Karen Rubin, Columnist
What President Joe Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should be doing before Trump and the MAGAs take over:
Schumer should keep Senate in session every day until the end of the year in order to confirm judges (including name Jack Smith to a federal judgeship) and agency heads, even through Christmas. It may be too late to hold a public hearing of the evidence gathered over the past years by Jack Smith, Fanni Willis, and the Colorado court that found Trump to be an insurrectionist, ineligible to hold federal office under the 14th Amendment but he should sue the Supreme Court to act on the 14th Amendment to deny this uniquely unqualified and ineligible president-elect from taking office.
Biden should publish the fact sheets to document and set a marker for his achievements and successes in his historic, transformative term in office, so Trump and the MAGA Republicans can’t take credit, and will be harder to repeal things like Obamacare, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act that collectively have made the USA the strongest economy in the world, with the fastest rate of recovery after the coronavius pandemic, record jobs creation (16 million) – especially since Speaker Mike Johnson has implied he would. This will also make it easier to hold Trump and the MAGAs accountable when their policies – like his threat to impose 100% tariffs – trigger inflation and recession at the same time, with job losses, wages not keeping up with rising prices, or the deaths when the next pandemic hits or measles, polio even smallpox resurface, when seniors can’t afford food and rent, when homelessness takes over Washington DC, when protesters are attacked by police, when neighbors are rounded up and small businesses shutter, when food prices skyrocket, when the cost of heating homes and filling tanks rise, when no one is recalling unsafe baby products or faulty cars that speed up or blow up. And when the United States finds it has no allies left when terrorists attack.
Biden needs to put his mark on the fact that he cut child poverty in half – until the Republicans repealed the expanded child tax credit; that Americans are enjoying $4000 more in their pocket, on average (for billionaires, multiply by 1000) – a fact demonstrated by record travel and near-record holiday sales.
The revisioning and undermining Biden and his legacy continues with the unfair condemnation of Biden’s appropriate and just pardon of his son, Hunter – the outcry so outrageous given that Trump ONLY pardoned actual war criminals, drug dealers, cop-killers, fraudsters, domestic abusers, sex predators, and relatives – the one criteria being their connection to donors or family, who then go on to commit crimes or get appointments (Charles Kushner).
What motivated Biden to break his “pledge” to respect the Rule of Law? The fact that Trump has demonstrated he will ONLY appoint people to the FBI (Kash Patel), the Department of Justice and judges who will wage political prosecutions of his enemies, opponents, putting Biden and his family at the top of the list. Indeed, the prosecution of Hunter was ONLY political, to serve Trump’s interests, just as he tried to extort Ukraine to implicate Biden in corruption.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden stated. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Attorney General Garland was so, so concerned about any appearance of “political prosecution,” he is responsible for Trump and his associates escaping accountability for an attempted coup, election interference and fraud, and has put Biden and the Justice Department in the position of being accused of “political prosecution,” – the excuse Trump has waved around to justify his crusade of retribution and retaliation. Not really ironic. Just stupid, because Trump has spent the last eight years decrying all the legitimate investigations and prosecutions as Deep State, political persecution, and used his endless campaigning to shut down accountability.
And Garland’s nobility (defensiveness) was for naught because the MAGAs only magnified their charges of “political prosecution” rather than let the Rule of Law play out.
So it is stupid and naïve for Biden and the Democrats to fear falling into the trap of being branded “hypocrites” or undermining institutions. The MAGAs (shameless hypocrites) constantly expect Democrats to be purists – constantly bringing a knife to an AR-15 fight.
Trump has already broken every norm, every institution and even in this transition, is demonstrating he will bring a nuclear bomb to blow up government. The irony is the slim majority of voters (1.6 percent, not the landslide or mandate) who handed the presidency to Trump showed they did not care they were electing a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, fraudster, insurrectionist with nothing but contempt for the Constitution and Rule of Law.
There is no doubt Biden would have honored his pledge not to pardon Hunter if Kamala Harris had won the presidency. But in face of Trump’s return, and the characters he plans to name to key offices, there is no reason whatsoever why Biden should sacrifice his son.
I wouldn’t fault Biden, if having endured low approval ratings and Kamala Harris’ defeat, Biden figured, well, they don’t appreciate all that I’ve done, so screw ‘em.
