President Biden has said he won’t pardon his son Hunter.
It’s time to reconsider that pronouncement.
Hunter was convicted for crimes that should have been settled with a plea deal.
Politico says, as does almost everyone, that anyone with a different name would not have been prosecuted. The charges would have been settled out of court. But Republicans, especially Trump allies, were determined to crush the president’s son.
He was convicted of tax evasion and registering for a gun without admitting he was using illegal drugs. He pled guilty to all charges in Delaware and California. He will be sentenced in those states in mid-December and faces the possibility of many years in prison.
After going through a long period of addiction and extravagant spending, he seems to have finally got his life together. He is no longer using drugs. He has paid back his tax debts.
His life was destroyed both by his own actions and by the vendetta of Republicans. They wanted to humiliate him as a way of getting at his father. If his name was Hunter Jones, instead of Biden, he would not be facing serious jail time.
He should be sentenced to community service, not prison.
Joe Biden should pardon his son, and ignore the howls of MAGA. The MAGA crowd wants blood, public flogging, and the scourging of anyone named Biden.
Mr. President, ignore the mob.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane: Nicely written.
. . . Republicans never got over the earlier election–sorest losers in history. I wish them luck with their new political scenario named: “No More Adults in the Room,” and “Speaking from Under the Bus.” CBK
LikeLike
Here’s the irony
Trump is a sore loser and a sore winner
LikeLike
Diane: good point. I have great sympathy for him . . . if you cannot be happy when you lose, and you cannot be happy when you win, guess what. . . you cannot be happy, . . . (as long as winning and losing is your only basis for living). CBK
LikeLike
Angela Merkel says in her new book that with Trump, everything is a competition, and he has to win every time. In his small brain, not winning is losing. Collaboration is not in his vocabulary.
LikeLike
Seems his whole purpose is to create chaos and sow discontent.
Nice guys finish last. In the Rat Race. Nice guys don’t even enter. Painful to watch the anger and backstabbing from the sidelines, though.
LikeLike
gitapik: . . . also, Bannon and the Trump group totally misrepresent the idea of “disruption.”
They should read Kuhn about the structure of scientific revolutions.
It’s not for the purpose of “destruction,” but rather for what one philosopher refers to as a metaphysical view of “being on a dynamic, upwardly directed dynamism.”
It’s about the dynamism of the creative process in history . . . to go with or deliberately employ elements of dynamic transformation with a momentary “disruption” that inherently seeks a new interrelation and integration just to repeat the cycle UPWARD again, with new questions and insights. It’s what science does.
It’s not a spiral downward so that nothing is left but ruins, disorder, and death, stood over by a Jackbooted tyrant. I’ve never seen so many missing links. It’s a club: Trump and his Missing Links. Join up and purchase a guitar. CBK
LikeLike
I certainly would if I were him.
LikeLike
Pardon … as you remarked, the sentence was a political action on Joe through Hunter …and when the Donald is sentenced you’ll offer condolences
LikeLike
Only if he also pardons the millions wasting away in prison for much lower crimes as a result of his crime bills that he likes to brag about.
LikeLike
Are they his sons too?
LikeLike
Don’t worry dienne77…..trump will empty all the private prisons so that he can use them to house all the illegal aliens being rounded up for deportation. All those lower level and released criminals will be free to do as they please in the big cities…..with pared down police forces due to the “Defund the Police” policies.
You need to think ahead instead of trying to live in some utopian dream world.
LikeLike
These were victimless crimes. Were they Wrong? Correct?
He’s suffered Consequences – Biden’s family and son have suffered public abuse, watching son’s world crash, 24/7 media public scrutiny, subject of every brown-shirt rally.
Trump. Capitol. Invitations and dog whistles and wink/nod coded speech. Violence. DESTRUCTION OF OUR NATION’S CAPITOL and scared the hell out of thousands of employees. You know – LIKE A SCHOOL LOCKDOWN WITH REAL SHOOTERS.
Did not heed warnings and please from family and others to tell them to go home. PEOPLE DIED, TRUMP LIED.
Those “lower crimes” are mostly STATE and LOCAL and drug charges of which he has no control.
Have you no compassion?
LikeLike
President Biden should rip a page from Traitor Trump’s project 2025 and declare martial law, using the military to keep Trump and his Christian Nationalist fascist Ku Klux Klan MAGA cult out of the White House and as far from the federal government as possible.
Trump and his allies are also allies with Putin. That makes them foreign and domestic enemies to the US Constitution once Trump moves back into the White House.
President Biden and everyone in the military took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against those enemies.
Maybe Biden will make that move after New Year, so the holidays are not interrupted by a shooting civil war. Maybe he won’t.
The deadline for President Biden to act and save the United States is before January 20, 2025.
LikeLike
So Biden should destroy the Constitution to save the Constitution?
LikeLike
Ummmm…..Yeah!
LikeLike
Threatened Out West: Can Biden destroy the Constitution if he follows his oath to protect it, on principle? Anyway, the Supremes gave him immunity too until the 20th? And he IS still the Commander in Chief of the military who are also sworn, not to protect Biden, but the U.S. Constitution. In this case, the two are in tune with one another.
It’s oligarchs and tyrants against civility and the U.S. Constitution. Read Snyder–he gives us the roadmap about what’s going to transpire with Trump and his cronies. The choices are pretty clear and, from my seat in history, it seems to me it won’t be long until “the people” realize what’s going on that they do not like. CBK
LikeLike
Oh Lloyd, if only. It would probably cause a civil war & pretty much destroy the country, but it will probably be destroyed anyway once the Trump Oligarchs & Kleptocrats take over completely. So, pick your poison!
LikeLike
Biden should use his executive immunity granted by the Orange Turd’s Supreme Court to protect our nation from itself.
First step, Pardon Hunter.
Second step, arrest the Turd and his puppet handlers for violations of the Logan Act which are causing international chaos this week.
Third, appoint 3 new members to the Supreme Court.
LikeLike
And, Biden said he would not pardon his son while he was campaigning.
I hope he pardons him, short and specific. No explanation that will get picked apart a thousand ways and all the “yeh, whaddabout…” rebuttals.
Biden’s career has many “no precedent” aspects to it.
History is going to get this all right in a few decades. And a whole lot of people having to explain to their families how in the world they voted for trump.
LikeLike
Agreed. History will look on Biden with respect despite the fact he was often handed a lot of disrespect during his term.
LikeLike
And in Missouri: The far right has already lost any critical power they have–they complain and yell about EVERYTHING and EVERYONE who is not Trumpy. They are going to scream to high heaven REGARDLESS. It’s how they keep the intimidation and fear going strong. CBK
LikeLike
It’s true, & why not. That’s one benefit of being an outgoing president when the other side won. The R’s created an enemy with nothing to lose.
LikeLike
Lenny: Purely airy speculating here; but Trump himself has set the stage–even if Biden were a transformed tyrant (which he would not be), it’s Trump’s own playbook. What would he and Bannon and the two Steves, etc., do–scream “liar” and “unfair”? or maybe “wrecker of the U.S. Constitution”? CBK
LikeLike
@Catherine King Seems likely!
LikeLike
Yes!
LikeLike
Hear, hear!!!
LikeLike
He should also order the FBI to do thorough background checks on all of Trump’s cabinet nominees. He has the legal authority to do this. Trump won’t…
LikeLike
Two things: the crimes Hunter was convicted of pale in comparison to the ones he wasn’t. Second, if Trump was pardoning his son for the exact same crimes, you and your I’ll would be losing your minds over it.
LikeLike