By Jessie Seigel / December 12, 2024
This will be the last My Washington Whispers Column for the year 2024. Admittedly, the headline is a misnomer since this article is not a round-up of all that has happened in the last year. Considering the year we have had, to do so would require volumes, not a single column. So instead, this article focusses on three items that are relevant to the nation's future.
THE BIDEN PARDON
In reaction to President Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter, so-called august sectors of the press have issued craven, self-righteous condemnations.
The New York Times summarized its Times Opinion writers reactions as follows: “President Biden ‘dishonored’ his office (the legal writer Jeffrey Toobin, in a guest essay). The pardon was ‘disgraceful’ (the columnist Bret Stephens) or ‘a profound failure’ and ‘quite disreputable’ (the columnists David French and Ross Douthat, respectively, in a conversation about the pardon).”
According to the Times, Douthat stated that although the pardon “confirms a general mood of cynicism,” that cynicism is already “so deeply entrenched that it’s not likely to be deepened that much further by one more act of self-dealing by an already-unpopular president.” The Times had the chutzpah to characterize this further insult as a “quasi-defense.”
A New Yorker article on the matter began with the headline: “Biden’s Pardon of Hunter Further Undermines His Legacy,” and the sub-headline: “By granting clemency to his son, the President put his family above the American people.”
The article’s author, Isaac Chotiner, noted that some will defend Biden’s decision on grounds that the only reason Hunter was facing a long prison term was “because he was the President’s son in an age of political war.”
But Chotiner argued:
Biden is not an ordinary man and, by pardoning his son he is…losing sight of his overriding objective: to diminish Donald Trump’s capacity to do violence to the liberal-democratic institutions which Biden claims his presidency centered on upholding.
Chotiner added:
…it is a more maudlin parallel of the manner in which Biden’s predecessor and successor operates—not as the head of a democratic government but, far too often, as the leader of a gangster family.
For the sake of professional propriety, THIS columnist will refrain from the appropriate B-word response to the Times and the New Yorker and, instead, use the Biden-style euphemism:
BALONEY!
If there is one thing for which the media can be relied upon, it is the continuous use of the double standard. That, and treating false cries of persecution and true ones as equivalent.
For starters, when, if ever, have the media used the words “dishonorable,” “disgraceful,” or “self-dealing” in referring to Donald Trump’s nefarious actions? (It took the media four years before they dared to call a lie a lie.) Plain language on Trump has always been carefully avoided, the media using, instead, such terms as “unprecedented,” or “breaking norms.”
Even in finally referencing Trump as the “leader of a gangster family,” Chotiner qualifies that with the phrase “far too often.” And apparently, Chotiner quakes at the thought of actually naming Trump, only calling him “Biden’s predecessor and successor.”
Furthermore, Biden has not “placed his family before the American people,” betraying them as Chotiner’s words suggest. Rather, the American people betrayed the rule of law and themselves when they voted for their incoming Criminal-in-Chief.
Second, and more important, those in the media condemning Biden are deliberately—perhaps even with calculation—ignoring the fact that the battle against the impending autocracy has, for the moment, been lost. They refuse to acknowledge that the incoming “gangster family” has already shown its hand—that there will be no rule of law to protect any of their political enemies—especially with a Supreme Court that is in their pocket.
In such situation, Biden failing to give a pardon to someone who will more likely than not be persecuted when Trump takes office—even if that person is his son—would not “uphold democratic institutions.” Nor does the fact the recipient is his son make it “self-dealing.” (In fact, so long as one could expect honest and fair law enforcement, President Biden remained hands off.)
Given these circumstances, it is incumbent on a democratic president—in this instance, Biden—to acknowledge the situation in a clear-eyed fashion and provide whatever prophylactic protection he can before he leaves office.
That is why this columnist’s first reaction to the Hunter pardon was that Biden should offer preventative pardons to everyone else who will be targeted. It has later evolved that the White House is considering exactly that—perhaps for members of the January 6 committee and others.
But never mind. The Times, the New Yorker, and other critics would prefer Biden martyr himself and his son to their notion of purity rather than look the hell that awaits us in the face and take whatever actions are legally permissible to neutralize it.
Rather than criticize President Biden for his pardon actions, I applaud him. I only wish his party would stand together backing him and make a united effort to anticipate and obstruct the coming Trump regime’s repressive enterprise.
WHERE OH WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS’ SPINES?
Apparently—with a few exceptions like Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, Elizabeth Warren, and a handful of others—the Democrats have as much spine as a wet noodle. Which is going to land us all in the soup.
Democrats have never understood that adage of our forefathers: if we don’t hang together, we will all hang separately. They need to learn. And in a hurry.
Republicans advise Democrats to be civil. Democrats adhere and obey. They are always talking bi-partisanship and compromise. Meanwhile, whether in the majority or minority, the Republican mantra is fight, maneuver, and obstruct the opposition. Above all, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Republicans understand how to fight.
MSNBC recently noted:
In the 2008 election, Democrats won 365 electoral votes, 251 House seats and 59 Senate seats — the most sweeping victory for one party in decades…. On the very night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, GOP leaders gathered for dinner and planned to “show united and unyielding opposition” to the new president and his policies. A week later, House Republicans held a retreat where they committed themselves to all-out war against Obama; they cheered their recent unified vote against Obama’s recovery bill…
In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell believed that bipartisanship had to be avoided at all costs, since it might legitimate Obama’s actions. Any tactic was justified in pursuit of opposition, up to and including refusing to allow a vote on the president’s Supreme Court nominee.
Because of McConnell’s machinations, the Republicans got Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney-Barrett onto the Supreme Court. Not to mention, Bret Kavanaugh.
But what do the Democrats do even now—on the eve of the Trump regime—when he is already proposing his rogues’ gallery of cabinet nominees? Most Democrats’ comments are studiously muted phrases like: “I have some serious concerns.”
Current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently said on social media:
As I have long said, our preference is to secure bipartisan solutions wherever possible and look for ways to collaborate with our Republican colleagues to help working families…However, our Republican colleagues should make no mistake about it, we will always stand up for our values.”
How on earth can the Democrats expect to inspire the public to vote for them if they won’t, in actual fact, fight for Democratic values rather merely than recite lackluster statements signifying nothing? How can Schumer--after the last many years of Republican refusal to “collaborate” to “help working families” nevertheless pretend there is someone on the opposing side who will negotiate in good faith?
At this final point of danger to the democracy, how can the Democrats still fail to recognize that bipartisanship is a shibboleth sold to them by Republicans who themselves use it only as a tool to obtain concessions, never to concede anything.
In 2025, Schumer's position as Democratic majority leader will change to minority leader. Since he is not ready to fight in the manner of a Mitch McConnell, Schumer should resign that position. Let someone have the minority leadership who will truly lead an opposition.
CONGRESS’S DEATH THREAT TO NON-PROFITS
According to the National Organization of Women (NOW), the House of Representatives has passed a bill, HR9495, that would give Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary the power to declare any non-profit a “terrorist supporting organization” and take away their tax-exempt status—without requiring any evidence.
This could enable the Trump Administration to silence any organization or group that speaks out against the actions of the administration, and to effectively defund such organizations as the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League, organizations that legally challenge domestic terrorists the Trump regime may favor.
Furthermore, under this proposed legislation, it is possible that such nonprofits’ donors could be held liable for supporting terrorism.
The Western Environmental Law Center has noted: “The abuse of counter-terrorism measures to attack domestic opponents is common in authoritarian regimes globally and this abuse is now knocking on our country’s door, risking core American freedoms of speech, association, and dissent. This is not speculation. It is a clear and present danger.”
Maryland Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, previously a constitutional law professor, called the bill “a werewolf in sheep’s clothing.” Raskin stated that “rendering support to terrorists is already a felony.” He warned that the bill could capsize all rights to due process.
Fifteen Democrats voted with Republicans to pass this bill in the House by a simple majority. Previously, the Republicans failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote to fast-track the bill. But in that vote, they were joined by 52 Democrats. Only heavy lobbying by non-profits brought that number down to 15 Democrats in the final vote.
This bill is now awaiting consideration in the Senate. It is not clear when the Senate will take it up. And since so many Democrats voted for it in the House, it's not a given that Democratic senators will stand together to oppose it.
Those who want to keep our rights as Americans would do well to contact their Senators—Republicans and Democrats alike--to weigh in on this proposed legislation. And the sooner, the better.
For reading to the end of this column (wink), and as an early Christmas bonus, I am including a link here to my short fiction “Dictator in a Bottle,” just published at Unlikely Stories Mark V. (It's a bit of sardonic whimsy coupled with wishful thinking which, hopefully, will be enjoyably cheering.)
See you next year. In the meantime, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow—who knows?
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Thank you for sharing your article. I am now officially terrIfIed.