Welcome to a holiday Monday, January 20, 2025. It’s Martin Luther King Day, and I always put up a clip of his “I have a dream” speech of August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, D.C. 250,000 people were there to hear him. It is the best piece of rhetoric of our era, and no doubt contributed to the civil rights laws of the ensuing years. Please listen to it (the sound is a bit out of synch with the visuals).
Oh, it’s also Inauguration Day; Trump becomes President. Ceiling Cat help us, every one. The Inauguration, scheduled to take place indoors because of the cold, will be at noon. Ceiling Cat give us the strength to stand the madness of the next four years, and to get the Democratic house in order.
It’s also National Coffee Bean Day, National Buttercrunch Day, and Penguin Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 20 Wikipedia page.
Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle today honoring Martin Luther King Day (click on picture to see what it links to:
Finally, it’s Bill Maher’s 69th birthday, and reader Rick sent one of his quotes:
Maybe every other American movie shouldn’t be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
-Bill Maher, comedian, actor, and writer (b. 20 Jan 1956)
Da Nooz:
*The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel began today, with three Israeli hostages released in return for 90 Palestinians, many of them convicted terrorists. To me, this is the beginning of the end of a war that Israel lost. I am of course delighted that the families got their relatives and loved ones back (though many families will just get bodies), but the disproportionality of the exchange, the demand that Israel flood their enemies with humanitarian aid (Hamas will get the lion’s share), and the fact that Hamas remains in control of Gaza are dispiriting. From the NYT: (archived here):
Three hostages were released from Gaza on Sunday and reunited with family members in Israel, the Israeli military said, as a long-awaited cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect. The truce prompted celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office identified the freed hostages as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher. They were captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that set off the war. Israel was expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, later on Sunday in exchange for the hostages.
As the truce took effect on Sunday morning, joyful Palestinians honked car horns and blasted music in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, where celebratory gunfire rang out and children ran around in the streets.
And as Israeli officers said their forces had begun to withdraw from parts of Gaza, including two towns north of Gaza City, Hamas sought to signal that it was still standing and moving to reassert control, with masked gunmen parading through cities. The Hamas-run police force in Gaza, whose uniformed officers had all but disappeared from the streets to avoid Israeli attacks, said that it was deploying personnel across the territory to “preserve security and order,” according to the government media office.
Achieving the agreement on a delicate, multistage cease-fire required months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The start of an initial, six-week phase on Sunday was delayed by almost three hours, with Israel saying it had not formally received the names of the first three hostages to be released.
See this video with Einat Wilf, who should be Israel’s Prime Minister (thanks to a reader who posted this earliers but I can’t find it). I am not sure the war is really over, and hope that if it is, Hamas won’t be in charge of Gaza, but those two aims seem incompatible. I will just watch and wait, and hope that there are not a lot of dead hostages.
Here’s a video report on the hostage release, as well as a show of force by Hamas. One hostage appears to have lost two fingers, but the hugs and reunions make me tear up.
*Tik Tok was pretty much silenced in the U.S. yesterday, as the government didn’t want a Chinese company collecting information on American users, but Trump has decided to walk back that decision.
President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order on Monday to reinstate TikTok in the U.S. and that he wants the country to have an ownership position in the app.
Trump’s comments on Truth Social come after TikTok went dark in the U.S., erasing the popular app for its American users in an unprecedented move.
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump wrote Sunday. He said the order would extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that the administration can make a deal to protect our national security.
Trump said the order would “also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.” TikTok was seeking such an assurance from the Biden administration.
The president-elect said he wants the U.S. to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture, although he didn’t provide further details about how such a joint venture would be structured. “By doing this, we save TikTok,” he wrote.
The app started halting service Saturday night for 170 million users in its most important market shortly before a law took effect requiring it to shed its Chinese ownership or close in the U.S. It marked the first time the U.S. government has compelled the closure of such a widely used app, and disrupted millions of American businesses and social-media entrepreneurs who use TikTok to connect with customers and fans.
I can see the point of not allowing a quasi-enemy country collect information on Americans, so I wasn’t opposed to the darkening of Tik Tok. But if a foreign company owns, say 49% or 50% of the company, are they not allowed to get any information on users?
*All of us in Chicago have been warned multiple times about impending deportations of local immigrants as mandated by Trump. While I think he would enact all these deportations if he had the power, I have been skeptical about them for two reasons: Trump has made multiple promises (i.e., threats) before, as in the 2016 election, that he never followed through on. Second, to enact the kind of immigration changes he wants he would surely need Congressional approval, and that is not coming from the Senate, which, though controlled narrowly by the GOP, does not have enough Republicans to stop a filibuster. And indeed, the Chicago threats seem to have been dialed back:
“We’re looking at this leak and will make a decision based on this leak,” Homan said. “It’s unfortunate because anyone leaking law enforcement operations puts officers at greater risk.”
ICE has been planning a large operation in the Chicago area for next week that would start after Inauguration Day and would bring in additional officers to ramp up arrests, according to two current federal officials and a former official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal law enforcement planning.
Homan said he did not know why Chicago “became a focus of attention” and said the incoming administration’s enforcement goals are much broader than one city.
“ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one,” he said. “We’ll be arresting people across the country, uninhibited by any prior administration guidelines. Why Chicago was mentioned specifically, I don’t know.”
“This is nationwide thing,” he added. “We’re not sweeping neighborhoods. We have a targeted enforcement plan.”
I don’t believe that the “day one” arrests will occur, either. But one thing is for sure: if the Democrats want to get some governmental power back and start winning elections, they have to jettison their appearance of supporting an “open border” policy and start trying to get some bipartisan immigration reform. That, after all, was one of the two major concerns that got the Democrats defeated last November.
*I didn’t realize that black activist and nationalist Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) had been convicted of a federal crime, but sure enough, he was convicted for selling shares in a ship he didn’t own (it was a “back to Africa” ship for his proposed “Black Star Line”). He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment but served two, with his sentence commuted by Calvin Coolidge on condition that Garvey be deported. Garvey moved to Jamaica, where he was born, and then moved to London in 1935, where he died five years later. Why I bring this up is that Garvey’s pan-Africanism has always fascinated me, and mainly because Biden has just given him a posthumous pardon:
President Joe Biden on Sunday posthumously pardoned Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s. Also receiving pardons were a top Virginia lawmaker and advocates for immigrant rights, criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention.
Congressional leaders had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey, with supporters arguing that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride. After Garvey was convicted, he was deported to Jamaica, where he was born. He died in 1940.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said of Garvey: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level” to give millions of Black people “a sense of dignity and destiny.”
It’s not clear whether Biden, who leaves office Monday, will pardon people who have been criticized or threatened by President-elect Donald Trump.
Issuing preemptive pardons — for actual or imagined offenses by Trump’s critics that could be investigated or prosecuted by the incoming administration — would stretch the powers of the presidency in untested ways.
Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He announced on Friday that he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. He also gave a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes.
The president has announced he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just as Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office. In his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented number of executions, 13, in a protracted timeline during the coronavirus pandemic.
A pardon relieves a person of guilt and punishment. A commutation reduces or eliminates the punishment but doesn’t exonerate the wrongdoing.
Among those pardoned on Sunday were:
— Don Scott, who is the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in a chamber narrowly controlled by Democrats. He was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and served eight years in prison. He was elected to the Virginia legislature in 2019, and later became the first Black speaker.
“I am deeply humbled to share that I have received a Presidential Pardon from President Joe Biden for a mistake I made in 1994 — one that changed the course of my life and taught me the true power of redemption,” Scott said in a statement.
—Immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, who was convicted of a nonviolent offence in 2001 and was sentenced to two years in prison and was facing deportation to Trinidad and Tobago.
—Kemba Smith Pradia, who was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and sentenced to 24 years behind bars. She has since become a prison reform activist. President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence in 2000.
—Darryl Chambers of Wilmington, Delaware, a gun violence prevention advocate who was convicted of a drug offense and sentenced to 17 years in prison. He studies and writes about gun violence prevention.
I don’t know of most of these people, and thus have no opinions of their pardons, but I certainly have no beef with the pardon of Marcus Garvey, though it does him little good now. Although his view of black separatism and movement back to Africa conflicts with the Civil Rights Movement of the Fifties and Sixties, he was certainly one of the first leaders to galvanize black people into the mindset that they were a group that had been treated unfairly and needed redress.
Here’s a very good six-minute short of Garvey’s life:
*What is the best film of the 21st Century. The BBC nominates David Lynch’s 2001 film “Mulholland Drive“:
Beginning life during the development of Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks, the director eventually pitched an idea for Mulholland Drive as a series in 1998. He was given a green light by US cable network ABC, which hoped to replicate the success of the director’s small-town mystery serial.
ABC was unimpressed with the first episode, which they considered slowly paced and drawn out – 37 minutes too long to fit into a conventional TV timeslot. They also objected to several things captured in the shoot, including an extreme close-up of dog excrement. In early 2000 Lynch managed to rescue the project by agreeing to turn Mulholland Drive into a feature film, equipped with a budget twice the original size.
One of several small, shady characters is the mysterious Mr Roque (Michael J Anderson) who appears to control Hollywood from a wheelchair in his shadowy office. One of the plotlines involves a hotshot director (Justin Theroux) who is bullied into casting a leading actress the powers that be want for his new picture, but he doesn’t.
Infusing Mulholland Drive with pointed, perhaps pessimistic commentary about market forces in Hollywood, but also cramming it full of beguiling images, Lynch created a very appealing package for critics. They could get lost in the dream-like ambience of it while being engaged in an intellectual exercise deeply critical of the commercial realities of filmmaking: a sort of backhanded valentine to Tinsel Town.
In a discussion about the best critically received film so far in the new century, perhaps insights can be gained by comparisons to the best critically received film of the previous one. The title that repeatedly arrives at or near the top of the list is Citizen Kane, writer/director Orson Welles’ esteemed 1941 feature film debut – BBC Culture’s 2015 critics poll of the 100 greatest American films put Kane at number one.
If Kane can be viewed as an essay on the nuts and bolts of film-making – a masterclass in technical processes, from montage to deep focus, dissolves and the manipulation of mise en scène – Mulholland Drive’s appeal is more thematic and conceptual. It is less a demonstration of how great cinema is achieved than what great cinema can achieve, its capacity for ideas seemingly endless.
As Wikipedia notes:
Mulholland Drive earned Lynch the Best Director award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn’t There. Lynch also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for the film. The film boosted Watts’ Hollywood profile considerably, and was the last feature film to star veteran Hollywood actress Ann Miller.
Mulholland Drive is often regarded as one of Lynch’s finest works and as one of the greatest films of all time. It was ranked eighth in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the best films ever made and topped a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since 2000.
HOWEVER, this film is only #11 on the Guardian’s list of the best 100 films of the 21st century, with the top five, from top to lower, being “There Will Be Blood,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Boyhood,” “Under the Skin”, and “In the Mood for Love.” I’ve seen #1, #2, and #5, and it’s been years since I’ve seen “Mulholland Drive,” which is certainly a great film. I’d have to see it again to compare it to the Guardian’s list, especially “There Will Be Blood,” but let me put a nod in for the Japanese animation “Spirited Away,” which is surely the best animation I’ve seen in the 21st century.
The trailer from Mulholland Drive (whatever happened to Laura Harring?):
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej moved to give Hili his chair! This is a rare event!
Hili: Finally a modicum of empathy.A: We will talk later.
Hili: Nareszcie odrobina empatii.Ja: Porozmawiamy później.
*******************
From I Love Cats:
From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy (I used the Brittanica when I was a kid):
Masih responds to a misguided tweet:
Oh, sure, the Islamic Republic of Iran is totally harmless. I mean, a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ like it’s their national anthem, funds terrorists like Hezbollah, Hamas and The Houthis
as if it’s a charity drive, and sends hitmen with AK-47s to kill women like me on… https://t.co/wi7ZepprjQ— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 17, 2025
From Luana. I was a big fan of the ERA and lobbied for it. But it didn’t go through, and Biden can’t short-circuit democracy now to push it through.
People laugh at this misfire from Biden in ‘declaring’ the Equal Rights Amendment as US law. But the tactic of pushing through law changes without the democratic consent of the people is a common strategy used by Democrats, and it can succeed.
For example, right now they do not… pic.twitter.com/xKfX9wFwF6
— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) January 19, 2025
From Simon; I thought the only joke you could make on this would be “an in-bread gull”. But wait! There are more!
"What happened?""I’m stuck. It's so embarrassing."“I guess things went… a-rye?”“Please do shut up.”"You should get out of the sun.""Why?""Otherwise, you'll be toast.""You're an asshole, Charlie."“You’re right, you deserve butter.”
— Uncle Duke (@uncleduke1969.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T18:18:21.169Z
Two more from Jez’s find of a thread showing “creepily intelligent” things that pets have done:
4. Woman discovers her neighbor’s corgi was sneaking onto her property at night to ride her pony.pic.twitter.com/mJHxnyZz8E
— Wolf of X (@tradingMaxiSL) January 17, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:
A 45-year-old Polish man, murdered with gas upon arriving at Auschwitz.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-20T12:09:00.970Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. Is this sexual or natural selection? You’d need to know what the female looks like.
Giraffe Weevil is only found in forests in Madagascar. #madagascar #nature #insect #weevil #giraffeweevil
And a cat, safely behind a door, watches a fox:
Watching from the safety of indoors . Your #FoxOfTheDay shared by @brian-f-l.bsky.social on BlueSky
— Chris Packham (@chrisgpackham.bsky.social) 2025-01-19T08:00:10.044Z
I was the reader who posted Einat Wilf’s video in yesterday’s Hili. I think that she brings a well thought out story from years on experience including a changing and growing understanding of Israel’s situation and options. Sampling several of her videos over the past couple of years is of value.
Just as Natasha Hausdorff’s presentations are spot on regarding legal issues, so are, I believe, Einat’s on political issues.
I’ve queued it up to watch at the gym. Thank you!
Excellent, Norman and in case you have some extra treadmill time, I also recommend to you and anyone else a recent 50-minute interview with her that I found very helpful at url
You’ve given me a lot of homework, Jim. 🙂 The new assignment will have to wait until tomorrow.
I just finished the previous piece from the BBC. It was pretty good, and gave a good view of things from the Palestinian side. (The BBC has leaned Palestinian since the beginning. I look at their coverage every day—sometimes with annoyance.)
Yes, the Hamas soldiers were a show of force. They wanted to convey the impression that they remain unbowed, whatever the true state of Hamas forces really is. Frankly, I’m glad they were there to protect the three Israeli returnees from a crowd that might very well have killed them as they were hustled from one car to another.
The next period is critical. If, during phases II and III Hamas doesn’t cede power, Israel will need to continue the fight. If they don’t continue the fight—removing Hamas from power as per their stated objective—Israel has lost.
If Prime Minister Netanyahu chooses to quit the fight after phases II and III, leaving Hamas in power, his government may fall, to be replaced perhaps by a government that will continue the fight.
The incoming Trump administration has stated quite clearly that it will not allow Hamas to remain in power in Gaza. I am sitting on pins and needles, hoping that Israel and the U.S. can make good on ridding the Middle East of Hamas’s political and military power. The Israelis will be better off, the Palestinians will be better off, and the world will be better off. But hope is not a strategy. Surely the Netanyahu government is weighing the possibilities and either has or is working towards a strategy for how to proceed. The next few weeks will tell.
Regarding the latest batch of presidential pardons, it seems to me that the process for any such pardons should involve a specific stated crime and an admission of guilt. Isn’t that what a “pardon” means?
That’s what I thought. Reading about Nixon’s pardon, wikipedia has things like this:
But perhaps this bit about guilt is contested in law. I wonder if any resident legal minds have opinions?
In one more batch today, Biden claims explicitly the opposite:
I would also like to know whether accepting a pardon carries any duty to testify if asked. Wikipedia tells me this, so perhaps it does?
I’m confused about pardoning people who haven’t done anything. From NYT:
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” he said in his last statement as president. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/us/politics/biden-pardons-family.html
Political enemies of departing government officials are tempted, when they grasp the levers of power themselves, to investigate and prosecute them for largely imaginary “crimes” committed during their time in office. If this becomes a ritual with every change of government, who would want to ever hold office, only to have his career prospects and financial security ruined by the need to fend off a vengeful state run by his enemies? All officials would have to, as a matter of course, steal enough not only to pay their expected legal bills but also to fund their retirements given that the cloud of ritual investigation would make them unemployable in the usual post-politics lines of work in law, consulting, or NGOs.
We see many commenters calling for Justin Trudeau to be arrested, sentenced, and jailed — no mention of a trial — for treason or some such just because he and his policies went from popular to unpopular.
The solution is a blanket immunity from prosecution or lawsuit given by statute to all elected and appointed government officials, and their families, covering their time in public office, essentially what now-ex-President Biden did for those close to him. The ability to vote out a government, and render it instantly powerless, just because we don’t like it is a great power enjoyed by only a few people in the world. That ought to be enough. There should be all-party support for this, as all would know that their day will come.
I became obsessed with figuring out Mulholland Drive in 2006 when my friend Miriam (who follows this website) rented the DVD. I rewatch it at least once a year. It’s as close as possible to being a perfect film.
I don’t understand how and why Israel lost the war. When they blasted through Gaza and reached the last bit, at Rafia, I was sure they would finish the job. But they simply backed away.
Is the only reason ‘if we go in with force, the terrorists will kill all the hostages?’ Really? Is that the only reason?
This does not jibe with the history of Israel, it’s tough stand.
Israel was doomed to lose because “finishing the job” would require removing the population, and this was not an option.
Good, however, that they killed lots of Hamas terrorists, destroyed their ultrastructure, and are now getting some hostages back.
The giraffe beetle is incredible! Hard to believe that it was only discovered in 2008.
I recently watched Mulholland Drive for the first time. I found it kind of mesmerizing, but fundamentally incoherent. My gut feeling is that the reason it’s so popular is precisely because its incoherency enables people to read all sorts of meanings into it. As for me, I’m not convinced that there is actually anything there.
Re: Trump’s inauguration – I am going to ignore all news about it. I still haven’t reached the ‘acceptance’ stage of grieving, and I don’t want to rub salt in the wound.
Your reaction to Mulholland Drive is the same as mine. I went to see it with friends and we were equally confused. After some chat we decided the reels were run out of order. That eased our complaint.
I don’t know squat about Giraffe Weevils, except that they have been known for decades. Perhaps this is a new species.
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe_weevil), both males and females are elongate, but males are considerably longer than females and their extra length does have something to do with winning access to mates.
Mulholland Drive is coherent, the same way that a dream is coherent. It’s not linear and it requires multiple viewings to appreciate. There are also some great performances (Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux) and an as usual amazing soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.
Mulholland Drive is a Mobius strip of a movie, quite enjoyable unless you are the type that requires all storylines to be tied up at the end of a film. If you search, there exists a narrative explanation that ties most of the movie scenes together. But for me, part of the fun of a movie live Mulholland Drive is trying to figure it out.
Well, he did it. Biden has issued pre-emptive pardons for Fauci, Milley, and members of the January 6 Committee. Frankly, I think the DOJ should challenge these in court. If you want to talk about an abuse of power, the prospect that a President can order a subordinate to break the law safe in the assurance of a pardon that absolves him of guilt before charges can even be brought certainly ranks right up there.
What laws were broken by the people you listed?
I think it’s preemptive, to help them avoid persecution from the incoming.
Yes, it is preemptive – Trump has made explicit threats to persecute these people.
I am curious about DrBrydon’s innuendo about “…Fauci, Milley, and members of the January 6 Committee…” and the timing of his implied accusation of criminal conduct by these people. I am not aware of any criminal conduct by the people just pardoned by Biden, but I AM aware of criminal conduct of Trump underlings/supporters pardoned by Trump:
Paul Manafort: Trump’s former campaign chairman, convicted of financial crimes during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Roger Stone: A longtime ally and adviser to Trump, convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering during the same investigation.
Michael Flynn: Former National Security Adviser who admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Charles Kushner: Jared Kushner’s father, convicted of tax evasion, witness retaliation, and illegal campaign contributions.
Steve Bannon: Former White House Chief Strategist, charged with defrauding donors in a fundraising campaign for a border wall.
Elliott Broidy: A former top fundraiser for Trump, convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
Dinesh D’Souza: Conservative commentator convicted of campaign finance violations.
So, when DrBrydon says:
“Frankly, I think the DOJ should challenge these in court. If you want to talk about an abuse of power, the prospect that a President can order a subordinate to break the law safe in the assurance of a pardon that absolves him of guilt before charges can even be brought certainly ranks right up there.”
I am curious as to why he might think Biden’s pardons are worthy of investigation without a word about Trump’s precedent or his explicit threats.
That bit is the novelty, right? If accepting a pardon has some meaning of confession of guilt, what exactly are Fauci and Milley pleading guilty to? At least for the Trump cronies you mention, this information is public and we can make up our minds what to think about it.
Is there any precedent for such open pardons? It was much clearer what crimes Hunter Biden might be guilty of, even if we never got to see the evidence in court. Likewise Nixon.
According to Perplexity, an AI Searchbot on the history of preemptive pardons:
“The history of preemptive pardons in the United States dates back to the nation’s founding, spanning over 230 years. The first instance of a preemptive pardon can be traced to George Washington in 1795, when he pardoned participants of the Whiskey Rebellion. Since then, preemptive pardons have been used by various presidents throughout American history.
Key Historical Examples
George Washington (1795): Pardoned participants of the Whiskey Rebellion, including those who had not yet been charged.
Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865): Issued preemptive pardons during the Civil War as part of his strategy to maintain national unity.
Gerald Ford (1974): Granted a preemptive pardon to Richard Nixon for any crimes he might have committed during his presidency.
Jimmy Carter (1977): Issued a blanket preemptive pardon to Vietnam War draft evaders on his first full day in office.
George H.W. Bush (1992): Pardoned six individuals involved in the Iran-Contra affair, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, before their trials.
The legal basis for preemptive pardons was firmly established by the Supreme Court in the 1866 case Ex Parte Garland, which confirmed that the presidential pardon power extends to offenses before legal proceedings are taken. This ruling has allowed presidents to continue using preemptive pardons as a tool for various purposes, including fostering national unity, protecting individuals from perceived political prosecutions, and addressing controversial historical events.”
This reminds me of the exchange in “A Man for All Seasons.” Cromwell is examining More:
How is prospective prosecution a threat? Unless, that is, you’ve watched the Biden Administration for the last four years.
I know what has been alleged against some of the people pardoned. Milley has admitted he conspired with the Chinese against potential Trump actions. Cheney is alleged to have engaged in witness tampering. Lieutenant Byrd of the Capitol Police is alleged to have improperly host Ashli Babbitt in the back on January 6, 2024. Various members of Biden’s family, including his brothers, have been alleged to be part of a bribery scheme. All of these deserve investigation and, potentially, prosecution.
These pardons were given because there are real, potential crimes here.
These examples all have some crime as the focus. Some named act for which a trial would not be unusual. And (with the possible exception of Nixon’s) the pardons do not cover unrelated acts. A draft dodger who killed someone in a hit-and-run accident on his way to the Canadian border, could surely still be tried for that.
What strikes me as so unusual about the pardons for Fauci, Milley, Jill Biden, etc. is that they aren’t tied to any crime. They simply place friends of one regime above the law, on the presumption that the next regime will otherwise find something. At best they expose a belief that prosecutors can and will destroy any innocent person they choose to target. Some rule of law.
Very bad precedent! It gives the appearance of their guilt, for which there is no evidence that I know of. It also expresses a complete distrust in our legal system. I will be surprised if Trump and Republicans don’t play it as an admission of their guilt. A stupid action by our mentally impaired former president!
Except it’s not a precedent – see just above.
It does express a complete distrust in our legal system under Trump, who has expressed his intention to prosecute people without regard to the law, and who has nominated Bondi for AG, an individual who still refuses to acknowledge that Biden won the 2020 election. Personally, I see it as a courageous and savvy action by Biden.
This is in response to a comment by DrBrydon that doesn’t have a reply link (must have reached maximum nesting level) but begins: “This reminds me of the exchange…”
Evidence must precede allegation and at least some evidence must be presented along with the allegation to warrant investigation. Anyone can make an allegation. Simply making an allegation and claiming to have evidence that will be revealed later is not enough.
If I accuse a local councilman of being a pedophile, immediate damage is done to the accused persons reputation. If I claim to have evidence that I can’t present now but will do so shortly at the appropriate time, the damage deepens. The longer I maintain that I have evidence without actually releasing it, the deeper the damage goes. Some will maintain a properly neutral attitude while waiting for the evidence but many, sadly, won’t. Without any evidence whatsoever a persons life can be ruined.
A country can be damaged the same way. When Trump and his followers alleged that the 2020 election was stolen by voter fraud, they claimed to have evidence that they would soon present. They repeated this claim over, and over, and over ad nauseam. Then, in dozens of court cases, some overseen by liberal judges, some by conservate judges and some by Trump appointed judges, they failed to present any significant evidence. Even after all the cases were exhausted they continued to press the allegations without evidence. It is impossible for me to believe that this was an honest mistake – that they truly thought they had evidence. No, they had ulterior motives which they have now achieved. But the damage has been done and it is immense. They have torn this country apart. Anyone who thinks that Trump will now put the country back together, repair the damage done, I believe, is wearing a very thick pair of rose colored glasses.
In your comment you mention allegations against, Cheney, Lieutenant Byrd, and various members of Biden’s family. There may be evidence for this but you did not mention any. Allegations alone, without supporting evidence, amount to nothing more than smear.
I should try to watch Mulholland Drive. I saw Blue Velvet when it came out, which is another David Lynch movie. I nearly walked out about half way thru, but stayed once I began to understand what the plot was. Even now I can’t decide if I liked it.
I loved Blue Velvet on first viewing. I was dissatisfied with Mulholland Drive but it wasn’t until I rewatched it that I started to get it. It’s now one of my favourite movies. I have watched Inland Empire only once. I like to think of Mulholland Drive as David Lynch’s Ulysses and Inland Empire as his Finnegans Wake.
My five year old granddaughter came home from school (TK, aka Transitional Kindergarten, aka preschool) and told me that she learned that Martin Luther King, Jr., had said that white and black people should be able to drink from the same water fountain. Good for them for teaching that and her for remembering!
Though I must say, I first thought she said “white and black cats,” which I thought was even more charming and also a good message.
The happiest cat they could find looks a bit like Donald Trump’s mug shot, which looks a lot like his new White House portrait. Check it out!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-official-portrait-released-bearing-similarities-to-president-elects-2023-mugshot/ar-AA1xkqtY?
“A pardon relieves a person of guilt and punishment.”
A pardon certainly relieves a person of punishment. I gather that it relieves one of legal guilt. The feeling of guilt would seem to be another matter. It’s good of Don Scott to express a feeling of gratitude.
To add to your comment: It only relieves a person of criminal guilt and punishment. Any civil suits or sanctions are beyond the pardoning power. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/58546/can-a-person-who-has-been-pardoned-still-be-held-liable-for-the-same-offense-in
The Tick Tok problem is less about THEIR data on US.
It is their editorial control over what our young people are learning – and the majority of under 30s get their “news” from there.
Try searching TT for “Tibet” or “Tiananmen Square”.. or Taiwan. TT’s problem isn’t just spying on us.
TT is like if we gave all the TV networks over to the USSR in 1980. “Hi. I’m Jane Pawley and over to Bryant Gumbel in Moscow to hear the great words of Leonard Illych Brezhnev and our excellent hero Soviet pilots over Afghanistan! Workers of all countries…”
THAT is TT today. And it is why our campuses are festooned and bloated with low mate value deluded teen girls who aren’t doing well socially, simping for murderous religious terrorists. It is exactly why.
There have been LOTS of Israel-Pal dust ups in the last 25 years – none had any protests of any size before tiktok.
THAT is the problem much more than old school antisemitism.
D.A.
NYC
What sort of “mates” are the male participants/protesters, David? Are they of “middling value”?
Just from my google image searches of the protests and who they put at front in the media – the few males there looked like VERY gay guys there for the show(ing off?) – not the pierced navels and midriffs that’d be cool in, say, Gaza… and some young Arab looking men.
Make of that what you will. There are LOTS of pics of these morally horrible protests.
All the best Debi,
D.A.
NYC
Debi, and Barbara,
Being by the looks of them mostly gay, trans (i.e., gay), or beta->omega, the boys are by definition of zero or low mate value, too. They might be fine people on both sides, destined to illustrious lucrative careers in law, corporate finance, and public administration, but women aren’t going to want to be having babies by them. Hence low mate value. ‘S all it means.
As a man, I don’t automatically notice another man’s low mate value until a woman points it out. I only notice if his mate value is higher than mine. Perhaps David is the same, intending, like me, no special shade on women as a class.
“Back in my day”, college kids used to go to protests in hope of getting laid. (Note I said, “hope”.) Or high. I don’t think they do anymore. I don’t know what they’re looking for.
“You talk about a paper route, she’s a shut-in without a home . . .
I gotta shake my head and wonder why she even bothers me . . .
God save her please she’s nailed her knees to some drugstore parking lot . . .
Don’t you know her when you see her? She grew up in your back yard.
Come back to us Barbra Lewis, Hare Krishna Beau-regard.” (John Prine).
As an aside, there seems to be an equally large or larger population of low mate-value deluded teen boys, no?
All deluded youth are low mate value in my book, Barbara.
I’m not sexist in my contempt for the stupid young! 🙂
Keep posting Barbara, always enjoy your and Debi’s takes.
D.A.
NYC
It seems that modern society is failing its low mate value youths, driving them to antisocial behavior.
Mulholland Drive was my first Lynch film. I absolutely loved it and I’ve recommended it to people a number of times over the years. You may need to be a big Lynch fan, but I also really liked Twin Peaks The Return. It’s a series on Showtime that is around 20 hours long. It’s not like the show from the 90s and a lot of people did not like it. Three quick last things. I didn’t like Blue Velvet, There Will be Blood is definitely not the best movie of the 21st century, and the mini black and white elderly couple scared the hell out of me. Always worried they would crawl onto my bed when I slept.
“People laugh at this misfire from Biden in ‘declaring’ the Equal Rights Amendment as US law. But the tactic of pushing through law changes without the democratic consent of the people”
This is as ridiculous as heaven and hell. Congress and enough states all passed the ERA. The question is whether Congress, in it’s original bill, had the power to limit the states to only being able to ratify an amendment within a limited number of years. Such power of limitation of the states is not granted to Congress by Article V of the Constitution of the USA, therefore an argument can easily be made that this part of the bill is unlawful, and that the amendment is thus passed. (States rights y’all! Similar rulings have been made in the other direction respecting the non-existent right of states to set limits on who can run for, and be elected to, federal office.) If the 27th can be ratified after 202 years, why not the 28th after 48 years? It would just required SCOTUS to revisit Dillon v. Gloss.
Hili is entitled to the chair! Cats rule! 🐈🐈🐈