Of course Joe pardons Hunter
And yet some people are surprised. Or are they pretending to be surprised? It’s the old fools/knaves puzzle.
There are so many fascinating aspects to this action of Biden’s, even though the thing itself was almost inevitable. If Joe Biden had merely pardoned Hunter, saying that it was because he’s his son, it wouldn’t be nearly so interesting although it would be a continuation of Joe’s enabling of Hunter. However, Joe used the ridiculous excuse that the pardon was issued because Hunter’s convictions represented selective prosecution – “ridiculous” because (1) actually authorities bent over backwards for quite some time to negotiate a sweetheart plea deal for Hunter instead, and it was only whistleblowers and the judge who made that impossible (2) the Biden administration has been selectively prosecuting its political opponents for years; and (3) Hunter actually is guilty of actual crimes (unlike the manufactured ones with which Trump was charged).
No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
Whether or not Joe actually wrote that is somewhat irrelevant at this point. I don’t think he’s so far gone, however, that he doesn’t understand it and approve it.
And the J6 defendants and Trump and Steve Bannon and General Flynn? No selective prosecution there, no sirree.
What makes this case extra-special is the fact that Joe spent a lot of time in the last year or so promising not to pardon Hunter. It was always pretty clear that Biden would be likely to pardon him if necessary; as I wrote here when speaking of the sentencing date:
Sentencing is scheduled for December 16. That seems to me to be well-timed. It takes the case out of the campaign season, and yet it places sentencing early enough that his father can pardon him if needed.
And that has played out with Joe pardoning Hunter before sentence can be pronounced.
Here’s a great clip that highlights the way the left is spinning this:
Of course – as Scott Jennings indicates – a “selective prosecution” argument can’t justify a blanket pardon. And the biggest issue is that Biden promised over and over not to do this. The woman in that clip shrugs it off by saying Biden changed his mind and didn’t actually lie, which is a difference that doesn’t make a difference. When a person promises something over and over – such as to be faithful to a spouse – and then cheats, was the original vow not a lie because he/she meant it at the time and just had a change of mind?
You also might want to stroll down memory lane:
SUPERCUT!
Corporate media: Obviously Biden would never pardon Hunter pic.twitter.com/gJRhASCAUs
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 2, 2024
In addition, this obviously sets Trump up for pardoning most or all of the J6 defendants. Not that his critics will approve, of course.
You’d have to be irretrievably stupid to believe Joe Biden’s statement, and at this point I have trouble believing that anyone with a functioning brain really does. It’s especially galling given the insane lawfare that’s been conducted against Trump and anyone associated with him for the past decade.
Ok…I’m so UNsurprised about this that I’m having trouble being “outraged.”
There’s no secret that since at least…oh let me say Nixon…we’ve had a two-tiered system. One for the left & another for the right & right-adjacent. That knob got turned up to 11 & torn off in the year of the Kenyan Light-bringer…
This is so UNshocking that I simply shrug & then pray harder against a violent blowback from those who’ve been truly persecuted maliciously & those who ARE truly outraged.
Joe might as well complete his disgrace by pardoning his brothers and the rest of the family and himself. I think he might do so, to avoid the corruption charges which could legitimately be brought.
The ridiculousness of mankind’s beloved Rule of Law is on full display for all to see.
The Rule of Law goes hand-in-hand Lawfare. Don’t believe humble me? Go ask the King then—or better yet, go ask some black Americans. Black Americans have been complaining about the injustice of the Rule of Law for a long long time.
Anyway, am seeing lot of articles about poor ol’ Joe Biden’s “legacy” being destroyed, damaged, etcetera – must be a fancy word for a statement like that…
Nothing more, nothing less than:
“Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia…”
Ladies and gentlemen:
Presenting the Democratic Party of the United States of America!
Black Americans have been complaining about the injustice of the Rule of Law for a long long time.
==
The complaint has been for 50-odd years that people of low status (police officers) are getting above themselves telling blacks what they can and cannot do.
and at this point I have trouble believing that anyone with a functioning brain really does.
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Just yesterday I noticed a partisan Democrat speaking as if Jean Carroll could be taken seriously (as 12 partisan Democrats on a Manhattan jury professed to believe).
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Over the last half-dozen years, I’ve waited for a partisan Democrat in my family, or on Fakebook, or on a board I follow to admit that Christine Blasey Ford was not to be taken seriously. The reason she was not was obvious enough: she and her handlers never produced any evidence that she had ever met the two men she accused nor did they delineate a set of circumstances where it was likely they would have met. I’m still waiting.
==
Some of them do not have functioning brains. Others have nothing resembling a conception of justice more sophisticated than ‘I get what I want’. There are a few old school Democrats who object; that’s their pathway out of the Democratic Party.
Racist statementsStatements like that are exactly why a majority of black Americans avoid the Republican party like a plague and just stick with the Democratic party that only takes them for granted…Taking that woman’s explanation to it’s (il)logical end, should Biden issue a blanket pardon for Fauci? For the rest of his family? For Blinken? For the infamous gang of 51? If Trump is this treacherous and vindictive, who in the USA SHOULDN’T he pardon?
I might have given a pass on the gun charge. Maybe in the most magnanimous mood I’ve ever been in. But the tax evasion?
I wonder if Nancy Pelosi still thinks Biden’s likeness should still be on Mt Rushmore? Yes I know she was and is full of it but that was a ridiculous thing to say even for a politician.
It’s likely a promise of pardon for Hunter was part of Biden’s decision to step aside and endorse Kamala. He’s now looking to minimize the amount of exposure the Biden family corruption headed by “The Big Guy” will face when a new administration will have access to DOJ/FBI records (assuming they still exist).
The much bigger problem with this fully expected pardon is that it goes back to 2014, thereby making it very difficult if not impossible to arrest, try and convict any member of the entire Biden crime family of any crime, because Hunter was.
Ikely involved in all of their corruption.
.
Trump was always going to pardon anyone he wanted to any time he pleased, regardless of what Biden did or didn’t do. At least Biden didn’t give Hunter an ambassadorship.
I can not believe it, I actually agree with Karmi.
I don’t know if Karmi knows who Thrasymachus was, and I don’t know how thoroughly thought out Karmi’s ideas about “Rule of Law” are. I think much of what Karmi says about it I disagree with.
But to the extent Karmi is saying that “Rule of Law” is a label that insiders use to fool outsiders into thinking there’s some kind of “fairness” to the process and not just the insiders’ will, he gets closer to being right about that with every new thing that comes out.
Incidentally this is what academia says about “merit”: “merit” is a label insiders use to describe “people who act the way insiders want them to act”.
I think the “two tier” system most of us have been talking about in recent years is a more accurate descriptor: the outsiders do get process, but the insiders get something better than process. And the process is not set up to favor outsiders. As Dickens said about the courts of equity,
We thought the Democrats would not be so nakedly partisan as they showed in the various prosecutions of Donald Trump.
At long last, does anyone believe that Biden would refuse to pardon all the people who participated in the prosecutions? Or in the deliberations over the border?
Of course, once pardoned, they cannot take the 5th in testimony about the events.
The woman in that clip shrugs it off by saying Biden changed his mind and didn’t actually lie, which is a difference that doesn’t make a difference. When a person promises something over and over – such as to be faithful to a spouse – and then cheats, was the original vow not a lie because he/she meant it at the time and just had a change of mind?
She’s making an argument. That it’s a nearly worthless argument is won’t stop a great many true believers in the Dem base from buying into it. Almost any argument is much better than no argument, or god forbid, admitting Biden lied.
@Gordon Scott:Of course, once pardoned, they cannot take the 5th in testimony about the events.
Given the blanket nature of the pardon, under what circumstances do you imagine that Hunter Biden could be made to testify? It would have to be in a proceeding about someone else’s corruption that Hunter Biden was involved in, wouldn’t it? And what stops Biden from pardoning those people in the same way he did Hunter Biden?
Hold on.
What’s this?
A snag?
A bump in the road?
A deus ex machina?
Or just a false alarm…?
“ Special Counsel Rejects Hunter Biden’s Pardon, Files Scathing Rebuke In Court Case”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/special-counsel-rejects-hunter-bidens-pardon-files-scathing-rebuke-court-case
Or is David Weiss merely once again trying to pull the wool over the eyes of We the People??
(Or…could it be, could it be…that he is really truly trying to salvage his badly compromised reputation…? Hey! Maybe it’s just Payback Time!)
@Karmi: I’m curious, would you agree with what “Thrasymachus” says below about what “justice” really is–if we crossed out “justice” and wrote in “Rule of Law” would you say that describes what you think?
(In fairness to the real Thrasymachus these are words put into his mouth by Plato, probably after Thrasymachus was long dead.)
@Barry Meislin:Hold on. What’s this? A snag?
No. They’re just arguing about how the paperwork winds up.
Niketas Choniates
Never heard of him, but Thanks for the intro. As I have said before – the Rule of Law is just the modern version of the King’s Law.
One does not need an education to understand the Rule of Law, the King’s Law, or what the meaning of some ancient debate between Thrasymachus and Socrates was about. Serfs and peasants fully understood what the King’s Law was about. Poor Americans, minorities, black Americans (of course) – early American Irish, etcetera most all understand/understood what the Rule of Law is/was about.
Niketas Choniates
Injustice is clear to most all…it is that obvious. Can’t speak for those who are blinded to it, ignore it, or just can’t see it.
Niketas Choniates
That reminds me—Niketas Choniates, that I am no longer going to get into any long conversations with you. You seem to fall behind, and then get mad about not being able to keep up. Wish I had saved those links; however, I have recently started saving such – this one:
Laken Riley’s killer got a free ride comment thread November 22, 2024 at 9:50 pm
Interesting that—in that thread I had said:
Anyway, that’s all I have to say to you in this conversation…Ditto on Thanks for the Thrasymachus intro—and will read up on him.
Now do the Old Testament version of “Justice, Justice thou shalt pursue….”
(Cue King David and Natan, the prophet….)
@Karmi:Niketas Choniates, that I am no longer going to get into any long conversations with you.
Sometimes I learn things when I do, but I’ll find other ways to learn I’m sure.
You seem to fall behind, and then get mad about not being able to keep up.
This is purely in your imagination. Remember that we can only share text here, you can’t see body language or hear tone of voice.
There’s a lot of absurd hair-splitting over whether Joe “lied” or “broke his word,” as if he might turn out to be OK depending which one we call it. At a minimum he broke his word. If he never meant to keep his word in the first place, then he also lied.
It’s a sad case when someone has to protest, “But I didn’t lie. I merely broke my word, given during an election season. You can’t be sure whether I meant to mislead you to get your vote. You must have known I couldn’t be trusted to keep my word in any case.”
It’s mildly embarrassing for the many surrogates who spent the last year or so crowing about how Biden was superior to Trump, because of his great respect for the justice system. I doubt they had their hearts in it, though, or much care now that they can move on to the next talking point, which is, “Well, Trump is still a big poopy-head.”
@ Wendy > “It’s mildly embarrassing for the many surrogates who spent the last year or so crowing about how Biden was superior to Trump, because of his great respect for the justice system.”
Not the Bee has several posts illustrating how quickly the soon-to-be-Ancien- régime Media turned from one side of the issue to the other.
(h/t Kate for the moniker).
Orwell’s vision in 1984 doesn’t even come close to our reality here in 2024.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2Fcf%2F97%2F67%2Fcf9767b5fde00379c78feab4ddb94c43.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=2b73250398c0a92b4186c47ae53db078758e6a856e5d42d5960f3029f1d7cabb&ipo=images
PS None of the Democrats are in the least embarrassed to be outed (again) as liars and charlatans.
Some thoughts on why it is necessary for the Democrats to suffer consequences for their actions, in order to maintain any kind of governmental integrity.
And a wee bit of schadenfreude.
https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/the-blob-has-a-migraine
” It’s not a mere “swamp,” it’s a whole forbidden planet of turpitude.”
“It is unfortunate that the way forward (to a national government different in scale, scope, and disposition toward its citizens) will require so much consorting with what is past. But it must be if consequence is to be restored as a basic element in our constitutional arrangements. You can’t just have people doing stuff outside the law because they feel like it.”
@ Niketas > “And what stops Biden from pardoning those people in the same way he did Hunter Biden?”
For one thing, don’t bring any indictments until Biden is gone.
However, referencing back to the speculations in the Open Thread (10 million pardons needed, minimum), since Hunter’s pardon takes into account any not-yet-indicted acts, I suppose Joe could give a similar blanket pardon to anyone he chooses.
Is there any legal obstacle at all to that sort of thing??
That such an action stretches the meaning of pardons and clemency out of all normal bounds is no handicap to Biden (his legacy is already either demolished or untarnished, depending on the viewer), nor to the Democrats, who would only make an issue of it if attempted by Trump or another Republican, and instantly forget they ever made any objections if engaged in by their own people.
Very convenient to have such malleable principles, but I cannot at this moment think of any alleged principle that the Democrats (as an institution) have not reversed themselves on, sometimes more than once.
The Democrats who DID believe in abiding by the principles they espoused seem to be leaving the Party — not enough and not fast enough.
Orwell, she wrote…..
“Censorship empire strikes back with UN disinformation declaration…”—
https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/censorship-empire-strikes-back-un-disinformation-declaration-german-charges
Actually, they’re just revving up…
Key nauseating grafs:
Refreshing a link by Barry on the open thread, Zerohedge’s authors (for once, not copied from some other pundit’s blog) is about the most complete commentary I’ve seen so far. This excerpt follows a long recitation of the background and responses.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/flashback-false-democrat-narrative-respect-rule-law-exposed
I knew he was going to do it, everyone knew he was going to do it.
Comedy gold in a WSJ headline:
“Biden Pardon Threatens His Legacy”
I literally LOL’d
Grifter pardons Bagman.
It really is not that complicated: Biden’s previously professed commitment to the Rule of Law and the court’s findings regarding Hunter was purely political theater to defend the lawfare against Trump. That lawfare did not work – it didn’t debilitate Trump financially, may have propped him up with the voters, and had no negative impact on his reelection campaign. Having failed Biden was now free to pardon his son, and protect himself from future prosecution. All the media talking heads were in on the scheme. They are unlikely to pay any price for that.
@Aesop Fan:For one thing, don’t bring any indictments until Biden is gone.
As it’s still Biden’s DOJ I’m sure that’s already in the cards. But Hunter Biden’s pardon already includes any Federal crime he has not been indicted for. Not seeing what prevents Biden from doing the same with anyone else involved in anything with Hunter.
Maybe a court would later decide that such pardons aren’t valid, but nothing stops Biden from issuing them, and I’m not sure what it would take for a court to decide it needed to try to set limits on the power of the Presidential pardon.