If you didn’t see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver last night, the Main Story was on Immigration -- or more specifically, about immigrants being held for detention by ICE.  It focuses on the activities of ICE, the challenging conditions of it all for detainees, and what can be done about it.  The story is serious and interesting, though still with sardonic humor.

Bet your bottom dollar.
Tomorrow, there'll be Sun.

As part of our new effort to write shorter and more focused pieces, we offer the following:
 
Back in early 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Chinese national crypto founder Justin Sun and three of his companies with “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market” for a crypto token by using unregistered securities.  The SEC filled other charges of illegal activities against Sun, as well.

As the case made its way through the system, shortly after the 2024 election Sun not only became the largest investor in World Liberty Fund -- the Trump-backed crypto project -- buying $30 million of its tokens, he publicly announced the fact on TwiXter about how proud he was to do so.  This despite the tokens being largely worthless to him because they are non-transferable.

Further, since then Sun has invested an additional $45 million in WLF.  What this translates to is that, given Trump’s take in the venture, Sun’s $75 million of purchases has brought Trump personally over $50 million.
 
In totally unrelated news... --
 
Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby report on their excellent Popular Information Substack site that on Wednesday, “The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Sun sent a joint letter to a federal judge, asking for a stay of Sun's case. Today, the judge granted the SEC's request.” 

So, the case has been halted.
 
To be clear, the charges are not dropped, but remain active.  The stay is to “allow the Parties to explore a potential resolution.”  Which is lovely.  On the other hand, the case has been ongoing for two years, and it’s only one month into Trump’s term in office when defendant Sun and the SEC have together suddenly decided not to go forward with the case but try to settle.

​

It’s become clear that one of the new tactics of “Mump regime” (tm Timothy Snyder), which has to stem from the sense of hubris thinking that a 1.4% victory margin, while losing a seat in the House translate to a “landslide mandate”, is to threaten lawsuits against all their perceived “enemies,” which is basically anyone who didn’t vote for them.  Which is literally more than half the country.  Some of this, no doubt, is also based on revenge had Trump getting indicted so many times.  What gets missed in their cries, though, is that -- as I've been yammering on social media for months, waiting for the news media to make the same blatantly obvious point, which sadly isn't as newsworthy as threats of a lawsuit -- to just get an indictment (not to mention get all even a single guilty verdict) is that you need actual evidence.  And, interestingly enough, “I don’t like them” is not considered actual evidence.
 
Many of the threats have come from Trump himself, of course, though not all.  And a lot of the hubris likely comes from ABC bizarrely settling a Trump lawsuit that he had no chance of winning.  But in settling it seems to have – not unexpectedly – opened the door to a sense of puffery that anyone can be sued now.
 
(Of course, the reality is that, in fact, anyone can be sued.  Having the lawsuit not thrown out of court before even being court is another matter entirely.  As is winning.)
 
Threatening lawsuits against members of the Special Select January 6 Committee members is only one of the many ludicrous efforts.  These are all elected officials, after all, who were doing their sworn duty to investigate.  Further, they had no power to indict anyone, but just issued a report.  (Not to mention that most of their witnesses were Republicans.)  There have been threats of suing elected officials in California over their stated positions of sticking with their state obligations that are contrary to MAGOP proposals against immigrants.  Just this morning I received an email from the progressive Meidas Touch group about a recent discussion on a TwiXter forum (where one of the main participants appears possibly to have been Elon Musk under a pseudonym), and the main topic was going after Meidas Touch.  And we’ve had stories about whether certain members of Congress should or might ask for pardons from President Biden to protect themselves against threats to sue them by Trump – a bizarre situation since accepting a pardon is considered an admission of guilty, despite not having done anything even remotely illegal.
 
The problem with all this is not the fear or likelihood of any of these people being ever found guilty.  You not only have to have done something illegal, there has to be literal evidence of illegal acts, and enough to prove to juries that you’re guilty of anything.  The problem is that defending yourself even against non-existence charges is expensive.  And a harrowing experience when those who might be trying to indict you for doing nothing wrong is the federal government.
 
Still, though, for all my yammering about this on social media for the past months, it was good to see conservative lawyer George Conway say it far more eloquently, especially from the legal perspective of knowing what he's talking about, as he explained how utterly ludicrous this all is, even with it being a hellish burden to go through.  Though making the point that it being a hellish burden is part of the point. 
 
And it all came up in regards to the most idiotic threat of a lawsuit by Trump – when he said that he was considering he might sue a highly-respected pollster in Iowa for supposed “election interference,” as a result being wrong…in a state that he actually won (!)– meaning he has absolutely no damages, even if he had a case.  Which he doesn’t.
 
Among the things Conway said when talking to an MSNBC weekend panel was --
 
“It's the laws. You have to have laws that are violated to bring these actions whether they be brought in his personal capacity or by the government. This is all nonsense."
 
"Especially suing the pollster?" he continued. " There is no claim for suing a pollster, putting out a poll that doesn't predict the right result. And think about this: he is saying they lied about a poll. There is no person on this planet who has lied more about polls than Donald Trump. I mean, he is always saying he is ahead, he is never behind in the polls.”
 
And later, Conway got to the point behind it all.  'It's all gaslighting and it's all intimidation and bullying, that's what narcissists do. And some people are being bullied and he is trying to make everybody afraid of him. But what's going to happen is he is going to overreach in some of these lawsuit, like this Des Moines Register lawsuit; the lawyers may be sanctioned. These lawsuits are going to go nowhere and he is going to have egg on his face and look like the fool that he is."
 
Here's the whole 10-minute segment.

​And what the heck, we might as well go out on this.  (And yes, I did consider Shel Silverstein's song recorded by Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue", but instead this won out.  It seemed more directly fitting...) --

You may have seen new stories about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appearing on Broadway last week in the musical “& Juliet” in a walk-on role.  All the better, it turns out that she didn’t just walk on stage for a line, but was in two scenes and  had a song with some choreography!

It turns out that she has not only always loved musical theater, but even took classes and performed in shows at Yale.  (She was in the musical Little Shop of Horrors there with humorist Mo Rocca playing 'Seymour,' and in one of her classes, she performed in a scene with Matt Damon.)  In fact, when she applied to Yale, she told the interviewer that her goal was to be the first Black Supreme Court Justice to be on Broadway!  She reached her goal.

By the way, upcoming I'll be posting her appearance on the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! where she talking about this in detail -- and one of the panelists is...Mo Rocca!
 
If you haven’t seen any footage of her performance and rehearsals, here are a couple of fun videos.
 
The first is a short one released by the production –
​

It's rare these days to read about news so deeply galling that isn't the result of an action by Trump or one of his circle - somehow ABC News managed to do it by settling a defamation lawsuit by Trump.  They agreed to pay $15 million to a Trump presidential library, and put an apology on their website.

As the expression goes - I can't even.

This is pathetic on so many levels.  Starting with it came the day after the judge ruled Trump was required to sit for a deposition.  From that, there's the very reasonable likelihood that he would never want to be deposed, in which case the case would have been thrown out.  But if he did agree to sit and be questioned, just imagine what the lawyers for a national news organization could get from a Trump under oath.  If he again pleaded the Fifth another couple hundred times, there would be little evidence to support his case.  If he did testify, he would likely again claim he didn't rape (or "sexually assault") E. Jean Carroll, which not only has already been adjudicated by two separate juries, but has also required him to pay $91.6 million.

But further, ABC News actually has truth on its side.  Trump's defamation claim was that the jury had not found he raped E. Jean Carroll, as the network's George Stephanopoulos stated, but was found liable of…er, merely "sexual abuse."  However, as the judge in the case, Lewis Kaplan, wrote in a legal filing -- "The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was 'raped' within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape'.  To which he added, "Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that."  

Further still, it would have been a monumentally high hurdle for Trump, a public figure (incredibly public) to prove he was defamed.  (Which is critical in a defamation suit, not just showing the other party was wrong, even though ABC News was right.)  After all, the standard for defaming a public figure, most especially a politician, is greater than for private individuals.  More to the point, Trump was actually found legally liable of the equivalence of rape by two juries already!  Not to mention has another dozen claims of rape against him.  And on top of all that, despite the jury verdicts, the other claims, the ABC News statement and the public knowing all of that…Trump still won the election.  So, his reputation was damaged by ABC News…how??

Besides which -- even if what was said was, in fact, false, to prove it was defamatory, the plaintiff must prove that the statement by the defendant was made recklessly or with malice.  If someone actually believes what they are saying is true (for instance, oh, like believing the judge in the case when he wrote that what the jury found is commonly considered rape...), then it's not defamation.

And even more, there's that whole pesky First Amendment "freedom of the press" thing that ABC News had going for it in their defense.

Speaking as a complete, unabashed non-lawyer - but going by all that I've read from those who are actual, accomplished attorneys in this and many other defamation cases, and added what I think is reasonable common sense -- it seems that any one of these matters would have made it incredibly difficult for Trump to win a defamation lawsuit against the network.  But once you put them all together, the challenge would border on the insurmountable.
And yet, ABC News cowardly caved.

I'm sure they have their reasons to explain why they did as they did.  That doesn't make the reasons good or supportable.  All the more so, even putting the legal case aside (which is a massive amount to put aside), the damage that capitulating does to the news division's reputation is incalculable.

After all, ABC News has now shown its standard for not standing behind its journalists and not supporting freedom of the press.  Along with showing its willingness to cravenly roll over when an authoritarian fascist pushes against them.  Standing up to that, investigating that is the whole point behind the First Amendment and journalism.  And ABC News failed at that, which creates a deep hole for them it's going to take a long time to crawl out of.

Indeed, the response by ABC News makes it easier for the public to know what sources people should watch for full, open, aggressive, in-depth investigative reporting.

Hopefully, understanding this problem ABC News caused for itself, they will now ratchet up their reporting and investigation to a far more aggressive level.  I don't have confidence in that, but a hope.

And I hope, as well, that when they do pay that $15 million to a Trump presidential museum, their in-house watchdog make certain that such a museum is actually built, and if not that no money is paid.  And also, that if the money is paid, it ends up specifically for use at the museum, and not shifted elsewhere, like to Trump's pocket.

A final hope, albeit one with even less expectation:  when ABC News posts its apology, I hope that it reads, "ABC News apologizes for wrongly stating that Donald Trump was found guilty of rape, when instead what he was twice found liable for was sexual abuse, something the judge in the case, Lewis Kaplan, wrote in a legal filing were actions the general public commonly believes to be rape."

In the end, though, this revolves back to ABC News abrogating its responsibilities for protecting a free press on pretty much every level, whatever the reasons they try to give.  After all, as Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States wrote -- 

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." 

ABC, giving new meaning to its name.

Always Being Cowardly

Always Being Craven

​Always Be Caving

 
 
Before commenting, I came across several posts on social media that did a good job expressing my thoughts, though more pithily.
​
“At this point I guess Biden has zero fu**s left to give.”
-- Brian J. Karem (White House correspondent)

We’re not accepting complaints about the Hunter Biden pardon unless you also complained about the Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort pardons.
-- David Corn (journalist for Mother Jones)

“Literally, if you're a self-imagined journalist who did ABSOLUTELY NO coverage of Trump's pardons during the election, you should crawl into a dark room in shame for caring about this. There is nothing sleazier.
-- Marcy Wheeler (national security expert journalist), in response to press criticism.


If you were Joe Biden watching Trump appoint his son-in-law's pardoned extortionist daddy as ambassador, then you'd pardon Hunter Biden too.
-- Grant Stern (executive editor of Occupy Democrats)
 
Okay, just one more.  It’s not pithy, but worth including.  That’s because it’s a tweet from former Attorney General Eric Holder.

​What’s stood out to me from the criticisms of the pardon are that it’s hurts the public’s perception of the rule of law, and that it’s hypocritical of President Biden after saying he wouldn’t pardon his son.  That, and one other thing:  the extensive coverage of the pardon.
 
To start with, when some of wrung their hands in distress over the rule of law, I don’t think the impact of this pardon on how the public sees the rule of law borders on zero.  After all, the public has lived through Trump trying to overthrow the government and being able to use the rule of law to force so many delays that he hasn’t had to face a single court trial on it, despite two federal indictments, both of which have now been dismissed.  Further, the public has seen the Supreme Court rule that a president can commit almost any crime (!) while in the White House and have immunity for it.  Moreover, the public has also seen Trump convicted of 35 felonies, been found liable of rape, and been found guilty of business fraud – and then shrugged and elected him president.  So, when it comes to the presidency their perception of “the rule of rule” has already been bent out of shape so much that a president using his Constitutional right to pardon his own son for reasons (whether or not one agrees with the reasons) that most legal experts say are justifiable pretty much doesn’t even register on the “Rule of Law-o-meter.”
 
On top of which, the public has also seen Trump, when previously in the White House, pardon four men -- Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort -- under threat of indictment for their involvement in trying to overthrow the government.  So, I suspect that pardoning one’s son convicted of basically tax evasion (which he paid back) and filling out a form illegally not only doesn’t rise to that level, but doesn’t rise to any level when impacting how the public sees the rule of law.
 
And beyond even that, the public saw Trump say repeatedly as a campaign issue that he may pardon everyone in prison who was convicted from their part in the January 6 Insurrection.  So, thinking that Joe Biden pardoning his son for crimes that most legal experts say almost all others would never have even been charged in the first place will be something that the public sees as warping their view of the rule of law…is ludicrous and ignores the world of Trump we live in.
 
As for whether or not President Biden was hypocritical for pardoning his son after saying he wouldn’t, I don’t think there’s anything remotely hypocritical about it.  Conditions changed, and so opinions change.  It’s how life works and should work. And the conditions that changed are critically important:  because we now have an incoming president who has stated clearly and repeatedly that “I will be your retribution.”  That when in office, he plans to use the courts for revenge to go after his enemies.  And has named as his nominee to head the FBI someone who has been just as clear about politicizing the agency and using it to go after those who opposed the party and against whom he holds grudges.  And further, Trump just named his daughter’s father-in-law, who is a convicted felon that he pardoned, to be the Ambassador to France!  So, when those conditions changed, some which put his son at risk of further retribution, and some which took the power of the pardon to reprehensible and uncaring levels, a president pardoning his son after having his life dragged publicly through more mud and for longer than likely anyone ever convicted for the same charges does pass the smell test.
 
And if ultimately someone does want to believe that the pardon is hypocritical (and as I said, I don't believe it is in the slightest), if that’s the absolute worst charge that can be made about the pardon compared to the unending stream of gross hypocrisies that Trump has foisted onto the American public, changing positions from the minimum wage, health care (supporting a single-payer plan in 1999), vaccines and abortion, or changing positions when someone has offered him money – whether on cyber-currency, criticism Bud Light or wanting to ban TikTok or a range of other issues – not to mention the 30,000+ lies that the Washington Post reported when he was in office, it’s an empty case devoid of substance.
 
Which leaves the matter of press coverage.  President Biden pardoned his son for being convicted of crimes (and yes, they were crimes) that almost all legal experts say others are almost never charged.  That he was hounded and charged solely because he was the son of President Biden, and MAGOPs wanted to impeach him but couldn’t find grounds after years of investigation.  So, they went after his son.  And the press has made this an on-going story.  In fact, right before posting this article this morning (two days after the pardon), MSNBC spent 20 minutes on their morning show still dealing with criticism.  And seemingly will continue doing so.  Despite having let it largely fall through their reportorial cracks when Trump pardoned Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort – people who were involved in trying to overthrow the government and democracy.  And pardoned donors, Blackwater war criminals, corrupt MAGOP politicians, participants in the Russia probe scandal and more.  Many of which actually impacted “the rule of law” in the United States.  And despite having just said he would appoint an extended family member, who he had pardoned, to be U.S. Ambassador to France.  (Which has received a ho-hum, oh-my, well, that's Trump response.)  But…Hunter Biden!  Who most legal analysts have said wouldn't have been charged if his last name wasn't Biden.

Or as Marcy Wheeler explained the situation yesterday morning:  “Literally, if you're a self-imagined journalist who did ABSOLUTELY NO coverage of Trump's pardons during the election, you should crawl into a dark room in shame for caring about this. There is nothing sleazier."

Yes, there have been reporters, legal analysts and commentators who’ve complained that pardoning his son is a gift to Trump, who will use it to justify whatever horrific pardons he makes in the future.  To me (and plenty enough others I've seen, as noted above), this is an almost stunning belief devoid of meaning or grasp of the real world.  To think Trump wouldn’t make the pardons otherwise, to think Trump wouldn’t find some issue to try to explain away his pardons, to think Trump even cares about ever justifying his actions making a pardon or for doing anything ignores everything we all have seen of Trump over the past eight years – or through our lifetime observing Trump. 
 
(On Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show last night, after giving lip service for 90 seconds to Kash Patel being Trump's nominee to run the FBI, showing news clips of Patel being called "the most dangerous nominee for democracy" and about him saying he wanted to jail judges, bureaucrats and judges -- a topic I therefore thought was about to be the theme of his segment ("the most dangerous nominee for democracy" seemed a pretty notable one, after all...) -- Stewart then brushed that aside and devoted the remainder of his 18 minutes to slamming President Biden for pardoning his son and ceding the moral high ground.  This is the same Jon Stewart, by the way, who only weeks ago slammed Democrats for them so-genteelly playing by the standard rules of politics, always taking the moral high ground, as it were, while Trump and the MAGOP found ways around that, bulldozing it into dust.  But now, oh-dear, President Biden pardoned his son!  As if the sociopathic, amoral Trump cares one tiny speck of dust about having the moral high ground "ceded" to him before he'll consider doing anything that undermines democracy. Let alone that it would take a lifetime to have the moral high ground ceded to him.  NOTE: Trump wouldn't know the moral high ground unless it was pointed out to him by a battalion shining klieg lights on it, and it was then reported on Fox -- at which point he'd bulldoze the thing.)

The bottom line:
 
There were no costs to past Trump pardons of those involved in the Insurrection to overthrow the government, or of war criminals, or of those involved in investigations of his own scandals, or more.  To try to put President Biden in the same category for pardoning his son for charges that would never have been brought if his last name wasn’t Biden and to protect his son against future retribution by those publicly out for vengeance and think there will be a cost to President Biden and the rule of law for it is twisting known reality until it’s unrecognizable.
 
And most people who are not the MAGOP base will fully understand the difference between a father pardoning his son wrongly targeted, and Trump pardoning white supremacist terrorists and those in prison for trying to overthrow the government.

Do I wish President Biden hadn't pardoned his son?  What I wish is that the MAGOP hadn't hounded and investigated Hunter Biden in Congress for two years, trying to get his father (and finding nothing), putting Joe Biden in the position where decency required appointing a special prosecutor who, in turn, likely felt obligated to charge him when he wouldn't likely have charged anyone else under the same conditions -- and that Trump and his FBI Director-nominee haven't relentlessly made clear they were about retribution and revenge, as MAGOP officials continue riling their base by talking about the non-existent "Biden Crime Family," making a pardon seem an understandable response.  At which point it should have been covered as a valid issue for a few hours before getting back to focusing on actual, literal threats to democracy.
 
And in the end, as Briam Karem so eloquently put it -- “At this point I guess Biden has zero fu**s left to give.”