Political Spades

And the Grand Canyon

A high school friend just wrote to me to complain about Biden’s pardoning his son Hunter. “What’s the difference?” he asked.

This is not to defend Hunter. Yes, he made mistakes, and his enemies capitalized on them. Yes, I was not surprised that Biden pardoned him.

But how is it that one pardon on one guy who is pretty small in the bigger picture has my friend so upset? Somehow, my former classmate is having a bit of trouble understanding the difference between pardoning “small potato” Hunter and the gang of traitors who Trump is planning to pardon.

Here’s the difference:

• 34 felonies

• Four severe open federal cases related to the insurrection, including

  • Stolen documents

  • Leadership and Collaboration

  • Likely sales, or give-aways, of some of those documents to America’s enemies

  • Hundreds of people who tried to overthrow our government on January 6th

• Jan. 6th, where the “hundreds,” i.e., the marauding, traitorous insurrectionists tried to overthrow our government and were willing to

  • Kill police

  • Smash windows and doors

  • Smear marble steps with feces

  • Steal computers and irreplaceable artifacts

  • Build gallows, and

  • Look for Pence and Pelosi to hang them in the gallows they built.

The difference between Hunter and the president-elect’s gang of murdering, thieving traitors is gigantic — far more expansive than the Grand Canyon.

As it happens, I live within blocks of the U.S. Capitol. I saw the damage. I have friends who work there. They had to protect their Members and themselves. They pushed desks in front of doors, hid in closets or behind file cabinets, and sometimes found themselves in hand-to-hand contact with the traitors.

Now, we are about to install Donald Trump again. He has already begun his chain of lies. He did not get a mandate. The difference in votes was fewer than one-half of one percent.

Since Jan. 6th, judges have had to “wrestle” with Trump’s claims — Trump will give “full pardons” to everyone; Jan. 6th was just a picnic or an ordinary constituency day, and more of Trump’s “garbage talk.”

Possibly worse than pardoning Trump’s band of traitors are the people he is trying to appoint to his cabinet. Another name is dropped daily, and the Cabinet’s IQ drops another 50 points. Undoubtedly, the average IQ is in negative numbers by now.

Most certainly, Trump is scraping the bottom for the least loyal-to-the-U.S. people he can find. He wants to even the score for being caught red-handed with his hands in the till of democracy.

The question is: Can we stop him? Will we allow the "Grand Canyon" to be filled with a Cabinet of Misfits? I urge you to write and call your senators and demand they do not confirm these appointees. Tell the Senators that vengeance has no place in our government and that every appointee must go through the investigation and confirmation process.

You can call any U.S. Senator at (202) 224-3121.

Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Hackman, Don Rosenzweig-Ziff, The Washington Post: Judges stress need to preserve truth of Jan. 6 as pardon talk intensifies

Ryan J. Riley, NBC News: Trump will 'most likely' pardon Capitol rioters on day one and says Jan. 6 committee members should be jailed

Ivan Pereira, ABC News: Trump's controversial Cabinet picks raise questions about lower ethical standards

Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Meet Donald Trump’s Brick-Shittingly Scary New Cabinet, and Everyone Else Advising Him in a Second Term