Jonathan Chait is not amused at Biden’s outrageous abuse of power.

When President Joe Biden was running for a second term as president, he repeatedly ruled out granting a pardon to his son Hunter, who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying on a form to purchase a gun.

But now he’s not running for anything so what the hell, might as well abuse the office.

Biden professed a willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle. But in breaking his promise, and issuing a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period, Biden has revealed his pledge to have been merely instrumental.

…

President Biden’s complaint about the higher standard applied to his son reflects the perspective of myopic privilege. Crimes by family members of powerful public officials are far more damaging to public confidence than similar crimes by anonymous people. Holding them to account through strict enforcement of the law is good and correct.

What the president fails to note in his self-pitying statement is that Hunter Biden for years engaged in legal but wildly inappropriate behavior by running a business based on selling the perception of access to his father. The only commodity Hunter had to offer oligarchs in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere was the belief, or hope, that he could put in a good word for them with his dad.

And that’s the only reason those oligarchs paid any attention to him. As himself he had and has nothing to offer. It was always corrupt.

Joe Biden’s defense of Hunter’s influence peddling by stressing its narrow legality merely serves to highlight the hypocrisy of his fatherly indulgence. The black letter of the law was a fence to protect Hunter from the consequences of his sleazy behavior. And when the law itself trapped him, he simply opened a door and walked through it—a door no average American could access.

Which is about as privileged as it’s possible to be, which is why Biden should have kept that door firmly closed.

With the pardon decision, like his stubborn insistence on running for a second term he couldn’t win, Biden chose to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.

Kind of trumpish of him.

Oh ffs.

Biden has issued a sweeping pardon of his godawful corrupt sleazy son.

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he has pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” the president said in a statement. It is a “full and unconditional pardon,” according to a copy of the executive grant of clemency.

This official grant of clemency cannot be rescinded by President-elect Donald Trump.

By pardoning his son, Joe Biden has reneged on a public promise that he made repeatedly before and after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. The president and his top White House spokesperson said unequivocally, including after Trump won the 2024 election, that he would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.

Just kidding folks!

The broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offenses from his existing cases, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed “from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” This time frame, importantly, covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including in China. He had faced scrutiny for his controversial foreign business dealings, and Trump has repeatedly said he should be prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Which is laughable coming from Trump, but Trump is not the only one who considers Hunter Biden opportunistically corrupt at a minimum.

Joe Biden said in his statement that he decided to issue the pardon because his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” saying that “Hunter was treated differently” from people who commit similar crimes.

How many people do commit similar crimes? How many people get the chance to leverage Daddy’s high office the way Hunter Biden did?

He said in his statement, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice. … I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

But that’s the whole point, you blockhead: you’re supposed to separate the two. The fact that sleazy profiteering Hunter is your kid should be irrelevant to his sentencing and punishment. It’s a glaring abuse of power to pardon him.

This is the latest instance of an outgoing president using the pardon power to help a family member: Shortly before they both left office, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother and Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“As sympathetic as Hunter Biden’s circumstances might be, a pardon from Joe Biden would still be an abuse of the clemency power,” said Jeffrey Crouch, a leading expert on pardons who teaches at American University. “Presidents should not use clemency to help out their friends, family and allies in order to further their own personal interest.”

It’s crappy. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful.

JKR has a fine blistering mini-essay about the mass bullying of gender atheists.

The full essay:

The rewriting of history begins.

Opponents of gender ideology haven’t merely ‘endured unsparing criticism’. I haven’t simply been told I ‘betrayed real feminism’ or received a few book-burning videos.

I’ve been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family’s home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman. I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we’ve endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.

By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK’s leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.

Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.

Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who’ve been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They’ve started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres ‘Nazis’ was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says ‘I’m a woman’ into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?

Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don’t doubt those who’ve turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but ‘yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times’ takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.

How sad, it turns out that calling women too posh and too old doesn’t make people think you’re a good bloke despite the sexual harassment.

Outrage over Gregg Wallace’s alleged conduct has intensified after he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”, following revelations that the BBC received multiple complaints about him over a period of 12 years.

The corporation and other broadcasters are facing growing questions about how the MasterChef presenter was allowed to remain on screen despite a series of allegations of inappropriate behaviour dating back to at least 2012.

It’s a real puzzler. Could it be because there are lots of people – well, lots of men anyway – who love brash aggressive over-confident men who bully women?

Vera Baird KC, the former victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, accused the BBC of being “in the dark ages” for “tolerating” allegedly sexually inappropriate conduct by its male stars.

“It is shocking that repeatedly we see this kind of behaviour being tolerated by the BBC who do seem to disregard the obligations they have to protect people who go on television,” Baird told the Guardian.

No it’s not, because nobody minds it except women, and women don’t matter.

Unless they’re trans women of course. Trans women matter infinitely, but just plain women, no.

Baird, a former senior government minister and barrister, described Wallace’s remarks as “typical behaviour of a sexually predatory male. As soon as he’s criticised for his conduct, he demeans the people who are criticising him, demeans the woman – implying that they’re all delicate flowers, middle class, and all of a certain age.”

Baird described the allegations as “grossly unprofessional” but said she was offended by Wallace’s remarks because “working-class women don’t want men taking their clothes off and talking about sex in front of them either”.

Gregg Wallace should say he’s just realized he’s actually a trans woman. All this would disappear in a heartbeat.

It’s real; I checked.

The screenshot is of a Facebook post, which is alive and kicking and hiding all comments that don’t say “How fabulous!!!!!!” The page is the “Official Facebook page for the public libraries in Canberra and the ACT Heritage Library.” Isn’t that nice? Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to teach children that women are fish. Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to teach children that “jokes” about women smelling like fish are totally awesome and riotously funny. Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to invite men dressed as insulting caricatures of women and calling themselves Phony Fish to read to the children. Start the hatred of women early!

Apparently, according to the headlines, with all due caution, the most popular movie on Netflix at this time is titled “Hot Frosty” and the plot summary (one of them anyway) is…

Widow Kathy magically brings a snowman to life. His innocence helps her heal and find love again. They bond before the holidays, but he’s doomed to melt.

You’re welcome.

Guy accused of sexist behavior blames those stupid old middle-class bitches.

Gregg Wallace hits out at insults ‘handful’ of accusers

Gregg Wallace has hit back at rejected allegations of historic misconduct, saying they have come from a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

For the umpteenth time: adult journalists need to stop translating rude words into “hitting out at” or “hitting back” or any other form of hitting. Saying is not hitting, and news organizations should be careful not to use metaphors recklessly. Poetic license is all very well but BBC News is not a poet.

That said – the guy is obviously a shit. Oh no, women dare to be middle-class and over 30 – the nerve of them! How old is he? 60. Yeah but he’s a guy so there is no “of a certain age.” That’s only for bitches.

Responding to Wallace’s video, actress Emma Kennedy who won Celebrity MasterChef in 2012 and says she complained about his behaviour at the time, said “it doesn’t matter what the age of any woman is”.

“If you behave inappropriately, you behave inappropriately,” she told BBC News. “It’s a story as old as the tides that people who have been accused of inappropriate behaviour turn the tables on those pointing it out and try and change the narrative.”

She added: “Playing the ‘they’re having a go at me because I’m working class’ card is ridiculous.”

Can’t a guy have a little fun?

TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend about an encounter with Wallace several years ago that left her “so embarrassed”, after he “made a reference to something [he and his partner] did in bed”.

She also called Wallace’s claims on social media on Sunday “unacceptable”, adding: “He is essentially saying this is a class issue and middle-class women don’t understand the type of things he says because he’s working-class.”

And because he’s a guy and because he’s…er…60.

The other day I fumed about Amnesty’s siding with the Scottish Ministers instead of For Women Scotland; so did JKR.

Seriously.

ABC News (the one in Australia) reports:

For many National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants, a federal government decision means they can no longer access sexual services funding under the system, or they could risk financial pressure.

Sydneysider Oliver Morton-Evans says this decision has been “deeply disappointing” for many who live with a disability, including himself. “Now, only those who are financially well-off in the disability community can afford this service by paying out of pocket,” he said.

Whereas instead the government should be paying for this “service”? Because access to women’s bodies or at least hands is a human right?

Throughout times in his life, Mr Morton-Evans has sought the services of sex workers. He described it as an overall enriching experience.

Slaveowners said the same thing.

Mark Grierson, CEO of Advocacy Law Alliance/Disability Advocacy NSW, said there are valid and legitimate reasons as to why these services should be funded through the NDIS.

…

“We strongly feel that people with a disability need that access to intimacy, pleasure and sexuality like everybody else. Many have got quite severe physical disabilities and some may need extra assistance to get access to that sort of pleasure and intimacy,” he said.

But “access” to someone else’s body can’t be made a legal right without implying that some people are obliged to provide that body.

“Intimacy in all forms is vital. It’s a level of human connection and vulnerability that a lot of disabled people have challenges accessing anywhere else,” he said.

Therefore it should be a consumer item like any other consumer item, right? No, because it involves access to the bodies of other people.

Woman who writes a column for the Washington Post tells women to shut up and take it.

Competition is never equal, and it is only sort of, approximately, occasionally fair. The best we can ask is that it be meaningful, that it teach us something about ourselves. This is the context in which transgender athletes enter into sport, and the people who would reduce this self-seeking to an unfair “them” against “us” are missing the point entirely: Sport doesn’t tell us who we are biologically, but spiritually, and psychologically, and the first thing it tells us is not to be victims. So it’s a step backward for so many women athletes to cry frailty in the debate over trans participation.

Stop. Stop right there. Stop right there, shut up, hit yourself in the face.

It is not a step backward for women to want to continue competing against other women. It’s a step in the same direction we’ve been going ever since women were allowed to play in serious sports at all. It’s not backward or whiny or weak or cowardly or whatever other snotty sneery insult you’re trying to sneak in here: it’s just the same division of sport into men’s and women’s for the sake of fair competition for women. What do you think you look like, calling women names for wanting that?! Accusing women of “crying frailty”?! And by the way you meant fragility, you hack. Frailty is a moral term not a physical one. You’re a hack and a coward and an enemy of women.

…the lawsuit brought by San José State co-captain Brooke Slusser and 10 other Mountain West volleyball players asking emergency injunctive relief to bench a San José State player for, in their view, not being a proper woman doesn’t clarify the matter.

Snotty. Snotty, snide, childish. It’s not about “not being a proper woman”; it’s about being a man. Men are not “improper” women; men are men. Propriety is not even slightly the issue. It’s not about etiquette, it’s about bodies.

Newsweek says Biden should have arrested Trump on January 21, 2021.

[B]y failing to arrest Trump immediately, Biden allowed the seriousness of Trump’s treasonous acts to diminish in the public’s collective memory, granting Trump’s supporters and others who might be swayed to his side the chance to believe that it was an open question as to whether or not he’d engaged in insurrection (when it definitely was not). It allowed the media, too, to make it seem like less than a fact, engaging in the usual horserace political coverage once it was election season, even though one of the candidates was a would-be usurper.

It’s true. Trump paid no real price for that mind-bogglingly serious crime, and now four years later he’s actually fucking back. He tried to overthrow the government then, and now he’s back as the head of the government. It’s pathetic. It’s a horror show.

We arrested and charged many of those who’d been at the Capitol that day, yet failed to apprehend and prosecute the ringleader. Trump’s very freedom made people doubt his guilt, since humans have this terrible tendency to believe that we get what we deserve. If Trump had really engaged in a coup, they reckoned, why wasn’t he sitting in a federal brig?

We also have this terrible tendency to believe that the people in charge know what they’re doing. They haven’t arrested Trump, so there must be compelling reasons not to, so we’ll just move on and forget all about him.

The Sun reviews Smoggie Queens, hijinks ensue.

CALL me a wide-eyed optimist, if you like, but when a second female impersonator joined EastEnders this month, I thought: “Surely to God, we’ve reached peak drag queen and the BBC can find another obsession now.”

These men are across ­absolutely everything, after all, starting with four different versions of Ru Paul’s global abomination, which the Beeb has got on a loop.

Yes but the Beeb is every bit as obsessed with minstrel shows oh wait no it’s not. Mocking and insulting people of color is unacceptable but mocking and insulting women is wholesome every day entertainment. Right?

Smoggie Queens is up there with the worst ­sitcoms I’ve ever watched, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

For if TV’s drag era has taught us anything it’s the fact that behind nearly every ­grotesque facade there is a ­seriously dull man with some very odd ideas about women.

Which must be why the Beeb likes it so much.

Without doubt, Smoggie Queens will indulge all who follow as well, as it seems to be cut from the same holier-than-thou cloth as its host broadcaster, and in the absence of a decent punchline ends most of the episodes with the same sort of morality ­lectures that used to punctuate The Cosby Show.

Toxic masculinity, the ­blurring of gender lines, the importance of LGBTQI+ reps at work — you know the sort of cobblers. None of it stops Smoggie Queens assuming all straight men and old people are thugs and bigots until they’ve draped themselves in the rainbow flag, naturally.

However, the lack of self-awareness certainly fuelled the pay-off to episode one: “We are who we are, strong, fierce and unreservedly queer. If you can’t find us, keep searching, know your worth, because we’re out there somewhere on this big old queer earth.”

Can’t find you?

Switch your telly on, man. You can barely find anything else.

Ok but they identify as marginalized so shut up.

No actually let’s not bring back blasphemy laws.

Humanists UK stands up for blasphemy.

A poster advertising comedian Fern Brady’s tour is ‘sacrilegious’, according to a complaint received by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Given ASA rules, this complaint could lead to the comedy poster being banned.

Humanists UK is concerned that the ASA will ban the poster on grounds of causing religious offence, as it has with similar adverts in the past. It says that doing so amounts to a de facto anti-blasphemy law, which is an unreasonable restriction on free expression.

To put it mildly. If blasphemy is forbidden then we can’t point out that old stories about gods and devils and angels are just that: old stories. We need to be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. We’re allowed to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Priests and mullahs and rabbis have no jurisdiction over free people.

BBC trolling us:

The BBC pundit Sharron Davies has joined forces with a leading human rights charity in accusing the national broadcaster of potentially casting a shadow over next month’s Sports Personality of the Year (Spoty) event by naming Barbra Banda as their women’s footballer of the year.

The BBC was the subject of widespread criticism on Tuesday after announcing that a player banned from the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations for elevated testosterone levels had received its coveted award.

See that will be why the Beeb did it. Feminist women must be trolled and punished and generally shoved around.

Now Davies, the former Olympic swimmer who worked as the poolside reporter for the BBC at this year’s Paris Olympic Games, has joined the charity Sex Matters, as well as former British distance runner Mara Yamauchi, British sailor Tracy Edwards, and the campaign group Fair Play For Women in sending a strongly worded letter to Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC head of sport, and Stephen Mawhinney, the head of sports journalism.

…

In their letter, Davies and her fellow signatories say: “Banda won [the BBC award] in a public vote, but BBC Sport owns the process and must own the outcome, since BBC Sport managed the creation of the shortlist, and BBC Sport promoted Banda’s nomination on social media.

“Banda is a player whose sex has been called into question. It’s been reported that Banda was withdrawn from a women’s tournament rather than face a sex test. Given the known issues around male athletes with disorders of sex development finding their way into women’s sport, it is disappointing that the BBC would actively promote someone whose eligibility to play in women’s sport is in question.”

Disappointing but all too predictable. The questionable eligibility is of course why the BBC chose that particular athlete.

Sally Hines thinks people in developing countries don’t know how to make babies.

Fiona McAnena last week on fairness in women’s sport:

The Football Association does not allow mixed football for adults. That is what it will tell you. But this month a 17-year-old girl was suspended for questioning the presence of a bearded man in the opposing team. That was an offence under the FA’s code of conduct because that man says he is a woman.

So which is it? You might think the FA should pick one and only one, but wait, there’s an escape clause. The bearded man is not a man, because he says he’s not. Bam, problem solved.

Since 2013, the FA has allowed male players who identify as transgender into women’s teams if they can show they have lowered their testosterone. 

To point out the obvious, that’s a very bizarre and unfair “if”. Lowering one’s testosterone does not reverse all the physical advantages that have accrued since puberty started. The skeleton doesn’t shrink.

Three years ago the UK’s Sports Councils published transgender inclusion guidance that pointed out that male puberty is not reversible, that testosterone suppression does not change that, and that allowing male players into women’s teams is neither fair nor safe in a contact sport. Since then the biggest participation sports – athletics, swimming, cycling – have changed their rules to protect the female category, as have many others. But not football, the biggest team sport in the country.

The biggest and also, surely, one of the most contact-prone. There’s a lot of accidental or non-accidental crashing and bumping in football, and women aren’t going to want to get bumped by a man. My guess is that the presence of a man on the other team would be generally inhibiting for the opposing team, which all by itself – even if no crashing ever happened – is a more than adequate reason to say NO to men in women’s football.

Oh look, it’s not just a guess.

A year ago, Telegraph Sport reported on a row that was tearing apart the Sheffield and Hallamshire women’s football league. One player, an adult male, was causing havoc. The male ability to shoulder women off the ball, combined with running speed, “made a mockery of the game”, one player told me. Other teams withdrew, fearing injury. Privately, one of his team-mates expressed her worry, saying she tried to be on the same side in training so as to avoid his tackles. But she did not dare say so publicly.

What I’m saying. It hobbles the opposing women even before the damn match starts.

This is a recurring theme. A player at the club who reported the 17-year-old told me that she knows it is not right. She claims that a player was tackled so hard by a transgender player that she ended up concussed, and a defender had her shoulder broken trying to block a shot from a transgender player. But she says “there’s a culture of fear around discussing this, which means nobody can complain, including opposition players and managers, because when they try to bring it up, the local FA has always shut it down”.

So injury to women and destruction of their sport doesn’t matter, but confirmation of men’s claims to be women does matter.

Why is that exactly? In all these years I’ve never seen a convincing explanation.

The Sheffield incident prompted more than 70 MPs and peers to sign a letter to the FA expressing their concern about its policy, and the risk of harm to female players. Earlier this year, in response, senior FA officials met a small group of MPs at Westminster. I was at that meeting, and heard the FA justify its approach on the basis that 72 is a small number in the context of the 2.6 million who play football. 

72 men bashing women is a small number compared to 2.6 million. Well that’s fine then.

Hmmmmm. It says “NHS inform” at the top. It shows other available languages. Surely the goal here is to inform patients. And yet…

The goal is surely to inform, and yet the NHS tells people, including people who don’t read English, that there are people who are not women or girls yet who “bleed from their vagina.” Well, what people? What people are those exactly? What people who are not women or girls have the ability to “bleed from their vagina”? Why don’t we all know about them? Why haven’t we all always known about them?

The NHS, let’s remember, is not the Guardian or the BBC, nor is it an activist on social media. The NHS is a health service. An important part of its work is providing information that is as clear and unambiguous and easy to understand as it can possibly be, and also as accurate. Accuracy is key. You don’t want to go mixing up milligrams and micrograms, and you don’t want to go mixing up women and men. You need to know exactly what the patient weighs before you prescribe meds, and you need to know exactly what sex the patient is before a whole lot of things. That’s the job, and it’s crucial. Pretending boys and men can menstruate is the opposite.

Here NI is “a place for lesbian and bisexual women” in Belfast. Its most recent Facebook post, six hours ago:

One, it carefully omits “sex” from the “regardless of” bit. Two, the image is of a woman brandishing her fist at a cringing shaking man while shouting at him.

To repeat: it calls itself “a place for lesbian and bisexual women.”

Pretend-woman Robin Moira White in the Independent:

Today continues the Supreme Court hearing of the For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers appeal. Ostensibly, this case concerns guidance issued by the Scottish government about who can be considered for places on boards of public bodies in Scotland. In fact, it comes down to a dispute about the meaning of the word “sex” in the UK Equality Act 2010, the definition of “woman” and “man” under that act – and the place of trans people in our society.

As if you can change the realities of who is a woman and who is a man by passing an act. As if we don’t already know who is a woman and who is a man. As if it made any sense to change the definitions of “woman” and “man.”

For Women Scotland, supported by intervening “gender-critical” or anti-trans organisations, argues that “sex” can only mean “biological” sex, defined by someone’s chromosomes from conception. The Scottish government, supported by interventions from the UK Equalities and Human Rights Commission and the international human rights organisation Amnesty says no, “sex” in the Equality Act includes transgender people who have been through the gender recognition process…

Blah blah blah. It’s all so ridiculous. You might as well redefine “death” – let’s change it to mean “a delicious meal.” Cheerful, but temporary. Death remains death, and changing the meaning of the word doesn’t and can’t change the reality. It’s much the same with life, and birth, and conception, and sex, and woman and man. Name them all Flopsy if you want but the realities remain.

Those who support For Women Scotland say that a finding which upholds the Scottish rulings would be disastrous for women’s rights. Their position appears to rest on exaggeration and hyperbole. Writing in the Daily Mail, Julie Bindel said this outcome would lead to the “destruction” of women’s rights. Given that the rulings have been in place since 2022 and women’s rights appear not to have been destroyed in the past couple of years, this seems polemic at best.

He says smugly, ignoring all the ways women’s rights have been battered and contested and diminished in the past couple of years. This conceited jerk blathering away in the Indy under the pretense of being a woman is one dent in women’s rights.