American Politics

[EihTooms]

This one behavior alone should be enough to eliminate drug addict Hegseth as a nominee for any responsible position in any line of work:

Drunken Trump nominee caught on stage with strippers.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/12/...strippers.html

President-elect Donald Trumps pick to lead the Department of Defense reportedly had to step down from a pair of nonprofit veterans groups he headed after workers filed allegations of mismanagement and sexual misconduct.

The New Yorker reports Pete Hegseth was forced out of Concerned Veterans for America, which he worked as president of from 2013 until 2016, after a whistle-blower report that includes an anecdote of him being held back from trying to dance on a stage with strippers.

Most men, heterosexual men that is, on sites like this hate these assholes who get up on stage and wiggle around like the strippers and gogo girls, thinking it is so funny.

Fewer things are more erection-deflating to witness in a strip club or gogo bar. For heterosexual men, that is.

Trump apparently likes it enough to put him in charge of handling and fondling all the big guns bought with American tax dollars.

[EihTooms]

George W. Bush (1st term), Bill Clinton (1st and 2nd terms), Richard Nixon (1st term) and JFK got a smaller % of the popular vote than Trump in 2024. And Biden, George W. Bush (1st and 2nd terms), Jimmy Carter, Nixon (1st term) and Kennedy got fewer electoral votes. Trump of course got both a smaller % of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes in 2024 than 2016.

Kennedy / Nixon and Bush / Gore were tight squeakers, although admittedly neither was a 2nd term election. Trump / Harris was not. Trump won by 86 electoral votes and 2. 3 million popular votes.

What was the percentage point gap in the states that put those 2nd term presidential runs at or over 270? If a shift of significantly LESS than 0. 09 point of the total votes, factoring in the shift in those states, where we are with Trump now, would have flipped the outcome, then, yeah they were more of a 2nd term squeaker win than Trump's 2nd term contest won in 2024.

I'll let you do the research and math on that. But this time it would be helpful if you at least included a link, a screenshot, showing your math, something, anything rather than just, you know, saying it.

Either way, I am impressed that Trump is at least enough of an effective con man that he has convinced anyone that both of his contests combined that netted hundreds of thousands fewer votes than his opposition were "landslides" and "mandates. ".

[Tiny 12]

And it is definitely the tightest squeaker for a 2nd term presidential election run as far back as accurate records are kept for such things.

George W. Bush (1st term), Bill Clinton (1st and 2nd terms), Richard Nixon (1st term) and JFK got a smaller % of the popular vote than Trump in 2024. And Biden, George W. Bush (1st and 2nd terms), Jimmy Carter, Nixon (1st term) and Kennedy got fewer electoral votes. Trump of course got both a smaller % of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes in 2024 than 2016.

Kennedy / Nixon and Bush / Gore were tight squeakers, although admittedly neither was a 2nd term election. Trump / Harris was not. Trump won by 86 electoral votes and 2. 3 million popular votes.

[Asian Steve 22]

Normally, a pardon like this would throw me into a long and pointless rant, but after Trump publicly announced his intention to go after his enemies, I don't think Biden had a choice. Anyone would do the same.

He literally said he would consider pardoning biden. He didn't threaten biden other than call for an investigation on him. Which of you're innocent, that's not a serious threat. I bet your tone would be totally different if trump gave donald Jr immunity for anything that went on with the trump organization. But rant on.

[Tiny 12]

(...kkkk!) For all your fake bluster, we all know, this is not the first, second or third time you've committed this infraction, and no doubt probably, won't be the last time you'll commit such acts.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), admin stepped in and removed those infractions.

LOL. The Administrator removed them so you can't find them.

I suggested to the Administrator that he or she delete the post where I inserted my comment in parentheses into your quote, as you requested. But not for the reason you cited. Rather the topic of conversation violated or was on the edge of violating the forum rule prohibiting discussion of sex with m*****. You may wish to familiarize yourself with that, as you seem intent on returning to the topic.

http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/...eid=ForumRules

Both of our posts were deleted, not just mine.

PVMonger and I also had a couple of posts deleted, for reasons I don't remember. Also a comment I made in a Bangkok report years ago about the size of my penis was deleted because I made a reference which I thought was very complementary to a certain group of people. The administrator however apparently didn't agree.

Those are the only instances I remember of my posts being deleted or modified.

[Elvis 2008]

(...kkkk!) Yes, Greenberg did way more shit and I'm surprise he didn't get more years in jail, but hey, what the hell, do you expect from a corrupt, soft on sexual misconduct crimes, from a partisan Repub Florida AG and DA office.

Let's face it, Greenburg fell on the grenade and turned out to be a great fall guy, and it was most lucky for Gaetz. Having committed the same sexual misconduct crime as Greenburg, with the same 17 yr old girl, still has the potential to see justice, if an uncorrupted Florida AG or DA, decides to lay charges, this time, and go after Gaetz.

And the lies continue. https://www.americanthinker.com/arti...ithdrawal.html.

Greenberg told Barr's DOJ he could implicate Gaetz in exchange for leniency, and the present investigation into Gaetz was opened.

Gaetz's father Don was then approached by "former" DOJ attorneys and told they could make his problems go away if he gave $25 million to fund the rescue of American hostage Bob Levinson from Iran. Bob Kent would lead the rescue mission, and the payment would appear to be for a service, rather than a bribe to prosecutors.

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska was targeted with the same scheme, down to the dollar, according to Gaetz, and he wasn't the first. Newsweek suggests that the Levinson ransoms had become a running joke at the FBI.

The drift of it is that there's a history of Gaetz sending money to women he had relationships with, some or all of the time through Greenberg, some or all of whom were introduced to him by Greenberg. Gaetz transferred funds to two of them using Venmo when he was single, and one said she saw him with a minor.

Venmo transaction records with the two adult women are shown, and the low-attention-span reader is led to believe that this shows Gaetz paying (and sleeping with) the minor, since one of them talked about a minor.

They say they were hooking, Gaetz says they were his girlfriends, and there's nothing in the memos to indicate who's telling the truth (nor would Greenberg's pictures and videos). Gaetz's money being sent to the same women repeatedly over time suggests a long-term relationship, but the women say they were prostitutes.

Apparently there were four more women interviewed, and one of them claims she and Gaetz had relations when she was a minor. But she "reportedly" represented herself as an adult to Greenberg (on a website), who then introduced her to Gaetz.

The woman on the Venmo records who claimed she saw Gaetz with a minor also said he didn't know it and that when he found out, he stopped until she turned 18. What I'the like to know, if it isn't all completely made up, is whether she's the same girl Greenberg made a government-quality fake ID for. He told the court he made one for a 17-year-old Gaetz slept with. Did they use it to fool Gaetz into sleeping with a minor? Because that's how it sounds.

Greenberg fabricated state IDs for numerous "young women," but we're not told how young or for what purpose. Why did he hold thousands of self-incriminating records for years after? Was he running an entrapment operation?

Brownstoning is where you have the traditional honeypot, you may have a Congressman enticed to sleep with a female. What they do then is to try and get you in bed with an underage girl, telling you she's only 20. And then they videotape that, then you are theirs.

End of link. And now you have a pretty good reason why Trump won. The deep state owns the Bidens and with their honey pot scams and working deals with scum bags like Greenberg who try to entrap members of Congress, the deep state owns Congress as well. The American people now have no one who represents their interests, and the only person with the balls to take on the deep state has been Donald Trump.

Only a Democratic douche like yourself could equate Gaetz with Greenberg and think the DOJ was pure as the driven snow. If you are in this hobby and do not have sympathy for Gaetz, you are a fucking hypocrite.

[Elvis 2008]

Don't be so naive Elvis. Do you really think people are going to pay six figures for a Hunter original when his father's not President of the United States?

Tiny, I was being sarcastic. Hunter has one buyer for most of his art work. During the trial, the prosecution tried to call as a witness the buyer. Are you ready for the funny part? The CIA would not let the prosecution do that. So in essence, the CIA was buying Hunter's art work. That is how bad the swamp is. Hunter no longer had to take bribes from Ukraine and China. He could take them from the CIA.

Of course, that is now gone.

Joe Biden probably carved himself out a $100 or 200 million dollar golden parachute for stepping down, so he no longer needs Hunter or rather Jill no longer needs Hunter to take bribes for Joe.

The funny part about Xpartan's post is that he thinks Trump is going to go after Hunter like Hunter is clean now. If that mother fucker Hunter is not in jail in five years, I would be shocked, Trump or no Trump. He is a psychopath, a deviant, and an addict who was used and abused by his father. It is actually kind of sad. I probably would have ended up just like Hunter if Joe Biden were my father.

[Spidy]

Greenberg did way more than the sexual charge.

(...kkkk!) Yes, Greenberg did way more shit and I'm surprise he didn't get more years in jail, but hey, what the hell do you expect, from a corrupt, soft on sexual misconduct crimes, from a partisan Repub Florida AG and DA office, that hands out pitiful plea deals and a "slap on the wrist", to pedos and sex traffickers like Matt Gaetz and Jeffery Epstein.

Woman testified that she saw Matt Gaetz having sex with 17-year-old, attorney says
https://whyy.org/articles/matt-gaetz...d-allegations/

Let's face it, Greenburg fell on the grenade and turned out to be a great fall guy, and it was most lucky for Gaetz. Having committed the same sexual misconduct crime as Greenburg, with the same 17 yr old girl, still has the potential to see justice, if an uncorrupted Florida AG or DA, decides to lay charges, this time, and go after Gaetz. And I look forward to seeing Gaetz defend himself the same way Greenburg did, with similar incarceration results, no doubt.

Matt Gaetz controversy: What to know about sexual misconduct allegations as he withdraws...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2650653.html

History will forever show, disgraced Matt Gaetz's exit as a pedo, right up there, with the shame, the likes of Roy Moore. But like I said, give it time, I'm sure he'll be back running for Repubs for office. As it seems, Repubs committing sexual misconduct, no matter how egregious, is now apparently more of a qualification than a disqualification. (...kkkk!)

But sure enough, the infamy of Gaetz, will live on with his morally challenged, MAGA Tiny 12 and Elvis 2008, defenders and sympathizers.

[Spidy]

I have never modified anyone's quote except to (1) shorten it, (2) insert my comment or "sic" in parentheses, and (3) substitute asterisks for words that are vulgar or describe behavior better not discussed on this board. If you can find any other type of modification I've made, please post it.

With regard to "2", I would use brackets instead of parentheses, but the system doesn't allow it.

"Very fraudulent and very disturbing"? You take this way too seriously.

(...kkkk!) For all your fake bluster, we all know, this is not the first, second or third time you've committed this infraction, and no doubt probably, won't be the last time you'll commit such acts.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), admin stepped in and removed those infractions.

[Xpartan]

Explain to me why Trump would go after a demented Joe Biden.

Oh Elvis, where do I even begin! Maybe Trump lovers shouldn't call other people "demented". That's laughable.

OK, OK, I already digress, my apologies.

Here's the explanation you requested.

1. Because Trump HIMSELF SAYS that he intends to put his enemies to prison. Or do you mean that because TRUMP hasn't mentioned Hunter by name, he must be safe?

2. Because Trump is the most thin-skinned elderly man-child in the Universe.

3. Because his attempts to dig dirt on Hunter date to his first WH occupancy. That's not just politicking--it's obsession.

4. Because he's picked a devout loyalist to head his DOJ. He wouldn't even have to bark jump, she knows what the master wants.

As for Hunter, only a Democratic douche would believe that he has been rehabbed. You mean you believed that bullshit about the Secret Service not knowing whose cocaine was in the White House? LOL.

Yep, it is all smooth sailing for Hunter now. No way he is going to back to fucking underage women, snorting cocaine, lying his ass off, taking bribes, or fucking around with guns. He has a great job now as a legitimate artist. Man, the stupid shit you dumb Democratic douches believe amazes me.

I have no idea if Hunter can kick his habit or not. I further have no idea what Secret Service knew or didn't know about cocaine at the WH.

Furthermore, your "underage girls fucking" claim is libelous. There is no proof or evidence that ever happened, and the origins of this libel lead to QAnon and now defunct Infowars.

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...hunter-biden-a

What I do know is that Trump attempted to make an alleged human trafficker and statutory rapist the United States Attorney General. So where is your indignation at Matt Gaetz and your LAS? And doesn't your lack of said indignation--especially combined with your vitriol toward Hunter Biden--make you a clear-cut hypocrite?

Biden was completely within his right to protect his son from vicious and personally motivated prosecution. Like I said, Trump changes everything. Although I blame his brainless followers more.

[Tiny 12]

He has a great job now as a legitimate artist.

Don't be so naive Elvis. Do you really think people are going to pay six figures for a Hunter original when his father's not President of the United States?

[EihTooms]

Seriously, can we even call it as "big" as a Pink Tinkle this time?

Single House race stands between Republicans and 1-seat majority.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/single-ho...184601872.html

House Republicans could begin the new year grappling with a one-seat majority, a perilously slim margin for the 119th Congress as President-elect Donald Trump guns for an active first 100 days.

Meanwhile, the lazy AP Vote Tracker apparently just gave up days ago and left it at their misleading and outright inaccurate "rounding up" to 50.0% in the vote count for Trump while the Cook Political Report Vote Tracker has at least bothered to continue counting and now has Trump at even LESS of a Plurality today than he had 2-3 days ago, at 49.82% (See screenshot below).

https://www.cookpolitical.com/vote-t...ctoral-college

Which, when the final count in the only three states that mattered and decided the winner is in, will likely show a shift of LESS than 0. 09 point of the total vote, that relative handful of angry, Netanyahu-hating Muslims who "gave Trump the presidency" but who now realize that was a really dumb thing to do, are the sole force behind and reason for Trump and his Repubs' self-proclaimed "landslide" and "mandate."

So, to recap: At this point the Repubs did indeed get the 3 Senate seat advantage that just about everyone predicted would happen in this particularly Repub-advantaged Senate race year, while the Trump vs Harris and Repub vs Dem House Majority races came down to a coin-flip that looks closer to a coin landing on its edge than any time in many decades.

And it is definitely the tightest squeaker for a 2nd term presidential election run as far back as accurate records are kept for such things.

[Elvis 2008]

Normally, a pardon like this would throw me into a long and pointless rant, but after Trump publicly announced his intention to go after his enemies, I don't think Biden had a choice. Anyone would do the same.

Explain to me why Trump would go after a demented Joe Biden.

As for Hunter, only a Democratic douche would believe that he has been rehabbed. You mean you believed that bullshit about the Secret Service not knowing whose cocaine was in the White House? LOL.

Yep, it is all smooth sailing for Hunter now. No way he is going to back to fucking underage women, snorting cocaine, lying his ass off, taking bribes, or fucking around with guns. He has a great job now as a legitimate artist. Man, the stupid shit you dumb Democratic douches believe amazes me.

[MarquisdeSade1]

A future without ISG Cucks for Harris.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...on-tied-hands/

Between baby butchering and now this trend the future of the USA is looking up!!

[MarquisdeSade1]

Normally, a pardon like this would throw me into a long and pointless rant, but after Trump publicly announced his intention to go after his enemies, I don't think Biden had a choice. Anyone would do the same.

Douthat: The other issue is that the scope of the pardon extends well beyond the specific gun and tax charges, immunizing the junior Biden from potential charges dating all the way back to just before he joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. The sympathetic take is that this was necessary to protect Hunter from frivolous prosecutions by the Trump Department of Justice. The more skeptical take is that the president is casting a blanket of protection over potential sordid dealings we may not even know about, in which members of the wider family as well as Hunter might be implicated. At the very least, it creates an appearance of more potential corruption than just helping his son avoid jail time for charges unrelated to his business dealings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/o...en-pardon.html

Columnists on Why Biden's Pardon Reeks of Privilege.

Dec. 3, 2024,1:00 am ET.

A picture of President Joe Biden wearing a suit with his hand across his chest.

Credit. Photo illustration by The New York Times; source photograph by Kevin Lamarque / Reuters.

Share full article.

21.

Ross DouthatDavid French.

By Ross Douthat and David French.

Mr. Douthat and Mr. French are Opinion columnists. Mr. Douthat is also a host of the podcast "Matter of Opinion.

Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Ross Douthat and David French about President Biden's decision to issue a broad pardon to his son Hunter Biden.

Patrick Healy: Ross and David, you both have written extensively about the rule of law and presidential power. You both have a good sense of what American voters care about. And you both are fathers. So I'm curious what struck you most about President Biden's statement that he was pardoning his son Hunter Biden.

David French: As a father, I think it would be very, very hard to watch your son go to prison — especially if you have the power to set him free. I can't imagine the pain of watching Hunter's long battle with substance abuse and then watching his conviction in court. But in his role as president, Biden's primary responsibility is to the country and the Constitution, not his family.

As president, this pardon represents a profound failure. Biden was dishonest — he told us that he wouldn't pardon Hunter — and this use of the pardon power reeks of the kind of royal privilege that is antithetical to America's republican values.

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Healy: Biden's decision to rule out the pardon while running for re-election was an enormous misjudgment. At the same time, David — Hunter Biden didn't harm anyone, and pardons go to people with connections all the time now. I want to understand your umbrage on behalf of "the country and the Constitution" a bit better.

French: When Biden issued the pardon, my first thought was "here we go again. " It's exactly this kind of self-dealing and favoritism that has created such cynicism in this country, and the fact that pardon abuse is almost routine at this point isn't a defense of Biden. It's an indictment of a political class that helped lay the groundwork for Donald Trump — a much worse figure, by the way, but one that did not arise in an otherwise-healthy moment in American democracy.

Ross Douthat: I think it's important to stress that Biden always kept Hunter close, within the larger aura of his own power, in ways that likely helped his son trade on his dad's name even as his own life was completely out of control. This pardon is a continuation or completion of that closeness: It's a moral failure, as David says, a dereliction, but one that's of a piece with the president's larger inability to create a sustained separation between his own position and his troubled son's lifestyle and business dealings and place in the family's inner circle. A clearer separation would have been better not just for the president and the country, but also for Hunter himself — even if he's benefiting from it now, at the last.

Healy: Ross, Hunter Biden should absolutely be held accountable for his actions — that's something that 12-step programs make clear to addicts, in fact: Their addiction is no excuse for breaking the law, for instance. But it seems like you are conflating Biden's legitimate powers as president with how you think he should have regarded his son in office.

Douthat: I'm not saying that Biden's pardon of Hunter is categorically worse than prior presidents' use of the power to help out cronies and donors and the like. But most people regarded, say, Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich as scandalous even though it fell within the ambit of legitimate presidential powers, and this case is scandalous as well. Whether it's more corrupt to help a relative than a party donor or donor's spouse is an interesting subject for debate about the nature of political ethics, but I don't think we need to resolve that question. We can just say that (1) past presidents have used the pardon power in legal but disreputable ways and (2) pardoning your son is also quite disreputable even if it is constitutional as well.

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Healy: Trump has indicated he would pardon Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whose actions I'the argue were more disreputable and dangerous to the Republic than what Hunter Biden did. So I'm curious how you see pardons in light of the rule of law in this country. Does President Biden's pardon conflict with or undermine the rule of law?

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French: While the pardon is legal and a president's pardon power is quite broad, the rule of law isn't maintained by merely keeping to the letter of the law. The founders didn't give presidents the pardon power to be deployed as a favor to friends and family. In fact, during the constitutional ratification debate in Virginia, James Madison said, "If the president be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. ".

So, yes, abuse of the pardon power is serious. Biden's inability to separate his personal feelings as a father from his moral and constitutional obligations as a president might be understandable on a human basis, but it's indefensible as a moral and political matter. The fact that Trump has pledged to do worse is not a defense of Biden.

Douthat: The other issue is that the scope of the pardon extends well beyond the specific gun and tax charges, immunizing the junior Biden from potential charges dating all the way back to just before he joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. The sympathetic take is that this was necessary to protect Hunter from frivolous prosecutions by the Trump Department of Justice. The more skeptical take is that the president is casting a blanket of protection over potential sordid dealings we may not even know about, in which members of the wider family as well as Hunter might be implicated. At the very least, it creates an appearance of more potential corruption than just helping his son avoid jail time for charges unrelated to his business dealings.

Healy: To your point, Ross, Hunter Biden wanted sweeping immunity from prosecution when he was trying to get a plea deal. He didn't get it from the Justice Department — but he just got it from his father. That's pretty ugly politics by the Bidens. Ross, is Biden's pardon more stupid politically than it is wrong?

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Douthat: The pardon power has certainly been used by presidents of both parties for seamy or self-dealing or disreputable-seeming purposes before. So in that sense, you could argue that this case stands out more for the political message it sends — undermining the Democratic Party's claims to represent the rule of law as against an incoming president who regards himself as a victim of legal persecution and has promised to persecute his enemies right back. And further undermining, one might add, the reputation of a president whose competence to execute the larger responsibilities of his office has been for many months very much in doubt.

French: The pardon is far more wrong than it is politically stupid. Give Trump five minutes, and he'll say or do something that knocks this pardon off the front page. People will forget the pardon soon enough. But the nation needs integrity, and Biden's dishonesty contributes to the sense that there isn't really that much difference between Trump and his opponents.

When you talk to Trump voters, they'll often share the conviction that Trump isn't really all that different from other politicians. He's just more blunt and direct about his goals and objectives, while his opponents act the same way Trump acts, but they conceal their corruption in high-minded rhetoric. This pardon fits that narrative perfectly.

Douthat: What one might say in Biden's quasi-defense is that while his pardon confirms a general mood of cynicism, that mood is so deeply entrenched that it's not likely to be deepened that much further by one more act of self-dealing by an already-unpopular president.

But maybe the more sophisticated reading is the one offered by the writer Noah Millman, who argues that the pardon reflects Biden's own deep cynicism about the condition of America, and his own participation in the country's larger disillusioned mood. The president has talked a good game about his deep belief in the resilience of American democracy, but maybe he really thinks that a country that would re-elect Donald Trump is actually too far gone to be much helped, and so he might as well choose familism over patriotism and do his best to just look out for his own. He's like Benicio Del Toro's character in the movie "Sicario," telling a more upright and innocent F. Be. I. Agent, "This is the land of wolves now" — except his audience is all the voters who were naïve enough to believe him when he promised not to issue this pardon.

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French: As Ross said, there is a long history of pardon abuse in the United States, and very few voters give it a moment's thought. To amplify Ross's point above about cynicism, to the extent that voters pay attention, it merely confirms their priors. They expect politicians to act like this.

But it's the decisions that leaders make when voters aren't focused on the issue that define their integrity. We're learning how much America has run on an honor system — that, as John Adams argued, our human vices can "break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. " When presidents choose self-interest over the public interest, the law doesn't always provide an answer.

Perhaps it should, however. We've seen enough pardon abuse that it's past time to revoke this particular presidential privilege. I'the love to see a constitutional amendment that further strips presidents of any vestiges of royal prerogatives. That means limiting the scope of the pardon power, and it means limiting presidential immunity from prosecution.

Healy: Listening to Biden over the years, you get the sense he thinks he knows Trump better than most, that he knows how Trump uses power. So on that level, doesn't the pardon make sense — that Biden knows Trump and the Republicans would likely keep targeting the Biden family and in particular Hunter Biden for disparate treatment in the years ahead, and the pardon power was the only available means of justice, as it were, against Trumpist attacks on Hunter Biden?

Douthat: Well, here the president himself can expect a certain degree of protection from the recent Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity, which I suspect was written as much with an eye to protecting Biden from Trump-directed prosecutions (or protecting the presidency itself from an endless cycle of prosecutions) as with the goal of protecting Trump against the charges he has faced and may face in the future. Obviously that protection doesn't extend to Hunter, and yes, I think the fear of a widened investigation into Hunter's past and the Biden family business dealings was part of the thinking, part of the self-justication involved. Though I have my doubts as to whether Hunter would have actually been a special target for even a revenge-seeking Trump, since the president-elect seems much more focused on his avenging (or at least avoiding a reprise of) his own first-term experience with the Department of Justice and the F. Be. I. Than with going after his vanquished Democratic opponents.

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French: There was a way for Biden to protect Hunter from politically targeted prosecutions. He could have protected Hunter from prosecution for any other crimes, while leaving the gun and tax convictions intact. In both those cases, there is no credible argument that either of those prosecutions was substantively or procedurally flawed.

Even a selective, prospective pardon could be problematic, but it's far more defensible than pardoning him for crimes that he's already been convicted of.

Healy: As we discussed at the start, you are both fathers. To borrow an earlier point of Ross's, I wonder if we are at such a wolves-are-at-the-door moment in politics that Biden's decision, as a father protecting his son, is a logical one, as well as one that a lot of people would understand. Now, that may not make it right. But would you pardon your child if you had that power and he or she was being targeted for partisan political attack that might go beyond the bounds of traditional fair treatment under the law? Was this a father's justifiable recourse?

French: I completely understand the fear of political prosecution in a second Trump term. He's vowed vengeance, after all, and he's long been obsessed with Hunter's business dealings overseas. But I just don't see the evidence that Hunter's prosecutions went beyond the bounds of traditional fair treatment.

It is true that some of these charges are rarely prosecuted, but it's also true that Hunter threw down the gauntlet to law enforcement by essentially confessing to a federal crime in his memoir. He's the one who effectively told the public he committed a crime. In fact, prosecutors played excerpts from his memoir to the jury. He wrote about his life for profit, and he has no cause to complain when it is used against him in court.

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Douthat: I agree with David, you can extend Biden a certain sympathy — as a father, of course you tend to give your son the benefit of the doubt — while still recognizing that objectively he's pardoning a guilty man, and for all we know enabling further issues or disasters for Hunter down the line.

Though I also suspect that for Biden it's not just the sense of paternal obligation at work here. It's also the sense of betrayal he doubtless still feels at being denied a chance to run for a second term by his own party, and then watching that same party stumble to defeat. In other words, it's not just Trump's Department of Justice that he's thinking about while issuing this pardon; it's also a Democratic Party that in his view knifed him politically, and to no purpose in the end. And when a man feels betrayed by his allies (not just threatened by his rivals), it's especially unsurprising that he would revert to the most basic human code: Look out for your own.