W.J. Astore
Liberals at The Nation Applaud Joe Biden for Lying
At The Nation, Elie Mystal has an article, “Of Course Joe Biden Was Right to Pardon His Son.” Mystal’s argument, such as it is, asserts that Republicans are worse than Democrats when it comes to hypocrisy and persecuting their rivals, so Joe Biden was right to shield his son from their partisan efforts to persecute him. In a nutshell, the argument is that Trump’s done worse, plus Biden is a “loving father,” so that makes the pardon justifiable.
It’s a mind-boggling “argument,” which got me to write this short note to the editor:
That Joe Biden was right to pardon Hunter isn’t as questionable as the nature of the pardon given. The pardon is sweeping, covering 11 years, and open-ended, covering just about every conceivable federal crime. It’s likely no accident it begins in 2014, when Hunter started on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, where he “earned” $1 million a year. The sweeping nature of the pardon suggests that much is being swept under the rug here, especially Hunter’s dealings with Ukraine and China.
More than this, however, is President Biden’s integrity. Time and time again, Joe Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son under any circumstances. That he trusted the justice system and jury trials. Those assertions now stand revealed as lies.
In his article, Elie Mystal says it’s all about power here. Perhaps he should think about justice and integrity as well.
I can see Joe Biden pardoning Hunter for specific crimes (like firearm charges) that he believes are overdrawn, but an eleven-year blanket pardon that coincides with Hunter’s highly questionable actions in regards to Ukraine? After Biden had sworn, again and again, he was not going to pardon Hunter for anything?
That Elie Mystal, the Nation’s justice expert (!), can applaud Joe Biden here is truly sad. Come on. Claiming that “Trump worse” or that Biden’s a “loving father” is no excuse for anything.
Bracing Views 
You are right.
Mystal should have been fired years ago.
He’s created a niche for himself as a political hack with no moral compass.
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Bill–
Gadzooks. If a Harvard Law grad with real legal experience like Mr. Mystal thinks like this, well, hell, let’s just nuke Harvard. Or at least the law school. What might be worse is his (and the Nation’s) political agenda for putting this puff piece in the mag. Biden is just a rotting dead dog lying beside the road of American politics nowadays–what on earth is the political calculation of benefit for printing this? I just don’t understand.
Below find a recent send of mine that you might like.
Best–
Dan
First one is from Rob Campbell, courtesy of Moon of Alabama:
In an interviewhttps://t.me/Slavyangrad/114287, the once great Z complained that the West has equipped only 2.5 brigades with modern equipment instead of the promised 10 brigades. ‘Do you want them to die without your weapons?’, he asked. A cynic might say that they will die with or without Western weapons. Addressing those who have been calling for the mobilisation age to be lowered to 18, he said that this would be pointless unless the West can provide them with equipment.
An even bigger cynic would say that yes, we want your existing troops, plus your newly drafted 18-year olds, to die. Why else did we start this war for you?
Pepe Escobar’s latest makes me feel like I’ve fallen into some dreadful time sinkhole and am now in Europe in July of 1914.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/12/04/the-syria-riddle-how-it-may-turn-into-the-first-brics-war/
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Well said Mr. Astore. Biden is not and has never been a man of honor. The values bar has been set so low in some circles…we need to call it out at every opportunity.
Now let’s see how much more disgusting it gets as the rest of his pardons start rolling in…
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“God is on Trump’s side. God is not on the Democrats’ side and if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it is God’s will. Think ethnic cleansing but it’s anti-communist cleansing.”
William McCall Calhoun Jr.
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As Brazilian president, the thinly-veiled theocratic Evangelical Jair Bolsonaro had allowed the Amazonian rainforest to be razed by both meat farmers and wildfires. Incredibly, in the midst of yet another unprecedented wildfire three summers ago, the evangelical-Christian president declared that his presidency — and, I presume, all of the formidable environmental damage he inflicts while in power — is somehow divine:
“It is difficult to be president of Brazil because it is a president that has less authority. I am fulfilling a mission from God.” … Strangely enough though not surprising, early on Nov.6 Donald Trump stated: “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.”
Canada’s previous prime minister, the also thinly-veiled-theocratic Evangelical Stephen Harper, was similarly unrelenting in his pro-fossil-fuel/anti-natural-environment war against science. … There’s a generally shared bizarre belief amongst such ‘Christians’ that to defend the natural environment from the planet’s greatest polluters, notably big fossil fuel, is to go against God’s will and is therefore inherently evil.
Some even credit the bone-dry-vegetation areas uncontrollably burning in California each year to some divine wrath upon collective humankind’s ‘sinfulness’. … There’s a serious hazard in such theologically inclined people getting into and remaining in high office.
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“Missions from God”: such rhetoric is not only Bolsonara of Brazil Those who are in power or try to retain power will often resort to god-language to justify harming or killing opporents of their regimes. The British Unionist Protestants were infamous for their Ian Paisley types who used hell fire preaching. In Israel, as Geoffrey Sachs notes, the Smotrich and Ben Givre are willing to kill to remain in power.They are genocidal figures, like Netanyahu, who use biblical phrases to justify their murderous & religious zealotry.
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“Missions from God”: such rhetoric is not only Bolsonara of Brazil Those who are in power or try to retain power will often resort to god-language to justify harming or killing opporents of their regimes. The British Unionist Protestants were infamous for their Ian Paisley types who used hell fire preaching. In Israel, as Geoffrey Sachs notes, the Smotrich and Ben Givre are willing to kill to remain in power.They are genocidal figures, like Netanyahu, who use biblical phrases to justify their murderous & religious zealotry.
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“God is on Trump’s side. God is not on the Democrats’ side and if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it is God’s will. Think ethnic cleansing but it’s anti-communist cleansing.”
William McCall Calhoun Jr.
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Clearly, Donald Trump’s faithful followers who call themselves Christian need to do a major moral re-think as to which fundamental values taught and practiced by Jesus Christ they’re willing to uphold or ignore, personally though especially publicly. I mean the Biblical Jesus who would not have rolled his eyes and sighed: ‘Oh well, I’m against everything the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more some of what his political competition stands for’.
While there are many Christians who have rejected Donald Trump and his politics (though mostly quietly), regardless of his tempting conservative politics and pro-life professions, there nonetheless remains a vocal and politically active ‘Christian’ element celebrating Trump conservatism. Trump’s extensive disgraceful conduct appears to take a muted back seat to, perhaps most notably, his successful nominations of three conservative justices for the U.S. Supreme Court; and, from my understanding, he was strategically doing likewise with a number of lower courts.
Undoubtedly, too many adherents of institutional Christianity — those ‘Christians’ most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth — tend to insist upon creating their creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image; for example, proclaiming at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people.
Often being the most vocal, they make very bad examples of Christ’s fundamental message, especially to the young and impressionable. It could therefore be that many followers of such ‘Christianity’ find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s Creator.
Jesus fundamentally was about non-violence, genuine compassion and non-wealth. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard morbidly gratuitous wealth in the midst of poverty. He clearly would not tolerate the accumulation of tens of billions of dollars by individual people — especially while so many others go hungry and homeless.
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