After the phone call, Sheinbaum re-iterated that there would be no real changes. None against Fentanyl, none against illegal immigration, none on the cartels or Chinese washing of products via imports. None. She told Trump some BS and then backtracked on it. Pubicly. As if she expected no real consequences for telling Trump one thing and then very soon after publicly contradicting Trump about the phone agreement. Obama likely reached out to her and told her that Trump will not be taking office. As a practical matter, Obama has expensive habits. New multi-millionaire… Read more »
Trump forced them to put 27,000 troops on the border last time, and he did it with a weak hand and multiple phony impeachments. I was in Canada last week and they were freaking out about the tariffs. They let a lot of people come over from Canada, and they’re a draw for illegals using the US as a pass through. That twit in Mexico immediately walked back her tough talk. Mexico will comply or they will wind up with millions and millions of people stuck on their side of the border. Plus the deportees. Hopefully we use the monetary… Read more »
Use our control of international money transfers to impound remittances going to Mexico. That should get results.
I’d like to think that our new sweetheart in Mexico City is simply out of her depth, but I fear you are correct there is a chance we may see some sort of coup or other machination to keep Trump out of office.
It would explain the relative quiet that has settled over the land in the aftermath of the election.
This isn’t 2016, and I don’t think there’s any way to depose Trump without risking some kind of conflagration. Anybody besides Vance who sought to replace him would have a serious legitimacy problem, putting it mildly, and Vance would have at least a mild legitimacy problem. So either they would need Vance to be in on it, which is plausible, or else they are willing to risk absolutely everything, because that’s what they’d be risking if they tried to depose him and replace him with anyone else.
Yep.
So far, Trump seems to be committed to keeping his word. He’s not talking wrist-slap tariffs, for example.
And while cease fires come and go, there’s no mistaking the fact that Trump won followed by efforts to try and stop the fighting all over the place. No such efforts were taking place a month ago.
The big prize and the toughest is whether he can destroy the deep state through a mix of sunlight, mass firings, and prosecutions.
Im not thrilled with all his cabinet picks, but it’s clear he has every intention of keeping his word.
This is what I’m hoping for. People like Ritter, McGregor, Napolitano, Wilkerson, etc. are used to politicos being politicos. Politicos choose underlings who represent their views. A good businessman, OTOH, chooses first contacts who set the bar way beyond what he is willing to settle for.
I have no idea if Trump is counting on that — putting morons like Gorka and Walz as point men, only to settle for a much different deal when he and Putin meet. I hope so. If you go back and look at what he actually did, that was true of Israel/Hamas…
“A lot of Trump 47 is going to be simply “release it all” – full declassification, no redactions – knowing that prosecutions will be an uphill battle. Full sunlight.”
From your lips to Trump’s ears. I’d like to believe, but I need a reason.
They don’t have a choice. First, they explicitly ran on destroying the deep state. That was not a half hearted Bullet Point #11 in his speeches. It was #2 or #3 being the MAGA economy. Second, to get anything done, he has to overcome the same deep state #resistance. What’s the best way to weaken his enemies? Make their secrets public. Biden issuing that pardon helps a lot of people understand who the villains are in this little story. Trump’s people need to show Americans – and the world – just what our government has been doing for the past… Read more »
It seems that the outrage expressed by the MSM is not about the pardon itself but the fact that it creates a precedent for Trump to pardon his BFFs without limits. I hope Trump’s first act is to pardon the Jan. 6th victims. There will be the added pleasure to watch the MSM meltdown (“Trump encourages more insurrections!”).
Since there has never been a challenge—successful or otherwise—to the power of the President’s pardon ability, there can be no precedent set. A precedent set can only be done wrt a challenge, a lawsuit in SCOTUS. As it stands, every President has used his authority “lawfully”.
Blanket J6 pardon.
If the Uniparty wants to complain, threaten a full Ukraine doc dump.
If the Don needs to get really nasty, he should open up the docs in Biden’s Chicom-funded foundation at UPenn.
This could easily and legitimately be done under the guise of national security because Biden is so compromised.
We’re on the precipice of the bill coming due for all the malfeasance of the prior half century, and Trump is the fall guy. Yes, he will bluster about draining the Swamp, and likely stir up a lot of impotent recrimination, but 2025 is the year that the plates stop spinning. A lot of soon-to-be unemployed and highly indebted people will be looking for a pound of flesh and narrative angst will not suffice as remedy. Best to get out the big city now. Trump is not coming to rescue you.
Dunno. Barring disastrous actions by FedGov, we are the ones who get to decide how long the plates keep spinning. @Mr House is always championing deflation — that would be a huge windfall to the productive, and a potentially life-threatening event for the useless eaters and other parasites.
Without things like nationalization or war, productive assets will remain. Repriced to screw the banksters, yes, but repriced nonetheless.
The fabled “plates”–and I’m assuming Joseph Smith doesn’t have a hand in this–seem to have inbuilt magnetos that keep them spinning far longer than the prophets of Armageddon imagine they can.
We’ve never seen either set of plates, so it is hard to say.
Yep. That’s why I await evidence that this level of indebtedness is categorically different than previous levels. I long ago thought hyperinflation was imminent…
The Regime will do it’s best to make the presidency a poisoned chalice for Trump.
Trump was famously impeached a second time on Jan 13, less than a week before he left office.
If the GOP had any stones, they’d be clamoring for the same. Heck, it would give DEMOCRATS cover for their support of “the Big Guy”.
It’s a toothless gesture anyway; just an asterisk in a history book no one will ever read.
Seems like easy money.
You can’t swing a dead cat what that you hit an impeachment docket these days. The Big I ain’t what it used to be.
Certainly not. In that respect, I submit Richard Nixon. He resigned rather than be the second President impeached. He might have fought it in the Senate, but then risked the likely prospect of being the first President “removed” from office. In any event such was the aspect of impeachment being viewed as so dishonorable a process. Clinton was yet another step down the path when his impeachment failed. He fought his impeachment and subsequent trial and won basically on a majority party line. The shame of such having little affect upon the man or his party—who voted 100% in favor… Read more »
It was the GOP itself that cheapened impeachment by pressing it for lying about a blowjob. However much Clinton might have had it coming for other things with which he wasn’t charged. It was sort of like getting Capone for tax evasion, yet far less criminal than that. Hardly a high crime or misdemeanor. So I don’t blame anyone for voting along political lines for what was a 100% political impeachment.
It wasn’t mere lying, it was lying under oath and suborning others into perjury.
Lying under oath about a blowjob. He was not charged with suborning perjury. It was indeed dastardly and indefensible that he lied to so many people who stood up for him on that basis, and there’s no doubt that he would have fired any of his underlings for conduct identical to his, but he was not charged with these things, and there isn’t really a legal statute for them I don’t believe. It being impeachment, and thus not dependent on a legal statute, I think it would have been right to impeach him merely for that double standard, but that’s… Read more »
Only one of the charges was blowjob-related. And even that, not really. It was about a power imbalance between an employer and a subordinate, something Democrats used to (and still do) think is important. Like Groucho Marx said, “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them, well, I have others.”
Everything else is clearly impeachable under pretty much any standard. Heck, they would be indictable for anyone else.
Clinton’s blowjob was perhaps not relevant to the investigation, nonetheless an impeachable offense because of lying about it. As stated, he could have refused to answer, or even answered truthfully, since everyone knew what the sex acts were that he committed in the Oval Office. Clinton was a man of low moral character and an inveterate liar.
No, it was not about lying about the blowjob. That’s what MSM want you to believe. Heck, even Wiki has the right answer here.
The lying was mostly the Paula Jones case. He lied, and Arkansas troopers (eventually) came forward with the truth that Paula was not lying.
Nonsense, that’s exactly what he was impeached for—lying under sworn oath to an investigative committee.. Clinton could have simply said, “my sex life is not under scrutiny here” and refused to answer, but he did not. Why? because he was always a lying weasel and always got away with it.
How morally bankrupt can you be, Jeff, to equate the severity of the act with the amelioration of the committed crime of perjury! Clinton could simply have refused to answer and given reason for such, then one could support such in good conscience.
I’ll never forget Slick staring into the camera, wagging his finger at us and saying, “I did not have seckshul relations with that woman, Monica Lewinksy!” As if we were the ones showing temerity by questioning his honesty.
The funny thing about the pardon is like, “yea, no kidding he would pardon his son.” Like here in normal world, pardoning your kid is a no-brainer. You’ll expend any amount of political capital to do it, because he’s your kid. That said, the Biden administration is totally partisan, has fully weaponized the bureaucracy to accomplish their political ends, and is totally incompetent. We’ve all known this for years, so it makes that Hunter would get pardoned, and in a way that makes it blatantly obvious just how craven this administration is. Yet again, though, we learn about the disconnect… Read more »
What it also means is that we Tradissidents were right about the Biden crime fambly all along. This being right, it’s getting to be a nasty habit among us.
Steve Bannon says “you can’t be cynical enough”. He is correct.
Steve Bannon stole that line from me.
If Joe rolls out all his pardons awhile before he leaves, he could resign, making Kamala the ceremonial President. A final thumb in the eye to everyone from the Big Guy? Probably won’t happen, but it would be fun to see!
I am fairly certain there is mutual hate between the two of them at this point and he would never do anything to benefit Kamala again. There are probably instructions to keep him on a ventilator through Jan 21st in the event he has a medical emergency just to make sure she is never President.
Never going to happen. Let her hand out pardons to her cronies? Right.
You’ve put into words what a lot of people are thinking. Thank You! Well said. My first thought when I heard the news: There are legal routes that can be taken to bring NEW charges against Hunter. Just changing the words can make a difference!
Probably not at the Federal level..State charges could be brought for crimes if they were within the statute of limitations, but the laptop doesn’t disclose evidence of those except possibly incest, but Delaware isn’t going to prosecute a Biden…
Two words: Jurisdiction Shopping.
The trick is going to be finding someone who will be granted standing that lasts into at least appellate level.
Dems go low, republicans go high, sir.
Democrats: Debank your wife and kill your dog
Normal reaction: I will spit my last breath at thee
Republicans: Now hold on, let’s be fair here
I read an op-ed in the National Review today and the guy was saying that Trump should still submit his nominees and staff to background checks from the FBI, in spite of the fact that the FBI is clearly totally politicized, used this background check system to sabotage his incoming administration in 2015, and has not been reformed in any way since (if anything, the bad actors were and continue to be rewarded). The author claimed that, of course, Trump would just be hurting himself by not submitting these picks to this broken institution. The comments were killing the article,… Read more »
This. As personified by now officially-approved soft Steve Sailer: “I would have been okay with Trump pardoning Hunter as a gesture of reconciliation.”
This is now the official line – even all the post-apocalyptic fiction writers are pushing the same shite – their ‘personal’ political beliefs notwithstanding, they are all ‘deeply concerned’ by divisions in AINO. The new buzzword is Unity Uber Alles. And all the normies say Amen.
I was with you right until the last sentence. Enough Normies, which means less than most, YMMV, aren’t saying “amen” so the professionally based are peddling olive branches. Spot on, otherwise.
You still have some faith in people; I don’t. I don’t want reconciliation, unity, ‘reaching across the aisle,’ or any compromise. While Trump may/may not go after some personal enemies who targeted his family, he is all about making deals and compromises with sleazy NY real estate investors and bankers. I don’t expect Whites to be explicitly targeted the next four years, but that’s about all I expect – and sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Faith in some people, yes, “some” being operative and in my mind few in number but still more than in the recent past. This should not be confused with a belief there is a political solution to the current situation, “political” again being operative. A series of accidents has made white erasure less likely in the past and I’ll take that.
Probably don’t want my agreement, 😉 but that’s what I’m seeing in my AO. Even when I have to head up into Chicago, I’m seeing a whole lot more people who are of the opinion that heads must roll, not all of them speaking in metaphor.
amen. I do not want any reconciliation with any leftists. I hate them with all of the intensity in the universe and all I’m willing to accept is their permanent removal from the society I want to live in.
Dems get high…
I’m not sure this is going to hold up. But the courts are so corrupt that it probably will.
But if I were in his position and I thought there was a good chance my son would go to prison and I was in the position to make it go away, I absolutely would.
I am not aware of any mechanism by which a presidential pardon can be overturned or revoked once granted. The power is basically absolute and clearly enumerated in the Constitution without qualifications, except for impeachment.
I thought pardons were for specific crimes and not just blanket immunity for a given time frame. But I’m no constitutional scholar, so I may just misunderstand it.
That’s typically and historically been the practice – leave it to this administration to break yet another norm – but that is surely for political reasons. It’s obviously bad practice and sets a horrible precedent to just pardon whomever you want for anything they might have done. Yet, the Constitution makes it clear that this power is extremely broad, and the courts would almost certainly, rightly in my view, defer to the POTUS on this.
Except Biden has been declared non compos mentis by a court, which makes any business he conducted thereafter null and void.
There is a process in place for mentally invalid presidents, outlined in the Constitution (via amendment of course). That process was not carried out to remove Biden, so yea good luck with that.
As mentioned, there are no limits to the power in the Constitution. Also, the aspect of a “pre-conviction” pardons would seem to have been decided when Ford pardoned Nixon. That’s perhaps the biggest objection I have to this unlimited pardon power. A trial and conviction is in essence a clearing of the air for the public understanding. Pardoning Hunter for a crime or crimes he may have committed prevents the truth from being known to the public. Without truth, how can there be justice?
But wasn’t that specific to Watergate?
Certainly, but Nixon denied involvement—even when firing those caught who worked directly for him, Nixon was not convicted of anything. There was no admission of guilt or contriteness. Even today at the State level, you have little chance of even obtaining parole without an admission of guilt and repentance.
Yeah, the above is old fashion in today’s modern “thinking”, Nonetheless serves (IMHO) an important part of the justice system.
So, is the next plot twist in Joe Biden’s theatrical political career to be the first president to be removed from office by the 25th amendment?
“The Hunter Biden pardon is the start of a great sweep up from a party that went on far too long.” My immediate (cynical) thought was wrt the concept of “sweep up”. Last I heard the term used, the physical process from which the allegory stems was related to a local city area that was trashed extensively and was a public eyesore. The sweep up was accompanied by the installation of public trash cans, dedication of frequent maintenance and emptying, with increased police enforcement of littering law. In short, a process of restoration was accompanied by a process of “prevention”.… Read more »
Maybe Biden did it now in case of a 25th A move to prevent nuclear war?
[…] ZMan blows the whistle. […]
My legal knowledge is quite rusty. Does this mean that H. Biden cannot be compelled to testify concerning his corruption?
Historically, it means he can be compelled, but I’m sure they could find a court to tie that up until the statute of limitations has run.
The FBI (?) issued a report after interviewing Biden which basically said he was a forgetful old man (euphemism for senile). What court will deal with such an individual—especially when he now hires a lawyer and doctor to appear in court for him to testify as to such impairment. Heck, even in my State I am no longer able to be called for jury duty due to age. The Fed’s just sent me a summons for Fed duty. The summons provides an automatic deferral (if I request) simply based upon my (advanced) age. No thought seems to be given as… Read more »
Is there somewhere to place bets on the over/under of when Hunter gets killed? I tried looking for something in Vegas but didn’t find anything. There is no way they can leave that drug addict breathing , pardon or no.
Well with this pardon (really more like blanket immunity) the only leverage anyone has over him anymore is extrajudicial. Fear and greed are helpful but remember that old pirate saying about dead men and take telling.
tale
Maybe. So far as I know,this is uncharted territory. “Pardons for Offenses against the United States” may not apply to un-named offenses. So far as I know, only in the case of Nixon has it been applied that way, and even then, it was only because Nixon resigned his office and was said to have “already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office in the United States.”
Did Hunter give up the Presidency? Did Joe?
In the Nixon case, there was no judicial—as in SCOTUS—determination of the Constitutionality of the pardon granted by Ford. Not sure there will be one now. The Court is hesitant to get involved in political squabbles.
I was preschool when that happened. Do you remember whether the USSC was even asked? Did they refuse it, or didn’t it even come up?
“Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids, perhaps too much. At some level, you must respect his family loyalty. There is an old world gangsterism about his willingness to help his family loot the political system.”
For lack of a better way of describing it, Catholic culture, maybe? Roman culture? European culture? I’d never rat on a family member and I’d probably do the same thing in his place. That extends to my kid, brothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, wife, in-laws, etc.
Definitely not Roman. Probably not European, as while one may well try to defend family, as patriarch, he would have made sure no one in his family had done anything to besmirch the name. Could be pre-Reformation Catholicism, where you could always buy yourself out of sin.
The question is not whether you would bail out family, but whether you would overlook it, or even participate in the first place.
I’m thinking about this from the standpoint of the mob as an analogy. You’re loyal to the family, which was an extension of real life. People in southern Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere really are loyal to their blood.
Maybe southern Europe. Northern Europeans regularly disowned family who brought dishonor to the name.
Not necessarily. Even an emperor might be made to publicly do penance barefoot in the snow.
I see this as more of a thing that people do where the state is weak, or clearly adversarial (as in the case of British India, colonial Africa, etc..). In feudal times, for example, “the State” was some local county-sized area controlled by a duke or prince. Of course you were more loyal to your kin than “the State”, unless of course you were part of the duke’s family in which case family = State. The various tribes the US is now being flooded with are all people from areas that typically placed more value on family than State or… Read more »
Washington loves to play its political games. Within the Beltway, there is a sense that everything is unreal and we’re living in a dream and only power makes things concrete. Power is the great leveler. Power clarifies, is the one constant. The lawyers who fill the political ranks are trained in deception, including self-deception. On the one hand they are cynical about the whole process, on the other they genuinely believe they are helping things out. Like rats following the Pied Piper, they follow after whoever seems strongest in the moment. To be a Washington insider means speaking in a… Read more »