It is a shame that Trump and the MAGAts so credibly and frequently threatened to rain holy Hell down on anyone they choose to the point that Joe Biden felt he had to pardon his sole surviving son to protect him from a blood-thirsty mob.
Enjoy your moral outrage. In the meantime, Joe Biden chose to protect his son - not from prosecution, but from persecution. If this really irks you, make a list of promises that Biden made and went back on, and the same for Trump. Start with Project 2025. You can stuff your outrage.
Biden is yesterday, and pretty sure MAGA will go after him and his son - not sure I’ve noticed a respect for the law or constitution, and they do need their ‘external’ enemies within to distract.
Through Kash he’s got his Gestapo / NKVD in place, expect to see some kind of militia empowered (all dictators need their own guard). Once the deportation camps are filled up, they can start to work in the factories and farms for nothing while the bosses pay the state (new plantation model) - on the basis they have to contribute for the incarceration.
Then we should be back to pre-civil rights and the new crow laws - so enough of everyone’s diagnosis - has anyone got a realistic plan as yet…..?
If the justification here was to "protect" Hunter, it fails on that grounds. So Hunter's now exempt for any act between 2014 thru 12/1/2024? Unless he's left the country & not returning, the clock is already ticking for new charges to be made as soon as Trump has the levers.
If one assumes Trump is so vindictive as to go after Hunter for past acts without sufficient grounds (seems likely), then the pardon doesn't protect him starting as of today. Trump can launch prosecution with insufficient grounds/selective prosecution/etc. for Hunter sneezing. Tie him up in court, bankrupt him, with the full force of DOJ & friendly judges.
So how did the pardon help?
(I tried posting this as Reply to Susan A's Comment elsewhere here but my browser wouldn't let me. Props to her for raising similar point)
Not sure why you think the pardon wouldn't protect Hunter from being prosecuted for previous criminal acts. That's exactly what the blanket pardon does - protect you from prosecution crimes committed in the past. Doesn't help on criminal acts committed in the future, however.
It's amusing that Patel includes Bill Barr along with others as a member of the Deep State. Barr is arguably one of the most partisan AGs ever, with his whitewashing of the Mueller report, his fake Durham investigation, his failure to follow up on the Egyptian bribe allegations and his failure to act against HW Bush's malfeasance in Iran Contra (during Barr's first term). That Trump wanted Barr to go beyond the law and Barr refused is a feather in his cap, but hardly erases his hand on the scales of justice.
I remember MAGAs being outraged that anyone would impugn the honor of Bill Barr - until he said the election was not stolen. Then MAGA-world made his name a synonym for treachery.
"[A] man who let his love as a father overwhelm his judgment as a president..."
I'm going to appropriate Bill's statement and see if, with tweaking, how it would apply to the President-Elect based on my perceptions of his recorded actions:
"[A] man whose consummate love for himself overwhelms his judgment as a president..."
I do not see any selfless use of the Presidential pardon; each pardon he granted during his first term was an attempt to extort a quid pro quo from a convicted felon.
Was Biden's pardon of Hunter transactional? Do y'all assert that Hunter pledged love and support for his father if only his father would pardon him?
No. Your objection seems to be more concerned with how it looks to others, especially those of us whose loyalty to and faith in Joe Biden led us to push him out of the election so that another, more youthful, person whose public speaking capabilities were stronger could be offered to the public, whose faith in our principles would assure our victory on November 5th.
Yes, Patel, Hegseth, and Gabbard are horrendous candidates for Cabinet positions and should be rejected by the Senate.
All that is needed is a U.S. Senate composed mainly of Obviousman clones...
When you hear a deranged freak like Patel talking about “the American people” it’s so funny and so sick. What does that idiot know about “ordinary Americans “ much less care.
I confess my heart sank when I read that President Biden had pardoned his son. I will also confess that with each day of this past week I wondered how Hunter Biden could survive four years of 'we're going to make them pay'. He would have been skinned alive and his private parts handed to MTG to keep on her desk. Other comments here have said this more elegantly, but I believe President Biden would have kept his word if the president-elect were not driven by such malicious spite.
Everything Patrick Brennan said. I think for Joe Biden to leave his son unpardoned would have been unconscionable, considering the current context. After everything trump and his henchmen are planning to do to our country, and the way he abused the pardon power last time, it would have been wrong for Hunter to pay a price that none of the trump criminals had to pay. Not to mention the possibility of Kash Patel at the FBI.
Like Patrick said, this is arguing about table settings, playing dress up pretending the house is not on fire.
This is a train rolling downhill, it is not going to get better, it is going to get worse.
How can maga square that Biden directed the FBI to go after Trump and the Biden’s pardon shows the FBI also prioritized going after Hunter? They’re walking a tightrope made of shoestring.
Having already this morning said "...Ahem" to Tim's indignation over Hunter's pardon, it's dismaying to repeat the exercise for Bill. You had the lede right, but otherwise ought to have begun and finished with your final paragraph.
Per Egger's report on Patel, one can too easily imagine the exhausting circus that would assuredly have ensued next year had Joe NOT pardoned his son. The Bulwark crowd has spoken often, sighing, about the asymmetry in so many things between TrumpWorld's conduct and expectations in the same vein on the Democrat's part. And here you go - clucking your tongue at the hubris and moral irresponsibility of a father removing his only surviving son from harm's way.
I've advocated this move since Nov 6th; urged it since first word of Gaetz's [thankfully abortive] appointment. Because, real politik, failure to do so would amount to reckless disregard for common sense... subjecting not just the Biden family to protracted, 'woulda/shoulda/coulda' torture... but the whole of the country as well. As it is you KNOW, better than most, we're sadly poised to play witness over the next four years to serially Trumpian affronts to the Constitution; natural order; ethics and morality... The law itself. I'm getting pretty tired of folks in our ranks crying "FOUL" over purity issues while our opponents boast, giddily, about setting fire to the world - and suit up to do so.
Trump is going to make Abu Ghraib the new standard for the American Justice System. Somebody please prove me wrong, else Biden was absolutely correct to pardon his son. WTAF?
Amen. Must say, having bailed on more-of-the-same outta JVL & Sarah on their hasty secret pod...It's discomforting to hear - from them - that in fact much of their offense at the pardon has less to do with the pardon than it does their festering, longer-standing anger at Joe for [take your pick]... being a bad/under-performing POTUS; reneging on his purported promise not to run for a second term; obstinately dismissing his unpopularity; stalling/confounding Kam's shot at the role ...etc. I'm not going to dismiss all of Joe's multiple misjudgments as POTUS but - pardoning his son, at this time and in these circumstances, wasn't among them.
Patel’s threat to "the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections” will begin and end with investigations. There is no evidence that Joe Biden rigged elections, so no grand jury will indict on such a charge. But for the Trumpers, it’s the investigations that will harm the target,, so that’s ok.
And there are standards for abuse of the investigative power - see https://protectdemocracy.org/work/how-to-tell-government-investigation-weaponized/. We will have to rely on the media to make the case to the public that Patel's investigations are weaponized, that they don’t follow the DOJ safeguards to prevent abuse of investigational power.
Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: President Biden’s pardon of Hunter isn’t merely an act of fatherly love or political miscalculation—it’s a stark acknowledgment that the United States is no longer playing by the rules of democracy. The rulebook hasn’t just been tossed aside; it’s been set on fire, reduced to ashes by Convicted Felon Trump and his loyalists. Biden isn’t breaking norms—he’s operating in a reality where the norms have already broken beyond repair.
The pearl-clutching over this pardon, whether framed as a betrayal of promises or a lapse in judgment, is both myopic and misplaced. Biden’s decision isn’t “unwise”; it’s an admission that the game is over. Compared to the storm that’s coming, this act of parental compassion barely registers. Meanwhile, the same voices decrying this pardon were nowhere to be found when Trump wielded the pardon power like a mob boss, shielding Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn in a brazen display of autocratic impunity.
The critique that Biden’s pardon gives Trump “political ammunition” is a laughable deflection. Trump doesn’t need ammunition; he invents it, fueled by grievance and a bottomless well of delusion. Biden’s pardon is a blip, a footnote in the shadow of a far greater threat: Trump’s meticulously planned authoritarian second act.
Trump’s agenda isn’t a secret. It’s a blueprint for dismantling the fragile remnants of democratic governance. From nominating Kash Patel as FBI Director to weaponizing “acting” appointments and Schedule F to purge career civil servants, Trump’s strategy is clear: erode institutional safeguards, replace competence with loyalty, and centralize power under his thumb. This isn’t about “bad optics”; it’s about the methodical construction of an autocracy.
To demand Biden pretend democracy isn’t crumbling around him is to insist on playing dress-up while the house collapses. The U.S. in 2024 isn’t the “land of the free” or the “home of the brave.” It’s a democracy on life support, with Trump’s authoritarian ambitions poised to pull the plug. This isn’t a “constitutional crisis”—it’s a reckoning.
Biden’s pardon won’t be remembered as a heroic act, but it’s not the catastrophe some are making it out to be. It’s a symptom of a system that’s already decayed to its core. If we waste our energy debating this while Trump’s authoritarian storm gathers strength, history will judge us harshly. The ship isn’t just sinking—it’s engulfed in flames. Yet here we are, arguing about the table settings.
The pardon is noise. The storm is Trump. Biden knows the rules are gone. It’s time the rest of us woke up.
Agree, 1000%. To me the idea that this somehow gives Trump an opening or ammo is not just deflection, but delusional. On what world do these people/media live. To those who are clutching pearls—stop. Just stop. We’ve brought knives to gunfights for far too long.
It is a shame that Trump and the MAGAts so credibly and frequently threatened to rain holy Hell down on anyone they choose to the point that Joe Biden felt he had to pardon his sole surviving son to protect him from a blood-thirsty mob.
Enjoy your moral outrage. In the meantime, Joe Biden chose to protect his son - not from prosecution, but from persecution. If this really irks you, make a list of promises that Biden made and went back on, and the same for Trump. Start with Project 2025. You can stuff your outrage.
Yes! Yes! Totally agree.
Distraction.
Biden is yesterday, and pretty sure MAGA will go after him and his son - not sure I’ve noticed a respect for the law or constitution, and they do need their ‘external’ enemies within to distract.
Through Kash he’s got his Gestapo / NKVD in place, expect to see some kind of militia empowered (all dictators need their own guard). Once the deportation camps are filled up, they can start to work in the factories and farms for nothing while the bosses pay the state (new plantation model) - on the basis they have to contribute for the incarceration.
Then we should be back to pre-civil rights and the new crow laws - so enough of everyone’s diagnosis - has anyone got a realistic plan as yet…..?
welcome to America 🇺🇸
If the justification here was to "protect" Hunter, it fails on that grounds. So Hunter's now exempt for any act between 2014 thru 12/1/2024? Unless he's left the country & not returning, the clock is already ticking for new charges to be made as soon as Trump has the levers.
If one assumes Trump is so vindictive as to go after Hunter for past acts without sufficient grounds (seems likely), then the pardon doesn't protect him starting as of today. Trump can launch prosecution with insufficient grounds/selective prosecution/etc. for Hunter sneezing. Tie him up in court, bankrupt him, with the full force of DOJ & friendly judges.
So how did the pardon help?
(I tried posting this as Reply to Susan A's Comment elsewhere here but my browser wouldn't let me. Props to her for raising similar point)
Not sure why you think the pardon wouldn't protect Hunter from being prosecuted for previous criminal acts. That's exactly what the blanket pardon does - protect you from prosecution crimes committed in the past. Doesn't help on criminal acts committed in the future, however.
Go, Joe, go!
I'd love to see Dark Brandon show himself with more verve before Jan 20.
It's amusing that Patel includes Bill Barr along with others as a member of the Deep State. Barr is arguably one of the most partisan AGs ever, with his whitewashing of the Mueller report, his fake Durham investigation, his failure to follow up on the Egyptian bribe allegations and his failure to act against HW Bush's malfeasance in Iran Contra (during Barr's first term). That Trump wanted Barr to go beyond the law and Barr refused is a feather in his cap, but hardly erases his hand on the scales of justice.
I remember MAGAs being outraged that anyone would impugn the honor of Bill Barr - until he said the election was not stolen. Then MAGA-world made his name a synonym for treachery.
Sorry, but I was a prosecutor and a prosecution as tainted as Hunter’s was needs to be reversed before Kash Patel and Pam Biondi arrive on the scene.
I hope POTUS has a LONG list of folks to keep out of harm’s way.
As for the tiny room in the mansion, I’d note that sometimes age brings wisdom, but more often it just brings pedantry and judginess.
Exactly. He was only prosecuted b/c he was the President's son.
"[A] man who let his love as a father overwhelm his judgment as a president..."
I'm going to appropriate Bill's statement and see if, with tweaking, how it would apply to the President-Elect based on my perceptions of his recorded actions:
"[A] man whose consummate love for himself overwhelms his judgment as a president..."
I do not see any selfless use of the Presidential pardon; each pardon he granted during his first term was an attempt to extort a quid pro quo from a convicted felon.
Was Biden's pardon of Hunter transactional? Do y'all assert that Hunter pledged love and support for his father if only his father would pardon him?
No. Your objection seems to be more concerned with how it looks to others, especially those of us whose loyalty to and faith in Joe Biden led us to push him out of the election so that another, more youthful, person whose public speaking capabilities were stronger could be offered to the public, whose faith in our principles would assure our victory on November 5th.
Yes, Patel, Hegseth, and Gabbard are horrendous candidates for Cabinet positions and should be rejected by the Senate.
All that is needed is a U.S. Senate composed mainly of Obviousman clones...
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2009/12/13
When you hear a deranged freak like Patel talking about “the American people” it’s so funny and so sick. What does that idiot know about “ordinary Americans “ much less care.
Be careful here, he is anything but an idiot.
I confess my heart sank when I read that President Biden had pardoned his son. I will also confess that with each day of this past week I wondered how Hunter Biden could survive four years of 'we're going to make them pay'. He would have been skinned alive and his private parts handed to MTG to keep on her desk. Other comments here have said this more elegantly, but I believe President Biden would have kept his word if the president-elect were not driven by such malicious spite.
Everything Patrick Brennan said. I think for Joe Biden to leave his son unpardoned would have been unconscionable, considering the current context. After everything trump and his henchmen are planning to do to our country, and the way he abused the pardon power last time, it would have been wrong for Hunter to pay a price that none of the trump criminals had to pay. Not to mention the possibility of Kash Patel at the FBI.
Like Patrick said, this is arguing about table settings, playing dress up pretending the house is not on fire.
This is a train rolling downhill, it is not going to get better, it is going to get worse.
How can maga square that Biden directed the FBI to go after Trump and the Biden’s pardon shows the FBI also prioritized going after Hunter? They’re walking a tightrope made of shoestring.
Having already this morning said "...Ahem" to Tim's indignation over Hunter's pardon, it's dismaying to repeat the exercise for Bill. You had the lede right, but otherwise ought to have begun and finished with your final paragraph.
Per Egger's report on Patel, one can too easily imagine the exhausting circus that would assuredly have ensued next year had Joe NOT pardoned his son. The Bulwark crowd has spoken often, sighing, about the asymmetry in so many things between TrumpWorld's conduct and expectations in the same vein on the Democrat's part. And here you go - clucking your tongue at the hubris and moral irresponsibility of a father removing his only surviving son from harm's way.
I've advocated this move since Nov 6th; urged it since first word of Gaetz's [thankfully abortive] appointment. Because, real politik, failure to do so would amount to reckless disregard for common sense... subjecting not just the Biden family to protracted, 'woulda/shoulda/coulda' torture... but the whole of the country as well. As it is you KNOW, better than most, we're sadly poised to play witness over the next four years to serially Trumpian affronts to the Constitution; natural order; ethics and morality... The law itself. I'm getting pretty tired of folks in our ranks crying "FOUL" over purity issues while our opponents boast, giddily, about setting fire to the world - and suit up to do so.
Trump is going to make Abu Ghraib the new standard for the American Justice System. Somebody please prove me wrong, else Biden was absolutely correct to pardon his son. WTAF?
Amen. Must say, having bailed on more-of-the-same outta JVL & Sarah on their hasty secret pod...It's discomforting to hear - from them - that in fact much of their offense at the pardon has less to do with the pardon than it does their festering, longer-standing anger at Joe for [take your pick]... being a bad/under-performing POTUS; reneging on his purported promise not to run for a second term; obstinately dismissing his unpopularity; stalling/confounding Kam's shot at the role ...etc. I'm not going to dismiss all of Joe's multiple misjudgments as POTUS but - pardoning his son, at this time and in these circumstances, wasn't among them.
Patel’s threat to "the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections” will begin and end with investigations. There is no evidence that Joe Biden rigged elections, so no grand jury will indict on such a charge. But for the Trumpers, it’s the investigations that will harm the target,, so that’s ok.
And there are standards for abuse of the investigative power - see https://protectdemocracy.org/work/how-to-tell-government-investigation-weaponized/. We will have to rely on the media to make the case to the public that Patel's investigations are weaponized, that they don’t follow the DOJ safeguards to prevent abuse of investigational power.
Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: President Biden’s pardon of Hunter isn’t merely an act of fatherly love or political miscalculation—it’s a stark acknowledgment that the United States is no longer playing by the rules of democracy. The rulebook hasn’t just been tossed aside; it’s been set on fire, reduced to ashes by Convicted Felon Trump and his loyalists. Biden isn’t breaking norms—he’s operating in a reality where the norms have already broken beyond repair.
The pearl-clutching over this pardon, whether framed as a betrayal of promises or a lapse in judgment, is both myopic and misplaced. Biden’s decision isn’t “unwise”; it’s an admission that the game is over. Compared to the storm that’s coming, this act of parental compassion barely registers. Meanwhile, the same voices decrying this pardon were nowhere to be found when Trump wielded the pardon power like a mob boss, shielding Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn in a brazen display of autocratic impunity.
The critique that Biden’s pardon gives Trump “political ammunition” is a laughable deflection. Trump doesn’t need ammunition; he invents it, fueled by grievance and a bottomless well of delusion. Biden’s pardon is a blip, a footnote in the shadow of a far greater threat: Trump’s meticulously planned authoritarian second act.
Trump’s agenda isn’t a secret. It’s a blueprint for dismantling the fragile remnants of democratic governance. From nominating Kash Patel as FBI Director to weaponizing “acting” appointments and Schedule F to purge career civil servants, Trump’s strategy is clear: erode institutional safeguards, replace competence with loyalty, and centralize power under his thumb. This isn’t about “bad optics”; it’s about the methodical construction of an autocracy.
To demand Biden pretend democracy isn’t crumbling around him is to insist on playing dress-up while the house collapses. The U.S. in 2024 isn’t the “land of the free” or the “home of the brave.” It’s a democracy on life support, with Trump’s authoritarian ambitions poised to pull the plug. This isn’t a “constitutional crisis”—it’s a reckoning.
Biden’s pardon won’t be remembered as a heroic act, but it’s not the catastrophe some are making it out to be. It’s a symptom of a system that’s already decayed to its core. If we waste our energy debating this while Trump’s authoritarian storm gathers strength, history will judge us harshly. The ship isn’t just sinking—it’s engulfed in flames. Yet here we are, arguing about the table settings.
The pardon is noise. The storm is Trump. Biden knows the rules are gone. It’s time the rest of us woke up.
Agree, 1000%. To me the idea that this somehow gives Trump an opening or ammo is not just deflection, but delusional. On what world do these people/media live. To those who are clutching pearls—stop. Just stop. We’ve brought knives to gunfights for far too long.