Read It Yourself . The Pardon of Hunter Biden

The President’s statement to the American people 

Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.

The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.

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.

For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.

__________

 

The Official Text

Executive Grant of Clemency

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

President of the United States of America

To All to Whom These Presents Shall Come, Greeting:

Be It Known, That This Day, I, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Pursuant to My Powers Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the Constitution, Have Granted Unto

ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN

A Full and Unconditional Pardon

For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) by Special Counsel David C. Weiss in Docket No. 1:23-cr-00061-MN in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and Docket No. 2:23-CR-00599-MCS-1 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF I have hereunto signed my name and caused the Pardon to be recorded with the Department of Justice.

Done at the City of Washington this 1st day of December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States the Two Hundred and Forty-ninth.

The Best From Us

Last week, Fox Business host Stuart Varney reported that one of the president-elect’s aides says that Trump is conducting a hostile takeover on behalf of the American people. 

On November 15, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder laid out the conditions under which political cultures collapse, nations collapse. Snyder laid out five indispensable concerns that have to be dealt with in order for nations to thrive — and that crumble when nations are destroyed.

The five are health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence.

Snyder wrote, "Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence."

And he pointed to the threat posed by the earliest nominees to fill cabinet positions and leadership positions within the new administration: 

Robert Kennedy Jr. - Health 

Matt Gaetz, and now Pam Bondi - Law.

Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy - Administration, 

Peter Hegseth - Defense

Tulsi Gabbard - Intelligence 

Snyder said this group of nominees — "people who believe that government should exist for the wealthy or not at all" — is setting the table for dismantling American democracy in our 250th year:

From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments -- Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard -- are perfect instruments.  They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done.  These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer.

Is this just Donald Trump trolling the Senate and the American people?

I'm not certain I know the answer to that.

I think there are some in the administration — both the Stevens, Miller, and Bannon — who appear to have the frame of mind to mess with the system, and with the people.

And I think that others in the loop do as well; in particular, Musk, Hegseth, Ramaswamy .. and Gaetz, as an outsider — though he’s gone from Member of Congress, to Attorney General nominee, to making Cameo videos in just over a week, so … maybe not.

I don't think there are any of these people that Trump and his supporters wouldn't accept gladly into the administration if they could clear the Senate, or by going around the Senate if they were able to do so.

I think if they thought they could get away with it, they would overturn the whole thing,  and not look twice at the consequences.

And if they can't get away with it, then they might say, "We were just kidding."

So, I think we have to put down markers at the very least.

We have to say, "This is fact. This is  what we see happening in the economy, in foreign relations, in the military, in the intelligence community, and the law, right now."

I think we have to drive stakes in the ground, to say, "This is the state of play as the Biden administration ends. And this is what the next administration proposes — and/or is doing — to accomplish the ends they have announced."

At the very least, we need to be able to do what the War Department did in 1945 when they distributed to every officer in the military a discussion paper to go through with their troops, simply called Fascism! — outlining how to recognize fascism abroad and at home, because there were a lot of fascists in the United States then too.

Similarly, we need to be able to say, "This is what we see. This is what we think it means."

That doesn’t include overplaying our hand. Robert Kennedy is not a hundred percent wrong, right?

Americans don't eat well. Of course, in the world of false equivalence, in 2009, when Michelle Obama launched a healthy eating initiative, she was called the leader of the Nanny State. But, apparently, it's okay now, as long as our guy is doing it.

Right?

There are some issues that anybody can see need to be cleaned up, but that doesn't mean the bathwater isn't dirty. There are instances in which not being all wrong is not the same as being right. And that certainly extends to not being right for the job.

So we take the good where we find it; and thoroughly reject the bad where we find it.

We do that one day at a time, yes…. But we do not get caught up in just the tick-tock of it all.

There's a bigger picture. And these nominees are part of that.

The outrage machine in all its grift and glory can get so caught up in individual words and actions that we have difficulty seeing which words are important and need to be marked because they are in the context of a whole sentence … and which actions need to be marked because they’re part of a whole series of consequential actions.

They matter to NATO.

They matter to Ukraine.

They matter to Israel and the Palestinian people.

They matter to all who live in climate distress.

The matter to already marginalized citizens and guests in the United States. 

They matter to people who work for a living, whose livelihoods can be wiped out by heedless policy decisions motivated by ideology rather than efficacy in the real economy.

All this matters across the board. And doing our best to take it all in requires the best from all of us for the foreseeable future.

_______________________

• https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/stuart-varney-trump-hasnt-forgotten-how-deep-state-treated-him

• https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

• https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up

Racism won’t *get* better….

This short antiracism video from the UK answers the question, "Yeh, but what can one person do?" with a list of five things anyone can do to face down public hate speech by standing with a targeted person.

We can sub in hate speech against women ... queer people ... people who are neurodiverse ... religious minorities.…

Mostly, we know hate speech and physical intimidation when we hear it and see it. If you want to throw haters off their game, when they pause to take a breath say "I’d be curious to know how you think this sounds to someone whose superpower is standing up for people who are different…."

Things won’t *get* better … we have to *make* things better.

Border Wall . A Story About Women and Justice

Border Wall

“Officer, my daughter is 10 years old," I say.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And I’m 56…” I say … “I haven’t had … I haven’t been fertile for … years.”

“I understand, ma’am … and you understand I’m not allowed to take your word for that.”

“About which?” I say….

“Either,” they say. “It’s a requirement ... I think you know that…”

“10 years old, officer…”

“Yes ma’am … Is this gonna a problem? Do you want to pull out of line so we can process the motorists behind you?”

“I want my child to see her grandmother before she dies.”

“Understood,” the officer says … “The shortest route to that is both of you taking the test.”

“I’m 56 … she’s 10….”

“Understood,” the officer says, and, “Do you want pull out of line?”

“No … I … How does this work?”

“You may use your own kit if I watch you open it —“

“You’re going to watch me?”

“I have to watch you open the kit — if you use your own — so I can scan the number before you enter the testing area.”

“I don’t believe this,” I say … “I’m fif — this is not the country I grew up in….”

“If you prefer, I’ll provide kits and charge your debit or credit card.”

“What if I don’t have a card?”

“There’s a turnout ahead, so you can return the way you came.”

“Well, we don’t have ‘kits’ do we … why would we?”

“Two kits, then, ma’am. Pick any lane ahead and enter the test area … Entering the test area constitutes your permission to be observed via infrared camera. Follow the instructions on the kit. After placing your samples in the reader, pull forward to the holding area until your number comes up — either Green or Red — then follow the signs. Do you understand?”

“Yes … I — do you? … officer? understand?”

“Ma’am … It’s your right to use the turnout lane and go back the way you came.”

“This is law enforcement now? Seriously?”

“Serious as a pregnancy test, ma’am.”

I realize my daughter has been pulling at my sleeve. "Can we just go back?" she whispers.

"Baby, I don’t know," I say … "I don’t know if it’s that simple."

maybe men *should* just stay home

Hey man, if we can’t vote for Harris, maybe we should just stay home.

Cuz think about it: We won’t be insulting — or whadatheycallit? *retraumatizing?* — our wives, and girlfriends, and daughters, and lesbian neices as much.

And at Thanksgiving we can say we decided to sit this one out for conscience’s sake (Man, that a-hole ruined things for everyone, didn’t he?).

AND, we can still break out the "Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for her" tees later … so … win/win….

Teach Your Parents Well . 2024 Election Edition

 “This is who fathers, with daughters, are voting for.”

“When your father who has 6

daughters and 4 granddaughters who is also a men's pastor is voting for this man again. It's honestly a

slap in our face.”

https://www.dailydot.com/memes/trump-hollywood-access-tiktok-reactions/