A video posted to social media showcased how American milliner Eric Javits created the iconic boater hat that first lady Melania Trump wore during her husband President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
The post Watch: American Milliner Eric Javits Creates Melania Trump’s Iconic Inauguration Hat appeared first on Breitbart .
My and James’s posts on today’s pardons have sparked a range of reactions. I don’t think there were necessarily any real surprises (we all have pretty well-established axes that we like to grind). Reading through them was helpful for me to advance my thinking on why I don’t support the decision to pardon Fauci, Miley, and others. After a bit of reflection, I decided that this potentially takes the conversation in a different enough direction that it’s worth a separate post.
Let me begin by identifying a point of agreement. I understand the argument that we should pardon these people to protect them from malicious prosecution. James captures that sentiment well:
The incoming President has vowed revenge on these people and, as Biden implies, simply having to defend oneself against scurrilous charges can be ruinous.
This is an entirely defensible position on all levels. I don’t think anyone is wrong for holding it. Heck, I also totally understand the named folks accepting the pardon and the protections that come from it.
Like with most things in the world, there is often more than one entirely defensible position available to us. So, given today’s celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, I want to explore what I believe to be also an entirely defensible position: that the pardons are ultimately a gift to the Trump administration.
Since Trump’s election late last year, a common phrase you hear is “don’t obey in advance.” It got brought up when Jack Smith chose to resign versus be fired by Trump. It’s come up regarding discussions about which Trump appointees Democrats should allow to go through to concentrate resistance on others. And it’s something that we’ll be hearing a lot of in the coming weeks and months.
I think it also applies here.
Proactively pardoning these people theoretically removes prosecutions from the table. Even noted Trump-supporting commenter @JKB said earlier that such prosecutions “would likely have been divisive. ” Prosecuting Fauci, for example, would have been challenging for more moderate and traditional rule-of-law Republicans. At the same time, not prosecuting Fauci could have created real issues with the MAGA base. All of this could also have thrown the FBI and DoJ into chaos, which in turn would have created other challenges for the administration. No matter what, there would have been prices for the new Administration and its allies to pay.
Admittedly, there would have been steep prices for the subjects of the investigations and potential prosecutions to pay. Being investigated by law enforcement can be, and is often, ruinous for individuals–especially when things drag on. There is a lot of pain on the subject of the investigation, as well as their families and friends.
As such, I understand the desire to protect people from that pain and suffering–especially if you think they broke no law in the fulfillment of their duty.
And I also believe this type of thinking can be at odds with the “resistance” values folks often discuss wanting to embrace. Generally speaking, the only types of resistance that mean a damn are ones in which you are exposing yourself to potential suffering.* That, to me, is a critical lesson from MLK and the civil rights movement (among others).
The moral power, for example, of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was the fact that King was willing to go through the indignities of incarceration to demonstrate his point. Part of John Lewis’s power came from having put his body on the line to engage in civil disobedience (coming close to death as a result). And the fallout from their and other actions also brought their loved ones into danger. We also know the specific price King paid.
Now I realize that some may say, “well they consented to that treatment by putting themselves in those situations.” This is true. But that doesn’t change the fact that they were also ordinary people who chose to walk those paths.
That virtue of ordinary people choosing to walk a more arduous path and suffer as a result is part of our national mythology–going back to stories of our founders who didn’t want to fight a war with England but still did it anyway. Both sides of the Civil War claim the other one “forced them” into the conflict.
And yet, at the same time people are calling for active resistance, why are so many also calling to help others avoid the price of real resistance?
As I write this, it looks like Dr. Fauci, at least, will take the pardon . I don’t begrudge him that.
At the same time, if someone as relatively privileged and protected as Fauci isn’t willing to endure suffering for change, perhaps we need to reexamine our own commitments to the idea of resistance. Likewise, if you’re position is “these blanket pardons are the correct thing to do in our broken system” then you may want to think a little bit more deeply about what “don’t obey in advance” means and why it doesn’t apply to this situation.
* – I am open to the potential of little acts of resistance–ones in which someone accepts mild inconveniences in order to demonstrate a point–having some impact. But I can’t think of any example where that has really led to any sustainable systems change.
Personal reflection on the topic of resistance:
In recent years, my professional work has led me to interact with a lot of organizers. These are normal folks who often have turned down far more lucrative careers to focus on bringing changes to their neighborhoods and communities. I’ve seen the crap that they have to go through to show up each day and do that work.
I also became an “accidental” labor organizer and watched people put their jobs on the line to go against management to form a union and bargain a first contract. I know the challenges they faced in that directly confrontational process–I was literally sitting right next to them.
In my own civic work, I find myself returning to Letter from a Birmingham Jail and in particular, the often cited portion:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
This lives rent free in my head, especially as, by nature, I tend to be a moderate and in large degree an incrementalist. I’m also in a significantly better paying job that most of the people I work with. I get to go home to a middle class suburban community. I don’t have to live alongside the challenges I’m working to change, day in and day out.
All of those complex feelings and experiences color my thinking on this. To me, issuing a preemptive pardon isn’t confronting the issue head-on. It’s acknowledging that the system is unjust rather than making your opponent show the unjustness through action.
Again, I realize it’s not my role to determine who should suffer. And I’m also inspired by those around me to at least think about what I am willing to suffer for a better world.
In one of his last official actions as President, Joe Biden made the understandable and still poor decision to pardon several people who all but certainly have committed no crimes. Details from AP:
President Joe Biden has pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, using the extraordinary powers of his office in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration.
The decision by Biden comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.
The story is still developing. Some accounts I’ve read stated that the pardon also includes members of the DC and Capitol police who testified in front of the January 6th commmittee.
On the one hand, this is understandable. On the campaign trail and via surrogates, the Trump Campaign made it clear that the were more than “open” to the idea of prosecution Fauci and others. To that point, only yesterday, one of the Truth Social accounts controlled by the incoming President posted the following “poll:”
For those who are unaware, that is Capitol Police Officer Lt. Michael Byrd, who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the January 6th Capitol riot. It was an action that was investigated and deemed “lawful and within Department policy” and “potentially saved Members (of Congress) and staff from serious injury and possible death”. And yet, we have the soon-to-be President of the United States (or at least one of his close staffers) asking the mob if Byrd should be prosecuted.
There’s going to be a lot of this in the days to come. And from that perspective, the decision to issue blanket pardons can be seen as understandable.
But that doesn’t make it right. Or a good idea from a political process.
From a logical standpoint, presumptive pardons don’t make sense. First and foremost, a law must be broken (or, if you are a pedant, someone must have been convicted of a crime) for a pardon to exist. Outside of fringe theorists, none of these individuals appear to have committed any crimes related to the activities for which they are being pardoned.
There is then the legal question of whether or not accepting a pardon is a binding admission of guilt. At MSNBC, former Prosecutor Jordan Rubin writes that in his opinion this is legally an unsettled matter:
In 1915’s Burdick v. United States , the Supreme Court said that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” At first glance, that language would seem to answer your question in the affirmative. But the question in Burdick wasn’t whether accepting a pardon means admitting guilt. Instead, that appeal asked whether a person could turn down a pardon (the high court’s answer was “yes”).
The court’s observation about guilt in Burdick is known as “dicta” — meaning language that’s unnecessary to an opinion — as opposed to the case’s “holding,” which announces the binding rule for the future in our common law system of precedent. At least, a federal appeals court said so a few years back when it rejected a broad reading of that Burdick language and said that “not every acceptance of a pardon constitutes a confession of guilt.” Of course, whether opinion language counts as dicta or binding law can be the subject of litigation — as we saw in Trump’s classified documents case — and we don’t know what the Supreme Court would say if the issue were presented to the justices today.
So it is possible to say, from a legal standard, that Fauci and others can accept these pardons without inherently accepting any guilt.
We also know that concepts of “guilt” exist beyond the legal sphere and, in many cases, can carry more weight. From political and public perception perspectives, it’s easy to see how accepting this pardon will be interpreted as admitting guilt. Heck, I expect that in this post’s comment thread, some people will take the existence of these pardons as definitive proof that crimes were committed–even if the recipients decide not to take them.
I understand some readers will not be moved by the “perception of guilt” argument. I understand that anyone who seriously believes “Fauci is a criminal” will not be motivated by any counter-facts.
At the same time, I’m still enough of a l believer that the rule of law is an important thing, even if I don’t necessarily agree with all the laws, that these presumptive pardons are bad from a system perspective.
I think that by issuing these pardons, Biden is essentially legitimizing the lawless prosecution theories that they are tied to. It’s acknowledging that it would be possible to prosecute Fauci, Milley, and these others and that said prosecutions have a strong possibility of making it through our legal system, leading to convictions.
Given that position, any purchase is toxic to our criminal and civil legal systems, as it gets to the idea that the concept of breaking the law no longer matters for purposes of prosecution. Accepting that idea really takes us to Putin’s Russia-style “show trials” that MAGA supporters have accused the Democrats of.*
Addendum 2: As expected, I see a lot of folks are disappointed in this take and think that this is the only “rational” thing to do. I want to press back that after weeks of talking about “don’t obey in advance,” this is (to me) a very clear case of obeying in advance. If it works, it will essentially spare the Trump Administration any negative political fallout from prosecuting (or, with its base, NOT prosecuting) these people. That’s pretty much the opposite of resistance.
It’s doubly problematic as it appears that some of the people pardoned were not planning to “obey in advance” and were prepared to be prosecuted. So it’s also not respecting their wishes either.
Addendum 1: None of the above should be taken as a denial of the deep pain and hardship created when someone is unfairly prosecuted for a crime. Heck, I’m even prepared to talk about the deep pain and hardship created when ANYONE is prosecuted for a crime. I’m also not moved by the idea that we should risk sacrificing our overall legal systems to protect people who–for the most part–are already in positions of great power and privilege. If you want to make this argument, I’d start with the Capital Police Officers rather than Dr Fauci.
* – I am sure some commentator will bring up the NY State Conviction of Donald Trump as an example. This is a flawed comparison for many reasons, not the least of which is that there were laws that the prosecutors were able to convince a jury that Trump broke. BTW, a “Trump can’t get a fair trial anywhere” isn’t a great defense unless, of course, you are willing to follow it as a broader attack on the jury-of-peers system–unless you want to have a serious talk about the composition of juries (and the manipulation of said composition) in all cases.
Via ABC News: President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” he continued. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
The pardon itself can be found here .
James Joyner and Matt Bernius have already written several posts about the various preemptive pardons, and I am going to join Matt, to the chagrin of many readers, and agree this is a terrible idea.*
This is just confirmation that justice derives not from abstract principles, but instead flows from power. Moreover, justice is partisan. This will deepen cynicism in the country and fuel any number of Trump’s narratives. It makes it all the harder to criticize Trump’s approach to the presidency.
I will add that I am actually highly sympathetic to the goals here. I understand he is trying to protect people who might have been unjustly targeted.
I expect exactly four years from now we will see quite the flurry of pardons, and I expect that the readership will not be too happy when it happens. And yes, I realize that Trump might have done it anyway, but it is going to be awfully hard to get the public to be scandalized by it when it happens.
I was already not the biggest fan of the pardon power, and now I really would like to see substantial reforms, to include at least some kind of independent assessment with DoJ. But that is likely just dreaming on my part.
More on this, I expect, as time goes on.
*Update: I will note that I am not unsympathetic to James’ position that, “While unprecedented and unseemly, it is, alas, almost certainly the right thing to do. The incoming President has vowed revenge on these people and, as Biden implies, simply having to defend oneself against scurrilous charges can be ruinous.” I might have been more persuadable before the blanket family pardons came out.
Millions of Americans listened to President Biden’s farewell speech to the nation last night.
Each of those Americans will have a unique opinion, a different reaction, depending on a myriad of factors and shaped by his or her background and social and political views.
These are some of my views:
I loved the President’s allegorical references to the Statue of Liberty. How she “sways back and forth to withstand the fury of stormy weather, to stand the test of time…an enduring symbol of the soul of our nation, a soul shaped by forces that bring us together and by forces that pull us apart. And yet, through good times and tough times, we have withstood it all.”
He returned to this powerful symbolism at the conclusion of his address by reminding us:
Yes, we sway back and forth to withstand the fury of the storm, to stand the test of time, a constant struggle, constant struggle. A short distance between peril and possibility. But what I believe is the America of our dreams is always closer than we think. And it’s up to us to make our dreams come true.
President Biden cautioned Americans against the “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.”
It is a warning of an unelected oligarchy that today “is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead…[a] concentration of power and wealth [that] erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. [That] causes distrust and division…”
Mr. Biden recalls and echoes President Eisenhower’s warning of a “military-industrial complex,” this time a “tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.”
Clearly referring to recent developments in social media platforms and in media in general, Mr. Biden warned that “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power.” “The free press is crumbling,” he says, “Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”
He notes how Artificial Intelligence “offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy, and our security, our society,” but “could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work, and how we protect our nation.” “We must make sure A.I. is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind,” he adds.
He spoke proudly about his record and accomplishments – which are many and significant – without making it a smorgasbord brimming with braggadocio, boastful bravado all too often lacking credibility that is so typical of his successor.
Rather he urged Americans to “keep pushing forward and push faster” in areas such as technology and innovations avoiding “the concentration of technology, power and wealth.”
He repeatedly emphasized the need to protect our nation and our institutions against the abuse of power by “respecting the institutions that govern a free society — the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press,” our system of separation of powers, checks and balances: “[a system] that may not be perfect, but has maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years…” Also, term limits, enforcing “the strongest ethics,” getting dark money out of politics.
Biden addressed a concern that has been bearing heavily on the minds of so many Americans. “We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president’s power is not unlimited — it is not absolute. And it shouldn’t be,” he said.
Finally, after expressing his love for his family, his gratitude and appreciation to members of his administration, public service and military service members, President Biden expressed his “eternal thanks” to the American people, stating his firm belief in “the idea for which this nation stands — a nation where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure.”
He enjoined, “Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it, too.”
The post President Biden’s Farewell Address to the Nation: One Person’s View appeared first on The Moderate Voice .
Difficult choices between alignment with Europe and the US are coming at the prime minister fast. He risks losing control of the debate
When all eyes at Westminster are fixed on Washington , it is easy to forget how little attention is paid back in return.
Unlike Mexico and Canada, Britain doesn’t have a long border with the US. It doesn’t rival America’s superpower primacy on the planet, unlike China. And it doesn’t export more goods across the Atlantic than it imports – a trait Donald Trump despises about the European Union.
‘This is like a gallstone’
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In” that President Donald Trump’s pardoning the January 6 protesters created “a pretext for more political violence in our country.”
The post Booker: Trump Pardoning J6 Defendants ‘Creating a Pretext for More Political Violence’ appeared first on Breitbart .
POLITICO (“Ramaswamy’s future at DOGE is in doubt as he prepares to announce bid for Ohio governor“):
Vivek Ramaswamy could withdraw from working with the Department of Government Efficiency ahead of his bid for Ohio governor, which he intends to formally announce by the last week in January, according to a person close to the matter.
Ramaswamy’s potential exit could upend DOGE, which aims to reduce government spending by up to $2 trillion by July 4, 2026 — by which time his Ohio gubernatorial campaign will need to be well underway. Following the election, Ramaswamy informed members of the transition that he planned to run for governor, said a person familiar with the transition.
Ramaswamy’s decision accelerated when Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine passed over Ramaswamy to replace Vice President-elect JD Vance in the Senate on Friday, picking instead his own Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
Multiple people who discussed Ramaswamy and the inner workings of DOGE were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly and to freely discuss sensitive issues.
On Saturday, Ramaswamy showed up at an all-hands DOGE meeting at the SpaceX headquarters in Washington, according to two people familiar with the department’s inner workings. Musk was not present.
The breakdown of labor between Musk and Ramaswamy, according to one person familiar, was that Musk focused on the big picture while Ramaswamy focused on deregulation; the rest of the staff will focus on implementation. Steve Davis, Musk’s right hand man at SpaceX, functions as his DOGE lieutenant, while Brad Smith, a healthcare entrepreneur and Rhodes Scholar, is Ramaswamy’s main point of contact.
Privately, some in Trump’s world see Ramaswamy’s nascent gubernatorial campaign as a way to clear a path for Musk to do his own work at the agency without him.
“Elon basically runs the show,” said an informal adviser to Trump. This person added, “Time is their biggest enemy. We’ll see.”
A CBS News report (“Vivek Ramaswamy expected to depart DOGE“) adds a twist:
People close to Musk have privately undercut Ramaswamy for weeks, frustrated with his lack of participation in the heavy lifting, according to sources familiar with the internal dynamics. There has been friction between the incoming rank and file DOGE staff and Ramaswamy, the sources said, and Ramaswamy has been subtly encouraged to exit.
“Vivek has worn out his welcome,” one person close to Trump said.
Ramaswamy recently met with the Ohio’s sitting governor, Mike DeWine, about the state’s Senate seat left vacant by Vice President-elect JD Vance. But on Friday, DeWine announced he is appointing his lieutenant governor to the post.
Ramaswamy, who sought the GOP nomination in 2024, was at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s West Palm Beach, Florida, estate during the transition. Sources said he was spotted at the bar with Musk one day, scratching out plans for DOGE on a napkin. But the pair haven’t worked closely for a while, sources said.
I didn’t know Ramaswamy existed until his bizarre run for the Republican Presidential nomination last cycle. He made a ton of money speculating in the biotech and social media spaces and apparently doesn’t think he needs to know anything about governing before doing it. It’s not at all shocking that he’s an ideas guy rather than someone who’s going to do the hard work of actually combing through budgets and setting priorities.
Joe Biden will cease being President in less than two hours, but he issued this before heading over to his successor’s inauguration:
Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy.
Yet alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.
In certain cases, some have even been threatened with criminal prosecutions, including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and the members and staff of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.
General Milley served our nation for more than 40 years, serving in multiple command and leadership posts and deploying to some of the most dangerous parts of the world to protect and defend democracy. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he guided our Armed Forces through complex global security threats and strengthened our existing alliances while forging new ones.
For more than half a century, Dr. Fauci served our country. He saved countless lives by managing the government’s response to pressing health crises, including HIV/AIDS, as well as the Ebola and Zika viruses. During his tenure as my Chief Medical Advisor, he helped the country tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic. The United States is safer and healthier because of him.
On January 6, 2021, American democracy was tested when a mob of insurrectionists attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn a fair and free election by force and violence. In light of the significance of that day, Congress established the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes of the insurrection. The Select Committee fulfilled this mission with integrity and a commitment to discovering the truth. Rather than accept accountability, those who perpetrated the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who participated in the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6th for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecutions.
I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing. Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.
That is why I am exercising my authority under the Constitution to pardon General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee, and the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.
It’s not clear what it is they’re being pardoned for, since they have been charged with no crimes. Is this a blanket pardon for anything they might have done, ever, as was the case with the pardon of his wayward son, Hunter?
While unprecedented and unseemly, it is, alas, almost certainly the right thing to do. The incoming President has vowed revenge on these people and, as Biden implies, simply having to defend oneself against scurrilous charges can be ruinous. We live in strange times, indeed.