Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

We won’t go back.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Books are my comfort food!

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Pardon My Enthusiasm

Pardon My Enthusiasm

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Pardon My Enthusiasm
I’m fine with Biden pardoning his son, Hunter.  I’ve been reading through the takes and I’ve settled on “who fucking cares”.  So I agree with Josh Marshall:

[…] I’m glad he did it. Biden learned the right lesson: no one gives a fuck about norms. It’s unquestionably true that Hunter Biden wouldn’t be in this position if not for his dad. That’s basically the justification Biden gave. And he’s right. It may sound angry or cynical to say “no one gives a fuck.” But I mean it both in a general way and in this particular way: the reason for Biden not to do this was to allow his son to remain collateral damage of the GOP war against his presidency and to leave him in the hands of the Trump DOJ for at least the next four years all to make a point of principle about being better, different, more righteous, more norm-honoring than Donald Trump.

 

Truly. No one gives a fuck. If anything, that logic I just laid out sounds like one of those fastidious, hyper-process-oriented and baroque bits of reasoning that have of late left Democrats mesmerized while the real world is passing them by.

If you do want to read more fastidious takes, Brian Beutler thinks Biden should have commuted the sentence instead of issuing a pardon (my take is that it makes no political difference and this is fundamentally a political act, so who cares.) Merrick Garland’s #1 fan Marci Wheeler thinks that Hunter should be allowed to go through the appeal process (my take is what the fuck is she smoking — an appeals process would end up at the corrupt Supreme Court who would looooove to shit on Hunter 6-3.  But, at least in this instance, she admits that Garland fucked up.)

Anyway, one point I’d like to make is relevant to some of my recent posts:  People who think that I’m wrong about calling out the abusers in Trump’s cabinet because you can’t just repeat what they did every day should remember that repeating what he did every day is exactly what Hunter Biden’s persecutors did.  Obviously, they repeated it with different variations on a theme, such as wanting to post pictures of his dick.  But, it’s been more or less the same basic facts for years.  And, guess what, as his dad would say:  they won.  They beat Hunter Biden. He pled guilty to charges that almost nobody else in the same situation would ever face. Republicans: 1, Democrats:0.

Now, we can either look at this evidence and decide that we’re too good to do this for some reason that I can’t fathom, or we can understand that we’re not sinking to the same level as Republicans if we call out Hegseth, RFK the lesser, Gaetz and any other sex pests that I probably forgot about since there are so fucking many.  Hunter Biden was not a cabinet appointee.  He had no power in the Biden administration.  His peccadilloes were, in main, personal, not political.

Hegseth, Bobby Very Junior, Gaetz, et. al. are about to be put in charge of big government organizations.  Are there dick pics?  Let’s see them.  Are there scuzzy details?  Let’s hear them.  I frankly don’t know what to do about their victims, but this is a conundrum that faces anyone who wants to stop a sex pest.  The people they abuse get abused again when the abuser’s crimes are revealed.  The good news is that sometimes the abuser dies in prison, like Harvey Weinstein is going to do.  And if they don’t go to prison, at least, maybe, they will go away.

(Edit:  I almost forgot:  Fuuuucccckk Jared Polis.)

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    IF Hunter was your garden variety rich White Man…

    He never would have been charged.

    Now, maybe if he was a poor Black Man, he would have been charged.

    But, I’m not doing apples to oranges

    We are doing apples to apples.

    No. I don’t believe he would have ever been charged.

    I am all in for this pardon.

    Those muthaphuckas in Congress wasted the past two years with their ‘investigations’.

    Phuck them and their Mamas.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    THEE ENTIRE PHUCK!!

    Carolina Forward (@ForwardCarolina) posted at 9:00 AM on Mon, Dec 02, 2024:
    🚨🚨NEW🚨🚨

    Republican leaders in North Carolina’s state legislature are preparing to vacate the recent election for the state supreme court duly won by @AllisonJRiggs, thwart the voters’ will, and call for a new election.

    Official announcement coming soon. And more…
    (https://x.com/ForwardCarolina/status/1863599122197999883?s=03)

  3. 3.

    Melancholy Jaques

    Agree with Marshall and I’d go a bit further. If you are trying to be better, more righteous, more norm-respecting, right-wingers will laugh at you. Cf. Every time a Democrat talks about being bi-partisan.

  5. 5.

    Old School

    The purpose of the pardon rather than commutation was because Hunter has been pardoned for all crimes committed and not just filling out the gun form improperly.

    Trump nominees are on record in support of continuing to go after Hunter for more charges.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    Cringing at the pearl clutchers.  How much of a bubble do they live in?

    Biden does not owe anyone his remaining son, and Hunter would never have been prosecuted were the GOP not out to punish Biden for being elected in 2020.

    Proud of Joe Biden.  When circumstances change, your decision can, as well.

  8. 8.

    Splitting Image

    Republicans have demonstrated that if Democrats don’t give them anything to work with, they will make up shit and their voters will pretend to believe it.

    This is yet another case where if the pundit class is angry at a Democrat, it’s because he did the right thing.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    Symone D. Sanders Townsend (@SymoneDSanders) posted at 0:47 PM on Mon, Dec 02, 2024:
    The fake pearl clutching by Democrats is on brand, but still disappointing. The false equivalencies by Republicans of this to the people who took up arms against the United States government to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election is also on brand and equally disappointing.

    And the media apparatus painting it all with a broad-stroked brush in an attempt to appear balanced is just sad.

    (https://x.com/SymoneDSanders/status/1863656338905239893?s=03)

  10. 10.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @Old School:

    The purpose of the pardon rather than commutation was because Hunter has been pardoned for all crimes committed and not just filling out the gun form improperly.

    Trump nominees are on record in support of continuing to go after Hunter for more charges.

    Yup.  Beutler / Wheeler et al are trying to stake out a subtle position where none really exists.

  12. 12.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Elizabelle: I’m hoping it occurs to Joe that maybe there are a lot of other “norms” that need to be tossed, in recognition of the rank political shenanigans played by the other side. He’s got a few weeks and it’s a target-rich environment. I mean, I really appreciate that he saved his remaining son from the tender mercies of the monsters, but don’t we all deserve a little bit of the same love? Certainly our allies do, too. C’mon Joe, spread the love!

  13. 13.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    The Republicans chose the scorched earth policy. Anything we do at this point is tit for tat. Which, by the way, is the best strategy in the circumstances.

  14. 14.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah:Now, maybe if he was a poor Black Man, he would have been charged.

    The analogy breaks down. There is no hypothetical situation in which Hunter Biden could have been a “poor Black Man” because the entirety of the case against him came from something he admitted to publicly in a widely-read political memoir that he could only get published because he was a President’s son.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    @Chief Oshkosh:  Yes.  I would love to see more of NFLTG Joe Biden.

    I don’t believe those who say he is doing nothing to help protect our (OK, failed) institutions.

  18. 18.

    different-church-lady

    Trump pardoned a guy for sex exploitation and now wants TO NOMINATE HIM AS AN AMBASSADOR, so a whole lot of shutting-the-fuck-up is in order.

  21. 21.

    TBone

    We’re going to have to learn to sit through pain, learn to endure it rather than transmit it.  It hasn’t even really begun yet, and there is going to be a lot of it.

  24. 24.

    different-church-lady

    OK, let’s review:

    * Guy who is president commits crimes before, during and after his presidency, but cannot be prosecuted.

    * Guy who is related to president must be treated as harshly as the law allows, and the very real threat of persecuting him even more harshly than the law allows must be suffered.

    Anything I’m missing here?

  25. 25.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t believe those who say he is doing nothing to help protect our (OK, failed) institutions.

    I’d sure love to hear more about this happening, ’cause I don’t see much evidence of it. It almost comes under the heading of the Hemingway-esque “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

  27. 27.

    TBone

    @Elizabelle: thank you!  I don’t mean we have to turn the other cheek every time, but to choose where to, and when to, react because there is going to be temptation to lash out in too many simultaneous directions at the deluge, the flooded zone that is coming.  We must choose wisely, so we do not become depleted.

  29. 29.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    IF Hunter was your garden variety rich White Man…

    He never would have been charged.

    Now, maybe if he was a poor Black Man, he would have been charged.

    But, I’m not doing apples to oranges

    Like I said yesterday: this kind of shit happens far too often to people without money and means, whenever the “justice” system decides it wants to make a point, and it’s always outrageous when it does.

    For the system to railroad the son of a president in exactly the same way, however, elevates the situation from “outrageous” to “terrifying.”  This is the kind of thing that happens in unstable banana republics working their way to a coup, where the cops and courts don’t consider politicians legitimate unless they already agree with them and want to signal that as loudly as possible.  (Or New York City any of the times that the NYPD has doxxed a mayor’s children because the mayor wouldn’t respect their authoritah.  But I repeat myself).

    In a society where the rich and powerful were regularly scrutinized and punished, that might not be true.  Needless to say, we don’t live in that society.

  35. 35.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … Reuters.com:

    WILMINGTON, Delaware, Dec 2 (Reuters) – A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk still is not entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting to reinstate it.

    The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Court of Chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker.

    […]

    McCormick said Tesla’s board was not entitled to hit “reset” to restore Musk’s pay package.

    “Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable,” she said in her 101-page opinion.

    She also said Tesla made multiple material misstatements in its proxy statement regarding the vote, and could not claim the vote was a “cure-all” to justify restoring Musk’s pay.

    “Taken together,” the problems with Tesla’s arguments “pack a powerful punch,” she wrote.

    […]

    FAFO? [ womp, womp ]?

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    “Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable,

    Oh, how cute: she thinks there’s still such a thing as the law.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    Obama had the largest voter mandate in 30 years in 2008. Republicans met the week after he was elected and resolved to oppose him and all of his appointees and proposals. In 2010 Republicans won 6 Senate seats, 60+ House seats and half the governorships and state legislatures.

    Democrats should oppose, oppose, oppose. Trump and his low quality sleazy hires will fail and they shouldn’t want any part of that.

  39. 39.

    Ryan

    When people (Trump) tell you who they are, I mean, you’d be a fool not to believe them.  If I was Biden, I’d have pardoned someone the Republicans were gunning for from day one.  I’d probably even go further.

  41. 41.

    Tazj

    Joe Manchin calls on Biden to pardon Trump. I think this is the second or third time I’ve heard him say this by the way. Why just why? Isn’t he done, forever in politics? Is this some stupid appeal for unity? I know he’ll never go to jail but we have to pardon him too? GTFO

  42. 42.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    (Edit: I almost forgot: Fuuuucccckk Jared Polis.)

    Our glibertarian, techbro, fauxgressive governor deserves “fuck yoooos” for that and a wide variety of other reasons.

  46. 46.

    seefleur

    @rikyrah:

    I also would like to add my tiny two cents – fuck Jared Golden. As a Mainer, I am beyond disgusted that I HAD to vote for him in order to try to keep Austin Theriault out of the political sphere here in the 2nd District. Golden is the epitome of being a bland, slightly-less Republican who keeps Maine in the red. Golden is definitely a backstabbing weasel. (And as a former ferret owner, I truly regret having to make that comparison.)

  47. 47.

    geg6

    @different-church-lady:

    Nope, you got that all right.  So sick of this wimpiness on our side.  I don’t expect any better from the media, who are 99.9% the biggest cowards on earth.  But if you are nominally on my side, man up you fucking wimps.

  48. 48.

    Tazj

    @Chief Oshkosh: I’m hoping he has more up his sleeve that bothers all the right people. “Democrats in a firestorm over Biden’s pardon of his son.”
    Who are these Democrats? Dean Phillips, Michael Bennett, Jared Polis? If these are the people who are bothered he’s probably doing something right.

  49. 49.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Only slightly off topic, in the fuck category:

    there’s a book out, self published, on Amazon

    “ChrisTrump” the persecution if a man”

    cover has a big wooden cross, light streaming across from clouds, hanging on the cross a red tie.

    No words, swear words and exclamation points inadequate.

  51. 51.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @seefleur: Let him hear about it. Write him letters about how disappointed you are in his vote on the house bill that gives Trump power to declare all sorts of non-profits as terrorist organizations.

  54. 54.

    sab

    OT We had a big turkey and leftovers all landing with us. Being old we are not big eaters but still are overweight.

    On Turkey Day night I broke down the turkey carcass. Peeled off whatever could be sandwich meat and boiled the rest.

    You laugh. This should have been a holiday, but like all holidays there I was in the kitchen, salvaging food.

    OT Boil it on time it might be edible tomorrow.  Otherwise just waste.

    I kept a lot of too much food from being waste. I am 70 and I have done that since I was a tiny child until now. That is what responsible people do. I cannot believe this is even an issue.

  57. 57.

    FelonyGovt

    Josh Marshall posted something very apt on Bluesky about the pardon: “The pardon taps into the almost unfathomably deep ocean of “fuck you” Dems are feeling toward the gatekeepers of political discourse in the country.”

  58. 58.

    Martin

    @TBone: Yeah.

    Watching the republicanification of the commentariat here is kind of fascinating. Not sure where FYIGM is in the stages of grief. Curious what follows it.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @FelonyGovt:  WaPost reader commenters were not having any of Ruth Marcus’s column today.  We are sick of the moronic Villager quick takes.

    Reminds me:  where is Villago Delanda Este?  Know he/she is around sometimes, but absent too much for my liking.

  61. 61.

    different-church-lady

    @Martin:

    Watching the republicanification of the commentariat here…

    What the ever goddamned hell are you babbling about?

  62. 62.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I find it hilarious that Marci Wheeler (and Allison Gill) get routinely mocked for…checks notes…accurately acknowledging the numerous other factors that made the process of investigating and prosecuting Trump for Jan 6/MAL-documents, slower than we all hoped.  That’s it.  That’s what they do is remind people of pesky little details like the year it took to extract date/evidence off digital devices and the delays caused by Covid and Trump holdovers Mike Sherwin and Steven D’Antuono preventing JP Cooney from meeting with Garland to read him in on his investigation for three months, because they were trying to quash it.  And the 8 key witnesses in Garland’s case claiming executive privilege, so DoJ had to sue to force their testimony.  This fight – which Garland won, and without which there likely couldn’t be an indictment – took over a year.  For being honest about the numerous causes of delay and not simply putting sole blame on Garland, they get endlessly mocked.  This desperate need to pin everything on one person to vilify is pathetic and creepy AF.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    @tam1MI: I don’t hate Biden. But I think his early instinct to pass the baton was the correct one, and then he decided that only he could beat Trump and that was a mistake, to say the least. Honestly, I’ve been much less harsh in my criticism of Biden than Adam is. I don’t see anyone giving him shit.

    But we’ve long accused Republicans of looking out only for their own interests, and that’s kind of where we are right now. I’m not exempting myself from this, and I’m not suggesting that it’s some permanent shift in philosophy, more of a knee-jerk reaction to getting punched in the face that will pass.

    Nobody recognizes that ‘fuck those people, let them die without healthcare’ is not representative of how this community has approached politics, but has shown up pretty reliably the last couple of weeks? Yeah, anger is legit. No criticism. I’m with you. Looking forward to more constructive ideas in the future. Probably need to wait until 1/20 after which real things start happening to react to, rather than fears of what might happen.

  66. 66.

    BretH

    The pardon is precisely the sort of thing that might get disaffected and disillusioned Democrats back to the voting booth. More please.

  68. 68.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Elizabelle: i haven’t seen villago delenda est. not for several weeks.
    we’ll see if autocorrect allows my attempted spelling of their name.

  69. 69.

    marcopolo

    Just hoping that Biden & the folks around him ID all the people who need protection from a vindictive Trump DOJ & he pre-emptively pardons them as well: Fauci, Vindman, Smith, off the top of my head but there are others.  Hell, might even be time to pardon Leonard Peltier.

    Anyone else with suggestions?

  71. 71.

    tam1MI

    @Martin:Looking forward to more constructive ideas in the future. Probably need to wait until 1/20 after which real things start happening to react to, rather than fears of what might happen.

    On that, we can agree.  :)

  72. 72.

    YY_Sima Qian

    In normal times, Biden pardoning his son would not be a good look. But, these are not normal times, so I couldn’t care less, & the useless pearl clutches are focusing on the weeds again, as they are wont to do.

    I would like the Dems to be just as free of historical & no longer operative norms on much more weighty matters.

  73. 73.

    TurnItOffAndOnAgain

    @Martin:

    Nobody recognizes that ‘fuck those people, let them die without healthcare’ is not representative of how this community has approached politics, but has shown up pretty reliably the last couple of weeks? Yeah, anger is legit. No criticism. I’m with you. Looking forward to more constructive ideas in the future. Probably need to wait until 1/20 after which real things start happening to react to, rather than fears of what might happen.

    There’s the concept of triage. Or putting your mask on before you help other people with theirs. Or not letting a drowning victim make two from one.

    These people are literally killing others with their votes and if there’s no saving them no matter how we sell ourselves, then they’re a waste of resources.

    I’d even say that pointing out the direst consequences of these voters’ actions, as bluntly, nastily and bleakly as we can, should be part of our path forward. Because it might’ve been the kid gloves that were killing us with some of the unengaged.

  77. 77.

    Martin

    @different-church-lady: Your enemy isn’t republican voters, it’s the folks in power. It’s always the folks in power. They win when they divide us, and we shouldn’t be cheering that on. 

    But it might take a bit of time to get back to that. This one hurts.

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