This is all so horrible. I feel as if I 'm living in nightmare. How could so many Americans have voted for him after having seen what he did during his first term and rejected him? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me" He's our Quisling and these people go about their daily lives watching junk on TV, drinking beers & watching basketball and don't realize what is happening, or even care. He's delivering us up to Russia and China.(executive order reversing Supreme Court ruling on TikTok ban)
I remember asking how Germans could have idolized Hitler.. and now we Americans have Trump,a stupid, ignorant Hitler
I'm afraid for Ukraine but I'm also afraid for the U.S.A.
Snap Judith, feeling so depressed and furious at our Foreign Secretary praising Trump to the rafters while the Labour Party should be decrying Trump and all he stands for and getting the UK back in the EU, the day before yesterday! At least the London Mayor has the guts to call Trump what he is, a fascist.
There was a time, not so long ago, that I could watch the Blues Brothers movie and look at the Nazi movement depicted with a genuine smile. I guess history repeats itself with Trump and Musk, but never quite in the same way, which doesn't make it easier to understand. Ukraine is on its own now, with a little help from its European friends. Let's hope it will be enough to survive.
The Ukrainians need to make clear (in private) to the European leaders that they will not stop fighting as long as any Russian forces remain on their internationally recognized territory because they believe it is a war for their nation's existence. And if the fight goes badly for Ukraine, it will be a big problem for Europe too, because of millions of refugees and Russian troops on the borders of four EU members (plus Russian control of Moldova). The Ukrainians can also hint that if Ukraine has to fight without external support, the fight will quickly become a lot dirtier (sometimes literally - e.g. in the form of oil spills in European waters). So Europe has a decision to make.
I think they will if eventually Trump delivers an ultimatum and Ukraine rejects it. Right now the Europeans can still entertain hopes that somehow either Trump will actually end the war somehow, or the status quo will continue. But once there's a dramatic shakeup (i.e. the US officially ends any involvement and both Russia and Ukraine declare war until complete victory), the Europeans will have to deal with reality. Sure, they should have started two years ago, but better late than never.
I agree Andrew, the war will probably get even more dirty now. With a neutral or even towards Russia leaning USA the use of weapons of mass destruction will be more likely, especially by Russia which already has a history of using them. I don't think the EU will or could interfere. There's a lot of talking going on, with an emphasis on national defence. Supranationally, NATO is de facto a lame duck without the US. Perhaps only China stands in the way of a total war. Scary times.
Did any of the amusing Nazis in that film have any statues or portraits of Stephan Bandera in any of their scenes? That's been par for the course in the current comedy.
The authors repeatedly admit that any peace now will be temporary and Russia will attack Ukraine again. But somehow they assert that Ukraine will be able to repel it: "By letting Russia absorb the costs of territory that will never be productive again, Ukraine gains valuable time for using its resources toward rearming and building a capability that will overwhelm and repel a future Russian attack."
I just don't see how the correlation of forces won't shift dramatically in Russia's favor (and Russia won't attack again until it does!). For starters, in "peace"time Russia will be able to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet, potentially with dozens of submarines capable of launching missiles (and almost invulnerable to Ukrainian USVs). Russia will be able to build and improve roads and railroads along and behind the entire front from the Belorussian border to the Kinburn Split in Nikolayev Oblast. Russia will draw all sorts of lessons from the war experience. Perhaps Russia will build a lot of hardened and/or underground ammunition depots and oil storage facilities, as well as command posts. Russia will be able to store all sorts of supplies in Crimea. Etc. etc. etc.
Perhaps most importantly Russia will produce and import a huge number of missiles and drones. Now Russia occasionally attacks Ukraine (especially power grid) with 100 or so missiles and drones - after accumulating them for weeks. After several years Russia will be able to fire thousands of missiles and drones - and completely overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses (the main issue will be not the number of interceptors in storage but the number of launchers, as there will be no time to reload). So literally within an hour Russia may completely knock out Ukrainian power grid and perhaps even destroy a lot of air defense assets (especially in the second wave, after the current AD locations will be revealed in the response to the first wave). For that matter, with that number of missiles, Russia might as well hit all Ukrainian airbases at once, without even guessing where the dispersed Ukrainian F-16s might be. I mean, just crater ALL runways, and then F-16s can't fly. And if Ukrainian ability to defend against high altitude aircraft is degraded to the point where Russian bombers can just fly over Ukrainian positions and drop dumb bombs (of which they have huge amounts in storage), it's game over.
Over several years Russia will be able to train new troops, including VDV. Millions of Russian teenagers will reach military age, so there will be lots of fresh meat. In the meantime, many Ukrainian teenagers are now growing up abroad, and they may not be in a hurry to return if everybody knows there will be a new war soon. Many men currently inside Ukraine will surely leave once the borders are opened. If anything, Ukraine will have even worse manpower situation than now.
In fact all of this will be so obvious that I'm not actually sure there will even be another war. Ukraine may just preemptively surrender like Georgia did soon after the 2008 Russian invasion. So unless Ukraine is in a really bad shape right now (i.e. on the verge of collapse), pausing the war will only make things worse for Ukraine.
I don't see any problem with preemptive pardons for the Biden family. Republicans have been going after the "Biden crime family" not because there was any evidence of any actual crimes (other than Hunter breaking tax and gun laws - in ways that never resulted in criminal charges for anybody else) but because they wanted to get at Biden (and perhaps were engaging in projection since the "Trump crime family" has actually been a thing since at least the 1940's). Trump is petty and vindictive, and he might well go after Biden's elderly siblings. For crying out loud, he appointed the FBI Director with an "enemies list".
Now, Hunter surely did a lot of unsavory trading on his father's name, abused drugs and engaged in other scandalous behavior. But that's hardly unique. E.g. Prince Harry did all that, and on top of that he shirked his official duties (which are the whole rationale for the existence of royal family), while Hunter had none (and, of course, unlike the royals, he was not required to maintain decorum). And whatever Biden's siblings may have done, none of them behaved like Prince Andrew.
As far as abuse of people's last names is concerned, I personally am much more offended by legacy admissions at elite American universities. Not only some youngsters get highly sought admission slots that they don't actually merit, but their parents get an effective taxpayer subsidy for that, as they claim their alumni donations as charitable contributions even though they clearly receive huge benefits from them which is an automatic disqualification.
Normally we agree Andrew, but not on this. Its the US president saying he cant trust the US justice system, and as such, will pre-emptively protect family members who are innocent.
It's not necessarily that he does not trust the justice system in a sense that he's afraid of anybody getting convicted, but he does not want them to be harassed and having to spend a lot on lawyers before any judge even gets a chance to dismiss the whole thing. Kash Patel's FBI will have the power to make anybody's life miserable for quite a while. In effect Biden says he does not trust Kash Patel - or Republican Senators who will certainly confirm him. And he's right.
For that matter, depending on how exactly you define the justice system, it should NOT be trusted as currently organized. It is customary for each new US president to fire all US Attorneys and appoint new ones. But why?! We need to establish something similar to CPS. It's easy to see why the Constitution omitted this subject: there were hardly any federal crimes back then, But now that we have a huge number of them, charges should be brought by career prosecutors, not political appointees serving at the pleasure of the president. Imagine that you are a columnist, the president publicly asks, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome writer?", and somebody starts mailing or emailing threats - both actions are federal crimes. If the US Attorney refuses to charge the perpetrator, do you still have freedom of speech?
I don't question - I know that it was not. It is time to realize that the entire GOP now embraces both collusion with our existential enemy and mass violence as ways to attain and retain power. They do not need any "permission" from the Dems to do any of that. The Democrats need to stop bringing boxing gloves to a gunfight.
I agree. Increasingly it seems that laws are just words on paper that mean nothing - if no one will enforce them. What's to stop The Thing and his minions from pursuing anyone they choose, including those with 'pardons' - if no one challenges them successfully, they can do whatever they damn well please.
So all the talk of 'the Big Man' on Hunter's laptop wasn't going to turn up more nefarious actions? That the Bidens aren't blatant nonces isn't a defence at all and that's only if you ignore all the hair sniffing anyway and pretend that no one else of note ever went to Epstein island.
Biden's pre-emptive pardons are a very sinister and dangerous step. They normalise an act that hands Trump a perfect tool to deploy if and when he wants someone to do something illegal for him - he can just promise to pardon them later. Not a tool you'd want to hand over to someone if you really thought they were a fascist I'd have thought.
I'm hoping Trump's petty vindictiveness is stronger than his cowardice and he does take the lid off the FBI and the rest of the 3 letter agencies - you know, the ones who have been surveilling everyone, murdering people the world over with sky robots constructing globe-spanning torture networks, funnelling billions to Al Qaeda off-shoots and entrapping slow-witted US citizens in budget justifying fake terrorist and kidnapping plots. Although I suspect you're in favour of all of these things because Putin.
The House Republicans actually admitted that Joe Biden did not get a penny for his official acts. That's why they used formulations like "the Biden family and their business associates received $20 million". If Joe himself received even $20, they would just say so. And, of course, the addition of "associates" surely means that Biden relatives received an embarrassingly low amount that the Republicans would rather not mention.
Nothing hands Trump anything. He can - and WILL! - do whatever he wants anyway.
Indeed, Trump used pardons to buy silence. Manafort in particular knew much of what there was to know about any connections between Trump and Russia. Stone, too, could have cast light on conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in election interference.
Manafort was regularly meeting with a GRU officer and sharing secret campaign information with him (e.g. internal polls). Stone was involved in the successful effort to distract from Access Hollywood tapes by immediately releasing hacked Podesta emails.
'Official acts' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but that not withstanding, I'm never impressed with arguments that rely on bi-partisanship as their foundation. Of course the Senate & Congress GoP and Dems aren't going to make a bruhaha about Biden's common or garden corruption - they're neck deep in it themselves. That's why they went down the porn-star pay-off route - contrived and tenuous as that was, it's a crime that fewer of them are doing themselves. At least if you don't include the Clintons of course.
Really?! They tried really hard to charge Biden with corruption. Anyway, if you are alleging quid pro quo, can you actually name either quid or quo (let alone both)?
Yeah, silly me - Hunter was on the board of Burisma because of his years of Gas industry experience and actually didn't need the pre-emptive pardon at all.
What's more the IRS whistleblowers ruined their own careers for shiggles. That the incompetent GoP establishment grandstanded on this is dispositive of nothing at all.
He did not. Republicans haven't found anything on him at Burisma. And Hunter was the vice-chairman of Amtrak because of his years of railroad experience? George W. Bush appointed him solely because of that and without even realizing that his father just happened to be the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Later the folks at Burisma simply decided that what's good for US Government, is good enough for them.
Your cited story is full of lies. And so is the entire source. At a quick glance it looks like Russian propaganda.
As I pointed out to Andrew, that the Reps cant do something proves nothing. Not being able to do things is there MO. They're Republicans with their noses in the same troughs.
It's only a matter of time as the pain increases, as well as the blatant inequality his billionaire friends will get over the common person. Even nazi Germany had resistence movements
What next? Perhaps Trump meeting with Putin, going into a room alone with Putin and Putin's people -- again. He emerges once again with the swooning demeanor of a teenage girl who just got an exclusive audience with her favorite boy band. He announces the "peace deal" and swiftly moves to ease sanctions on Russia.
They were not any worse than I expected. As long as Trump does not actually share classified information about Ukraine with Putin, he will continue to exceed my expectations.
I don't know anymore. He sounds like his strong predator instincts MAY be kicking in as he smells Putin's weakness. Of course, that does not mean he'll do anything for Ukraine - he may just ask for the Wrangel Island in exchange for lifting sanctions. I did not pick it at random - the Tea Party (i.e. proto-Trumpist) Republican who defeated Lisa Murkowski in the Senate primary in 2010 (she then ran - and won! - as a write-in candidate) was claiming that the Wrangel Island was part of the Alaska purchase (and indeed it was at one point claimed by the US).
Because banning platfoms upon which your citizens are freely sharing their own material is vital for a nation to save itself. That US spooks can’t routinely censor and surveil the users is the one and only reason this was so important to them and their sponsors. This would never have happened had the platform not been the only one that showed what was really going on in the US enabled genocide in Gaza and that’s why they hated it.
Well done for noting the memecoin grift though – it’s gone under the radar in the mainstream press.
I would not be opposed to Tik Tok if the company did not have to hand over all data to the Chinese government. If it were a EUropean company, it should not be closed.
Indeed, and by the peerless nakedcapitalism - who also note the role this may play in Trump's interactions and relations with his tech-bro chums, most of whose assets are as tenuous as these crypto assets are. Trump is now, on paper, the 25th richest person on Earth and in Musk ballpark. Musk's Tesla shares are massively over-valued - maybe 12 times compared to similar car makers on an earnings per share basis. His wealth is in the hands of Trump & his tarrifs now. Especially after his last space rocket blew up. Interesting times.
It may be a different dimension where Nazis with Putin implants in their brain have taken over the US government, but I distinctly did not get that impression yesterday or today. I note that Yahoo News has a report today that foreign aid is paused for 90 days with the exception of Ukraine…..from the Ukrainians: Andrii Kovalenko, the counter-disinformation chief at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, clarified on Jan. 21 that the order does not impact Washington's military support for Ukraine. As of now, the US remains as neutral to Ukraine as France was in the American Revolution.
The more I think about it, the lawless TikTok executive order notwithstanding, Trump's most ominous - by far - action on his first day was the pardons. Just consider the upsides and downsides.
Trump's approval is already lower than his disapproval, quite unusually for newly sworn in presidents. And it will surely drop after these unpopular pardons (even a large number of Republican voters don't like them). The GOP has just a three vote margin in the House, and it will drop to two once his UN Ambassador is confirmed. So it will be extremely difficult for Trump to pass his agenda. He'll need some Dem support, and he has just made it politically harder for Dems to provide it. For that matter, I'm sure that a lot of Republicans are unhappy as now they are going to be asked about the pardons. They'd rather everybody forgot about January 6 (and in some districts Republicans will now have to defend themselves on law and order issues). And for Trump himself it is never good when January 6 is back in the news (for this reason I did not think he would go after Liz Cheney even without her pardon). There's no support for pardons outside hardcore Trump base. And even inside the base it's not a very exciting issue - I'm not aware of any demonstrations on the single issue of support for "J6 hostages".
Furthermore, while Trump promised action on Day 1, he promised others too. But he did not impose tariffs and did not end war in Ukraine. So why keep this particular promise, and in such sweeping manner, not case by case, but an almost blanket pardon? After all, he could have issued just some pardons to people convicted of misdemeanors and sentenced only to fines or probation, and promise further action in the coming days. But no, he pardoned those who injured cops and is releasing even those sentenced to 18 and 22 years. Why?!
The only rational explanation I can find is that Trump plans (or at least does not rule out) future political violence. That's why it was important to issue pardons within hours. He wants the Proud Boys to stand by again. We must stop just assuming that Trump will leave in four years. We can't take that for granted. Just what exactly happens when Trump files for ballot access in various states? State officials refuse because of the 22nd Amendment? Well, they tried that because of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court said they could not because the Congress did not pass a law specifically banning that. Did the Congress ever bother to pass a law specifically banning states from putting two term presidents on the ballot again? Nope. And now people know that if the use violence on behalf of Trump, they will be pardoned.
As I replied to a different comment, who says 'pardons' mean anything? A law -whether statute or constitution - has teeth only if someone will enforce it. We've seen how toothless many of our laws are, so why should the pardon law be any different? If no one 'enforces' these pardons - whether Biden's or Trump's - there's nothing to prevent all pardoned criminals being investigated and prosecuted anew however the executive pleases and orders the DoJ to so do.
Two words: double jeopardy. Not only any judge will throw the case out with extreme prejudice, but the prosecutors bringing it risk sanctions from the judge. For that matter, they can also be sued for malicious prosecution.
Since all norms regarding presidential pardons have apparently been cast aside, what's to prevent Trump from simply issuing a blanket pardon to all Americans who use or do business with TikTok? Even if this or any other executive order gets successfully challenged in the courts, it seems that a sufficiently unprincipled President can remove the teeth from any law he or she doesn't like by preemptively pardoning those who break it. It's time for a Constitutional amendment to do away with the Presidential pardon.
Are you sure you can be pardoned for future crimes you have not yet committed? For example, every instance someone usesTikTok in the future. In this context, isn't a pardon only useful for future prosecutions of crimes already committed? He simply needs to instruct the DoJ not to prosecute anyone using TikTok.
I'm not a Constitutional expert, but I'm guessing you can't issue a preemptive pardon. Though even just preemptively announcing that you'll issue a pardon later if need be would tend to sap the authority of the judicial branch, and like you say, instructing the DoJ not to prosecute would be another expedient to achieve much the same thing (an end-run around the judiciary that seems harder to block with legislation). Maybe the only solution is to avoid electing presidents who are willing to abuse their power? But if Trump gets away with these shenanigans, we might find it hard to put the genie back into the bottle.
I don't think corporations can be pardoned. The issue is that Google and Apple are required by law to remove TikTok from their app stores. Non-compliance can be very costly in the future. They can't even trust Trump's promise not to punish them. He can later tell them that he will impose huge fines on them unless Apple TV and YouTube each pay $40 million (or more) to Melania for showing a documentary about her (like Amazon just did). Or he can demand other favors.
Jack Goldsmith & Bob Bauer (two highly respected legal scholars and presidential law scholars (see, e.g., their book "After Trump") on the almost certain illegality of the TikTok EO:
"At or near the top of the list of highly dubious orders—and an order particularly likely to attract the Supreme Court’s attention—is the one delaying the implementation of the TikTok ban. Congress wrote the ban in clear terms, and the Supreme Court upheld its validity. The law contains one clear workaround for “qualified divestitures,” but ByteDance is not now interested and Trump did not invoke that. Rather, in his order delaying the ban, Trump stated that because the law “interferes with [his] ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the Act’s prohibitions before they take effect,” he was ordering his Attorney General not to enforce it. This is a preposterous rationale. President Biden and large majorities in Congress assessed the national security implications and implemented the ban, which was in full effect before Trump became president. The Constitution confers no presidential national security discretion to decline to enforce validly enacted laws. " [from https://executivefunctions.substack.com/p/the-risks-in-trumps-barrage-of-executive ]
This is all so horrible. I feel as if I 'm living in nightmare. How could so many Americans have voted for him after having seen what he did during his first term and rejected him? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me" He's our Quisling and these people go about their daily lives watching junk on TV, drinking beers & watching basketball and don't realize what is happening, or even care. He's delivering us up to Russia and China.(executive order reversing Supreme Court ruling on TikTok ban)
I remember asking how Germans could have idolized Hitler.. and now we Americans have Trump,a stupid, ignorant Hitler
I'm afraid for Ukraine but I'm also afraid for the U.S.A.
At least Ukraine wants to save itself
Snap Judith, feeling so depressed and furious at our Foreign Secretary praising Trump to the rafters while the Labour Party should be decrying Trump and all he stands for and getting the UK back in the EU, the day before yesterday! At least the London Mayor has the guts to call Trump what he is, a fascist.
There was a time, not so long ago, that I could watch the Blues Brothers movie and look at the Nazi movement depicted with a genuine smile. I guess history repeats itself with Trump and Musk, but never quite in the same way, which doesn't make it easier to understand. Ukraine is on its own now, with a little help from its European friends. Let's hope it will be enough to survive.
Well US aid is done for now--Its up to Europe
The Ukrainians need to make clear (in private) to the European leaders that they will not stop fighting as long as any Russian forces remain on their internationally recognized territory because they believe it is a war for their nation's existence. And if the fight goes badly for Ukraine, it will be a big problem for Europe too, because of millions of refugees and Russian troops on the borders of four EU members (plus Russian control of Moldova). The Ukrainians can also hint that if Ukraine has to fight without external support, the fight will quickly become a lot dirtier (sometimes literally - e.g. in the form of oil spills in European waters). So Europe has a decision to make.
I think they are Andrew--at least partly. Though not clear all of Europe is listening
I think they will if eventually Trump delivers an ultimatum and Ukraine rejects it. Right now the Europeans can still entertain hopes that somehow either Trump will actually end the war somehow, or the status quo will continue. But once there's a dramatic shakeup (i.e. the US officially ends any involvement and both Russia and Ukraine declare war until complete victory), the Europeans will have to deal with reality. Sure, they should have started two years ago, but better late than never.
I agree Andrew, the war will probably get even more dirty now. With a neutral or even towards Russia leaning USA the use of weapons of mass destruction will be more likely, especially by Russia which already has a history of using them. I don't think the EU will or could interfere. There's a lot of talking going on, with an emphasis on national defence. Supranationally, NATO is de facto a lame duck without the US. Perhaps only China stands in the way of a total war. Scary times.
The question is, is Europe u0 for it?
I hope for Ukraines sake that a coalition forms and backs them with unconditional backing to help them win.
Did any of the amusing Nazis in that film have any statues or portraits of Stephan Bandera in any of their scenes? That's been par for the course in the current comedy.
I recently saw a truly bizarre open letter to Kellogg: https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/12/29/an-open-letter-to-special-envoy-for-ukraine-and-russia-general-keith-kellogg-the-strategic-realities-of-the-war-in-ukraine/
The authors repeatedly admit that any peace now will be temporary and Russia will attack Ukraine again. But somehow they assert that Ukraine will be able to repel it: "By letting Russia absorb the costs of territory that will never be productive again, Ukraine gains valuable time for using its resources toward rearming and building a capability that will overwhelm and repel a future Russian attack."
I just don't see how the correlation of forces won't shift dramatically in Russia's favor (and Russia won't attack again until it does!). For starters, in "peace"time Russia will be able to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet, potentially with dozens of submarines capable of launching missiles (and almost invulnerable to Ukrainian USVs). Russia will be able to build and improve roads and railroads along and behind the entire front from the Belorussian border to the Kinburn Split in Nikolayev Oblast. Russia will draw all sorts of lessons from the war experience. Perhaps Russia will build a lot of hardened and/or underground ammunition depots and oil storage facilities, as well as command posts. Russia will be able to store all sorts of supplies in Crimea. Etc. etc. etc.
Perhaps most importantly Russia will produce and import a huge number of missiles and drones. Now Russia occasionally attacks Ukraine (especially power grid) with 100 or so missiles and drones - after accumulating them for weeks. After several years Russia will be able to fire thousands of missiles and drones - and completely overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses (the main issue will be not the number of interceptors in storage but the number of launchers, as there will be no time to reload). So literally within an hour Russia may completely knock out Ukrainian power grid and perhaps even destroy a lot of air defense assets (especially in the second wave, after the current AD locations will be revealed in the response to the first wave). For that matter, with that number of missiles, Russia might as well hit all Ukrainian airbases at once, without even guessing where the dispersed Ukrainian F-16s might be. I mean, just crater ALL runways, and then F-16s can't fly. And if Ukrainian ability to defend against high altitude aircraft is degraded to the point where Russian bombers can just fly over Ukrainian positions and drop dumb bombs (of which they have huge amounts in storage), it's game over.
Over several years Russia will be able to train new troops, including VDV. Millions of Russian teenagers will reach military age, so there will be lots of fresh meat. In the meantime, many Ukrainian teenagers are now growing up abroad, and they may not be in a hurry to return if everybody knows there will be a new war soon. Many men currently inside Ukraine will surely leave once the borders are opened. If anything, Ukraine will have even worse manpower situation than now.
In fact all of this will be so obvious that I'm not actually sure there will even be another war. Ukraine may just preemptively surrender like Georgia did soon after the 2008 Russian invasion. So unless Ukraine is in a really bad shape right now (i.e. on the verge of collapse), pausing the war will only make things worse for Ukraine.
Another real worry is that with Trump washing his hands, China is willing to be far more supportive of Russia. They wont worry about any US response,
This is a risk. But the European nations may junk US and bend the knee to China in return for stopping Russian incursions.
I don't see any problem with preemptive pardons for the Biden family. Republicans have been going after the "Biden crime family" not because there was any evidence of any actual crimes (other than Hunter breaking tax and gun laws - in ways that never resulted in criminal charges for anybody else) but because they wanted to get at Biden (and perhaps were engaging in projection since the "Trump crime family" has actually been a thing since at least the 1940's). Trump is petty and vindictive, and he might well go after Biden's elderly siblings. For crying out loud, he appointed the FBI Director with an "enemies list".
Now, Hunter surely did a lot of unsavory trading on his father's name, abused drugs and engaged in other scandalous behavior. But that's hardly unique. E.g. Prince Harry did all that, and on top of that he shirked his official duties (which are the whole rationale for the existence of royal family), while Hunter had none (and, of course, unlike the royals, he was not required to maintain decorum). And whatever Biden's siblings may have done, none of them behaved like Prince Andrew.
As far as abuse of people's last names is concerned, I personally am much more offended by legacy admissions at elite American universities. Not only some youngsters get highly sought admission slots that they don't actually merit, but their parents get an effective taxpayer subsidy for that, as they claim their alumni donations as charitable contributions even though they clearly receive huge benefits from them which is an automatic disqualification.
Normally we agree Andrew, but not on this. Its the US president saying he cant trust the US justice system, and as such, will pre-emptively protect family members who are innocent.
It's not necessarily that he does not trust the justice system in a sense that he's afraid of anybody getting convicted, but he does not want them to be harassed and having to spend a lot on lawyers before any judge even gets a chance to dismiss the whole thing. Kash Patel's FBI will have the power to make anybody's life miserable for quite a while. In effect Biden says he does not trust Kash Patel - or Republican Senators who will certainly confirm him. And he's right.
For that matter, depending on how exactly you define the justice system, it should NOT be trusted as currently organized. It is customary for each new US president to fire all US Attorneys and appoint new ones. But why?! We need to establish something similar to CPS. It's easy to see why the Constitution omitted this subject: there were hardly any federal crimes back then, But now that we have a huge number of them, charges should be brought by career prosecutors, not political appointees serving at the pleasure of the president. Imagine that you are a columnist, the president publicly asks, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome writer?", and somebody starts mailing or emailing threats - both actions are federal crimes. If the US Attorney refuses to charge the perpetrator, do you still have freedom of speech?
The prosecution of Hunter Biden was selective and unjust. It was manipulated politically and used disinformation from a Russian agent. Here is a starting point for the facts of the Hunter Biden case. https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/01/03/leo-wise-buries-bill-barr-with-six-year-sentencing-recommendation/
You're right to question whether such a pardon is corrupt. It was no more corrupt than pardoning Anthony Fauci, which is to say, not corrupt at all.
I don't question - I know that it was not. It is time to realize that the entire GOP now embraces both collusion with our existential enemy and mass violence as ways to attain and retain power. They do not need any "permission" from the Dems to do any of that. The Democrats need to stop bringing boxing gloves to a gunfight.
I agree. Increasingly it seems that laws are just words on paper that mean nothing - if no one will enforce them. What's to stop The Thing and his minions from pursuing anyone they choose, including those with 'pardons' - if no one challenges them successfully, they can do whatever they damn well please.
Well said and bang on!!!
So all the talk of 'the Big Man' on Hunter's laptop wasn't going to turn up more nefarious actions? That the Bidens aren't blatant nonces isn't a defence at all and that's only if you ignore all the hair sniffing anyway and pretend that no one else of note ever went to Epstein island.
Biden's pre-emptive pardons are a very sinister and dangerous step. They normalise an act that hands Trump a perfect tool to deploy if and when he wants someone to do something illegal for him - he can just promise to pardon them later. Not a tool you'd want to hand over to someone if you really thought they were a fascist I'd have thought.
I'm hoping Trump's petty vindictiveness is stronger than his cowardice and he does take the lid off the FBI and the rest of the 3 letter agencies - you know, the ones who have been surveilling everyone, murdering people the world over with sky robots constructing globe-spanning torture networks, funnelling billions to Al Qaeda off-shoots and entrapping slow-witted US citizens in budget justifying fake terrorist and kidnapping plots. Although I suspect you're in favour of all of these things because Putin.
The House Republicans actually admitted that Joe Biden did not get a penny for his official acts. That's why they used formulations like "the Biden family and their business associates received $20 million". If Joe himself received even $20, they would just say so. And, of course, the addition of "associates" surely means that Biden relatives received an embarrassingly low amount that the Republicans would rather not mention.
Nothing hands Trump anything. He can - and WILL! - do whatever he wants anyway.
I’d say already did last time: pardoned Flynn, Brannon, Manafort, Stone. Who am forgetting?
Indeed, Trump used pardons to buy silence. Manafort in particular knew much of what there was to know about any connections between Trump and Russia. Stone, too, could have cast light on conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in election interference.
Manafort was regularly meeting with a GRU officer and sharing secret campaign information with him (e.g. internal polls). Stone was involved in the successful effort to distract from Access Hollywood tapes by immediately releasing hacked Podesta emails.
'Official acts' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but that not withstanding, I'm never impressed with arguments that rely on bi-partisanship as their foundation. Of course the Senate & Congress GoP and Dems aren't going to make a bruhaha about Biden's common or garden corruption - they're neck deep in it themselves. That's why they went down the porn-star pay-off route - contrived and tenuous as that was, it's a crime that fewer of them are doing themselves. At least if you don't include the Clintons of course.
Really?! They tried really hard to charge Biden with corruption. Anyway, if you are alleging quid pro quo, can you actually name either quid or quo (let alone both)?
Yeah, silly me - Hunter was on the board of Burisma because of his years of Gas industry experience and actually didn't need the pre-emptive pardon at all.
What's more the IRS whistleblowers ruined their own careers for shiggles. That the incompetent GoP establishment grandstanded on this is dispositive of nothing at all.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/09/24/weve-been-on-the-burisma-story-since-2014/
He did not. Republicans haven't found anything on him at Burisma. And Hunter was the vice-chairman of Amtrak because of his years of railroad experience? George W. Bush appointed him solely because of that and without even realizing that his father just happened to be the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Later the folks at Burisma simply decided that what's good for US Government, is good enough for them.
Your cited story is full of lies. And so is the entire source. At a quick glance it looks like Russian propaganda.
Biden's "corruption"? Lazy assertions without evidence. As Andrew writes, the Rethuglicans tried and tried to find something and failed.
As I pointed out to Andrew, that the Reps cant do something proves nothing. Not being able to do things is there MO. They're Republicans with their noses in the same troughs.
🙄🙄🙄
Sheer Lunacy mixed with paranoia
The second civil war commences.
That assumes enough people are willing to actually fight Trump
It's only a matter of time as the pain increases, as well as the blatant inequality his billionaire friends will get over the common person. Even nazi Germany had resistence movements
That is not a joke. We are rapidly approaching this.
Trump is prepared - he's getting his brownshirts out of prison as we speak. We haven't seen the last of Proud Boys.
What next? Perhaps Trump meeting with Putin, going into a room alone with Putin and Putin's people -- again. He emerges once again with the swooning demeanor of a teenage girl who just got an exclusive audience with her favorite boy band. He announces the "peace deal" and swiftly moves to ease sanctions on Russia.
As I wrote this weekend--watch the sanctions closely. They will reveal alot.
Thanks to the complicit Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity, we reap the whirlwind.
There will be come tests of that in the next 4 years--for sure
4 days
Phillips, you left on one country that has continued to receive unlimited support from the US - ISRAEL.
Will Trump cut off all aid here as well?
Hmmmm.
Im sure he wont--another sign that this specific comment was directed at Ukraine
Thanks Phillips. Depressing and sadly, I expect, accurate assessment.
I often err towards pessimism--but the statements on Ukraine aid seem to me to be obvious
They were not any worse than I expected. As long as Trump does not actually share classified information about Ukraine with Putin, he will continue to exceed my expectations.
You know he will.
I don't know anymore. He sounds like his strong predator instincts MAY be kicking in as he smells Putin's weakness. Of course, that does not mean he'll do anything for Ukraine - he may just ask for the Wrangel Island in exchange for lifting sanctions. I did not pick it at random - the Tea Party (i.e. proto-Trumpist) Republican who defeated Lisa Murkowski in the Senate primary in 2010 (she then ran - and won! - as a write-in candidate) was claiming that the Wrangel Island was part of the Alaska purchase (and indeed it was at one point claimed by the US).
Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-wins-harris-loses.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Though hes not who all of us are.
That was my thought on election night. It CAN happen here.
Because banning platfoms upon which your citizens are freely sharing their own material is vital for a nation to save itself. That US spooks can’t routinely censor and surveil the users is the one and only reason this was so important to them and their sponsors. This would never have happened had the platform not been the only one that showed what was really going on in the US enabled genocide in Gaza and that’s why they hated it.
Well done for noting the memecoin grift though – it’s gone under the radar in the mainstream press.
I would not be opposed to Tik Tok if the company did not have to hand over all data to the Chinese government. If it were a EUropean company, it should not be closed.
With so many TikTokers fleeing to RedNote, they've already guaranteed the Chinese government gets all their data anyway. It's whack-a-mole.
The clear route to bribery and breach of the emoluments clause has been identified by Axios:-
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-20-2025?r=2nzz7&utm_medium=ios
Indeed, and by the peerless nakedcapitalism - who also note the role this may play in Trump's interactions and relations with his tech-bro chums, most of whose assets are as tenuous as these crypto assets are. Trump is now, on paper, the 25th richest person on Earth and in Musk ballpark. Musk's Tesla shares are massively over-valued - maybe 12 times compared to similar car makers on an earnings per share basis. His wealth is in the hands of Trump & his tarrifs now. Especially after his last space rocket blew up. Interesting times.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/01/trump-shreds-emoluments-clause-with-new-memecoin-while-norms-fairy-weeps-and-melania-joins-the-fun.html
It may be a different dimension where Nazis with Putin implants in their brain have taken over the US government, but I distinctly did not get that impression yesterday or today. I note that Yahoo News has a report today that foreign aid is paused for 90 days with the exception of Ukraine…..from the Ukrainians: Andrii Kovalenko, the counter-disinformation chief at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, clarified on Jan. 21 that the order does not impact Washington's military support for Ukraine. As of now, the US remains as neutral to Ukraine as France was in the American Revolution.
thats not true, The US has approved no new aid to Ukraine--and Trump has asked for none. From where do you expect this US aid to come?
The more I think about it, the lawless TikTok executive order notwithstanding, Trump's most ominous - by far - action on his first day was the pardons. Just consider the upsides and downsides.
Trump's approval is already lower than his disapproval, quite unusually for newly sworn in presidents. And it will surely drop after these unpopular pardons (even a large number of Republican voters don't like them). The GOP has just a three vote margin in the House, and it will drop to two once his UN Ambassador is confirmed. So it will be extremely difficult for Trump to pass his agenda. He'll need some Dem support, and he has just made it politically harder for Dems to provide it. For that matter, I'm sure that a lot of Republicans are unhappy as now they are going to be asked about the pardons. They'd rather everybody forgot about January 6 (and in some districts Republicans will now have to defend themselves on law and order issues). And for Trump himself it is never good when January 6 is back in the news (for this reason I did not think he would go after Liz Cheney even without her pardon). There's no support for pardons outside hardcore Trump base. And even inside the base it's not a very exciting issue - I'm not aware of any demonstrations on the single issue of support for "J6 hostages".
Furthermore, while Trump promised action on Day 1, he promised others too. But he did not impose tariffs and did not end war in Ukraine. So why keep this particular promise, and in such sweeping manner, not case by case, but an almost blanket pardon? After all, he could have issued just some pardons to people convicted of misdemeanors and sentenced only to fines or probation, and promise further action in the coming days. But no, he pardoned those who injured cops and is releasing even those sentenced to 18 and 22 years. Why?!
The only rational explanation I can find is that Trump plans (or at least does not rule out) future political violence. That's why it was important to issue pardons within hours. He wants the Proud Boys to stand by again. We must stop just assuming that Trump will leave in four years. We can't take that for granted. Just what exactly happens when Trump files for ballot access in various states? State officials refuse because of the 22nd Amendment? Well, they tried that because of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court said they could not because the Congress did not pass a law specifically banning that. Did the Congress ever bother to pass a law specifically banning states from putting two term presidents on the ballot again? Nope. And now people know that if the use violence on behalf of Trump, they will be pardoned.
As I replied to a different comment, who says 'pardons' mean anything? A law -whether statute or constitution - has teeth only if someone will enforce it. We've seen how toothless many of our laws are, so why should the pardon law be any different? If no one 'enforces' these pardons - whether Biden's or Trump's - there's nothing to prevent all pardoned criminals being investigated and prosecuted anew however the executive pleases and orders the DoJ to so do.
Two words: double jeopardy. Not only any judge will throw the case out with extreme prejudice, but the prosecutors bringing it risk sanctions from the judge. For that matter, they can also be sued for malicious prosecution.
Since all norms regarding presidential pardons have apparently been cast aside, what's to prevent Trump from simply issuing a blanket pardon to all Americans who use or do business with TikTok? Even if this or any other executive order gets successfully challenged in the courts, it seems that a sufficiently unprincipled President can remove the teeth from any law he or she doesn't like by preemptively pardoning those who break it. It's time for a Constitutional amendment to do away with the Presidential pardon.
Are you sure you can be pardoned for future crimes you have not yet committed? For example, every instance someone usesTikTok in the future. In this context, isn't a pardon only useful for future prosecutions of crimes already committed? He simply needs to instruct the DoJ not to prosecute anyone using TikTok.
I'm not a Constitutional expert, but I'm guessing you can't issue a preemptive pardon. Though even just preemptively announcing that you'll issue a pardon later if need be would tend to sap the authority of the judicial branch, and like you say, instructing the DoJ not to prosecute would be another expedient to achieve much the same thing (an end-run around the judiciary that seems harder to block with legislation). Maybe the only solution is to avoid electing presidents who are willing to abuse their power? But if Trump gets away with these shenanigans, we might find it hard to put the genie back into the bottle.
I don't think corporations can be pardoned. The issue is that Google and Apple are required by law to remove TikTok from their app stores. Non-compliance can be very costly in the future. They can't even trust Trump's promise not to punish them. He can later tell them that he will impose huge fines on them unless Apple TV and YouTube each pay $40 million (or more) to Melania for showing a documentary about her (like Amazon just did). Or he can demand other favors.
Gary Kasparov: "As I've warned, it's not what's hidden that destroys the democratic system, but what's done in the open".
Jack Goldsmith & Bob Bauer (two highly respected legal scholars and presidential law scholars (see, e.g., their book "After Trump") on the almost certain illegality of the TikTok EO:
"At or near the top of the list of highly dubious orders—and an order particularly likely to attract the Supreme Court’s attention—is the one delaying the implementation of the TikTok ban. Congress wrote the ban in clear terms, and the Supreme Court upheld its validity. The law contains one clear workaround for “qualified divestitures,” but ByteDance is not now interested and Trump did not invoke that. Rather, in his order delaying the ban, Trump stated that because the law “interferes with [his] ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the Act’s prohibitions before they take effect,” he was ordering his Attorney General not to enforce it. This is a preposterous rationale. President Biden and large majorities in Congress assessed the national security implications and implemented the ban, which was in full effect before Trump became president. The Constitution confers no presidential national security discretion to decline to enforce validly enacted laws. " [from https://executivefunctions.substack.com/p/the-risks-in-trumps-barrage-of-executive ]