Yesterday Donald Trump issued a pair of executive orders that were generally described as ending the "weaponization of government" and stopping "censorship." That seemed largely symbolic and they were mostly ignored.
So imagine my surprise when I actually read them. They're far from symbolic and have nothing to do with ending anything. They're both full-on revenge orders to begin investigating the Biden administration. Here's the first one:
The American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents.... The prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process. It targeted individuals who voiced opposition to the prior administration’s policies with numerous Federal investigations and politically motivated funding revocations, which cost Americans access to needed services. [etc.]
....The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of all departments and agencies of the United States, shall take appropriate action to review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States, including, but not limited to, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, over the last 4 years.... The Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of the appropriate departments and agencies within the Intelligence Community, shall take all appropriate action to review the activities of the Intelligence Community over the last 4 years.... [etc.]
Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.... [etc.]
Does anyone still think Biden was wrong to preemptively pardon the J6 committee and other vulnerable Democrats? These EOs are plain as day: Trump plans a witch hunt targeting every paranoid grievance of the MAGA crowd as amplified by Fox News and the rest of conservative media. He's going after the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago. He's going after the Justice Department for prosecuting both him and the J6 rioters. He's going after anyone who fought vaccination conspiracy theories. He's going after the SEC and others for investigating crypto fraud. He's going after the FTC for pursuing antitrust actions against big tech companies.
This is unprecedented. It's clearly the first step in looking for individuals to prosecute for the crime of doing things that upset Trump and his supporters. It's legit fascist revenge fantasy—except it's no fantasy. Biden probably should have preemptively pardoned the entire federal government.
That just starts as revenge.
It will smoothly transform to suppression of all opposition.
Yep. Self censorship is also a form of suppression, and ultimately the goal. Makes dictatorship easy.
All caps titles are a giveaway.
The Felon is all about the airing of grievances and lifting the heavy boot of oppression from the American people, except where they are the heavy boot of oppression.
More time spent on the revenge tour is less time he has for engineering a full scale economic crash.
I'm pretty sure he's incompetent and malicious enough to do both at the same time.
He can outsource a lot of it to people like Musk, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi.
Perhaps, but on the assumption Trump leaves office in 2029 do not be surprised when he pre-emptively pardons his entire administration and circle of friends.
Ford put our toe on the slope. Biden put our foot, and now Trump will slide us all down the slope on our ass.
What else was Biden supposed to do? Let all the people who served on or testified to the J6 committee face arrest and prosecution? Blame Biden all you want for putting his foot on the slippery slope to political pardonpalooza, but he was forced into it by the immorality and ignorance of the American voters. If the voters hadn't elected a fascist, pardons wouldn't be necessary to save the decent people who served this country.
So how does it stop if not by the public seeing McCarthy on steroids?
And the pardons don’t seem to stop the likes of https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/bidens-preemptive-fauci-pardon-generates-fresh-conspiracies/
The Judean People's Front [after committing mass suicide]: That'll show 'em.
Biden - a foolish, senile, egoist, and very old man - was supposed to NOT run for re-election. But he did, and that made it easier for Trump to win.
Yes. Biden was the only Democrat who could have won in 2020. So that was the package we had to accept then. Old, senile, and as it turned out, a massive ego which could not see the disaster his candidacy was leading to.
Trouble is, most Democrats could or would not see it either until it was too late. Biden says he still thinks he could have won, and there were, and still are, some Democrats stupid enough to agree with him.
So. I guess it was inevitable that the Biden "package" would lead straight back to Trump.
I still don't see it. Biden is definitely old; he is equally definitely NOT senile.
Trump went on a pardoning frenzy when he left office and has gone on an even bigger one on his first day back. Biden didn't do jack shit. This both sides garbage has got to end.
+1
Fine. So what in your opinion stops the slide?
Correctly assigning blame is the place to start.
Incorrectly assigning blame is a big part of the downward slide. It's the best way to help Trump at this point.
Fine. And what then is the second step to stopping the preemptive pardon slide?
Properly assigning indignation to the parties pardoning the criminal co-conspirators in a coup, and not getting too worked up about depriving Trump an opportunity to kangaroo-court/showtrial his perceived enemies.
+1
Not allowing the bad guys have power. That may seem insufficient to you, but it's the only way. Once a party has decided to smash every norm, you cannot stop the violation of norms by continuing to follow them yourself.
That doesn't mean that you should violate every norm yourself. But protecting the people on your side is essential. One thing that you do not understand is that allowing Trump to prosecute the people Biden pardoned wouldn't be seen as those norms in action. It would be seen as Democrats being weak, and unable to prevent the persecution of those that ally with it. It would simply encourage MAGA because they would see it as successful, and those in the middle who could go one way or the other will stay silent, because you've just made clear that no one has their back if they do speak out.
I take the long view; we need much better civics education. And, as fond as i am of things mathematical, every kid doesn’t need to understand calculus, but some basic economics and personal finance knowledge are a must. The fallacious belief that the economy is a zero-sum game, held by Trump and many of his cult, in particular, is part of the underlay of anti-immigrant movements and misdirected policy.
It's pretty clear that the only way to stop abuse of the pardon power is a constitutional amendment. Many states restrict the governor's pardon power in one way or another. It would make sense to survey them and choose one of those ways for the president.
"Biden probably should have preemptively pardoned the entire federal government."
This is almost definitely going to be proven true, as low-level publicly-unknown federal employees* will find their lives ruined by Trump and/or his minions just for doing their jobs... and will lack the legal resources to fight back in court and the financial resources to re-establish themselves in a new career and possibly a new country.
*For example, what about the unnamed federal employee who challenged that photo opp in Arlington Cemetery in August? Somebody still employed with the feds knows who this woman is, and if she was so afraid that she didn't want to be identified back when the incident happened, she's probably terrified now that Trump is her boss. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/29/arlington-cemetery-altercation-trump-visit
Not three hours ago Kevin was speaking about trust in institutions: https://jabberwocking.com/trust-in-institutions-has-been-getting-better-and-better-lately/
Once the institutions are being ransacked...
It won't take Trump long to change perceptions.
So he really did read "Mein Kampf"
Pretty sure he wrote it.
It is going to be worse than you thought.
Yep.
Duh.
Yeah, but the price of eggs is going to come down, so no biggie...
Actually, no.
https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/5092350-eggs-are-about-to-get-even-more-expensive-expert-says-heres-how-much/
He's running the office of POTUS like he runs his corrupt businesses. Unethical, immoral and illegal will be the norm.
B b b but DEI, woke, Soros. Kamala something something trans people. Surely all that would have been much worse.
All I want is for Trump to go after Merrick Garland. And go hard.
Garland did not release the very important report (Volume 2) by Jack Smith about the Mar-a-Lago documents case because there were still charges against two co-conspirators - which he could have dismissed. Instead, he's keeping it open and handing it over the Pam Bondi [!]
For me, that's proof that all along he was running interference for Trump. Not that he's a Trump stan, but he slow-walked prosecution of Trump because of his prim holier-than-thou fussbudget mind, and he's still intimidated from getting punked by the GOP re SCOTUS (pace those who said his SCOTUS rejection would make him aggressive). And if it wasn't clear enough by his actions, in his farewell address he said:
"It is the obligation of each of us to follow our norms, not only when it is easy, but also when it is hard, especially when it is hard. It is the obligation of each of us to adhere to our norms, even when and especially when the circumstances we face are not normal."
Norms are procedural and don't always have to be followed (deckchairs on Titanic). Garland used Norms as a cloak to disguise his deliberately sluggish prosecution of Trump and his top lieutenants.
Merrick Garland may be keeping his family safe and his house from being burned down. Think about what sorts of threats he's been subjected to.
Then he should never have taken the job. It's not like he had no idea who or what Trump was when he became AG.
And how many others will now have to deal with death threats, families ripped apart by ICE, or mob violence?
That almost sounds like saying we dodged a bullet when Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court got quashed by McConnell…
Which would be fatuous. Garland was a far, far better judge than Gorsuch was, and would be a far, far better justice than Gorsuch is.
This wouldn't be quite so disturbing, if the money-driven, Republican-biased infotainment media would report it honestly and give a legitimate analysis. But watch the "news" reports normalize it. Insist some creampuff action by some Democrat at some point in history was totally the equivalent. Or that Biden was worse!
If you're not a political news junkie and have not been keeping score for the last 8 or more years, and you just skim the headlines, you will miss the big picture. As intended.
That's why Democrats need to be needling and pounding on Republicans every day, in every venue. Point out the atrocities AS THEY ARE COMMITED. Two weeks before election day is far too late.
Yes x10 to your last paragraph. So far it's looking like AOC is the only one who's actually calling things by their right names-- at least the only one I've seen-- and we need a lot more of that.
It's still early days, though, and I'm sure we'll soon be seeing 50 or 100 of her fellow leading Democratic political figures standing with her and the 48+ percent of the voting public that wanted a different path this time around, using all the media avenues available to public figures to defend honest and constitutional government. I wish I could be sure enough to put money on it, though, tbh.
I don't really see those two EO's as related in any important way, as the dispute about freedom of speech and censorship is and hopefully always will be legitimate, even in this case where it's about emergency powers of government in a pandemic.
Of course, the EO itself is kind of nonsense, but as long as any party (I don't mean political) is championing freedom of speech as a value and right, I will never have a problem with it, let the debate continue!
Biden probably should have preemptively pardoned the entire federal government.
Exactly. Anyone bitching about Biden's pardons yesterday should be blocked from this website permanently. Especially when cop-beating J6ers got their get-out-of-jail free cards.
B-b-b-but the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed The Felon! And now?
https://x.com/svdate/status/1881738433271665030
Since before the election, you told us liberal democracy was not at stake and Trump was mostly acting for the camera.
Oh shit, were you wrong?
We are just getting started. The best we can hope for is that Trump's ego balloons and he goes all-in shit show, so bad that it stuns even the most clueless. Otherwise in four years we will be a bona fide former democracy.
You know, I honestly have to wonder whether any of this is a surprise to John Roberts.
If it is, he's an unspeakably abject failure at understanding humans. If it isn't, he's the lead armorer for the assassins of the Republic.
who is beyond all this? trump's motives are clear but there is no way he is capable of formulating ideas other than he was mean to me, get him.
I know this crowd does not want to hear it, but some of this may be justified. For example, if somebody in one of the 8 Federal agencies that regulate banks decided to de-bank someone because of personal or ideological reasons, and if there is a law against depriving an American of their liberties (I think there is), then shouldn't that person be investigated and prosecuted? If you think not, then would you be just fine with a Trump true-believer de-banking any Leftist they want?
I agree with Kevin that this could be used as part of Trump's revenge tour. And no doubt some people who should not be revenged-upon will be. Of all the lawfare that the Left inflicted on the Right in the past 4 years, as far as I know, it was because those rascals broke the law. But it's possible (likely) that the Trump administration will go after some innocent people.
Nevertheless, from my research, it appears to me that some people within the Biden government broke the law (by de-banking and de-platforming) and the Left-of-Center American that I am thinks these crimes should be prosecuted.