Well, Pardon ME! October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 If you have less than two minutes today, skip the rest of this column and watch this: Thirteen presidents speak on a topic of great concern. Could any contrast be starker? Then . . . If you have four minutes purely for fun: SNL’s latest Weekend Update. Among other targets, they have a little fun with George Santos. Trump sprung him from prison after just 84 days of his 2,557-day sentence. But is it any surprise? Trump sees a lot of himself in Santos — an entertaining liar and conman. In a social media post, Trump reportedly called Santos “somewhat of a ‘rogue'” who had the “Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” So 2,473 days off for good behavior. (And who cares that he lied and cheated his way into office? Congress’s role, as Trump reads the Constitution he took an oath to defend, is purely ceremonial: to approve and applaud whatever he wants. Like Putin’s Politburo.) On a more serious note, when I most recently complained about Trump’s blanket pardon of the January 6 rioters who bludgeoned cops and sought to hang the Vice President, Carl responded with this: Biden sparks outrage with last-minute commutation of man convicted of killing FBI agents. The implication: well, isn’t that just as bad? (Or else: two wrongs do make a right.) I don’t click all the links Carl sends — he provides feedback several hundred times a year — but I sometimes do, and this was one of them. The headline refers to Biden’s commutation (not pardon) of Leonard Peltier’s life sentence. There is some reason to think he was wrongly convicted, but let’s assume not. He had served FIFTY YEARS. Ailing, he was not pardoned or set entirely free; he was remanded to home confinement for his remaining days. (Kind of like moving Ghislaine Maxwell to “Club Fed” — but after 3 years instead of 50.) Is Biden’s decision to grant this change of imprisonment at the end of his presidency in any way comparable to Trump’s pardoning more than 1,500 January 6 rioters and commuting the sentences of 14 others on his first day in office? They were guilty. Many plead that way. Many were sentenced by Trump-appointed judges. Whereas: . . . Amnesty International, which has long campaigned for Peltier’s release noted that former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who prosecuted the case, has said Peltier should be freed as well. The judge who oversaw his 1986 appeal, Gerald Heany, has also called for Peltier’s release. Thirty-three members of Congress wrote a letter also urging his release. Did any of the January 6 prosecutors or judges appeal on behalf of those Trump set free? Any members of Congress? I’m pretty sure not. So, as generally happens when I click a link Carl has sent — well-intentioned though it may be — it doesn’t seem to make the case Carl thinks it does. (Yes, immigrants commit some awful, shocking crimes — but at a far lower rate than native-born Americans. Etc.) Finally, today, a word about No Kings #2. You sent me dozens more great signs — MAKE AMERICA ETHICAL AGAIN! THE LYING KING MIKE JOHNSON BLOCKED ME ON GRINDR THEY’RE EATING THE CHECKS / THEY’RE EATING THE BALANCES IN A TIME OF UNIVERSAL DECEIPT, TRUTH-TELLING IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT — George Orwell MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN! — but what I want to mention is “the mainstream media’s” coverage of the protest. Specifically (because I haven’t had time yet to watch the Sunday shows), NBC’s Weekend News with José Diaz-Balart. He reported “hundreds of thousands” of us taking part across the country — but it was millions. Some of his correspondents reported “thousands” of protestors in their city when it was clearly tens of thousands. And he reported that the 2,500 protests were “largely peaceful” — when in fact all were. How about showing clips of Trump predicting a low turnout, and others warning of riots, and then reporting, “Taken together, the millions who turned out from Florida to Alaska today may have been the largest nationwide protest in American history. And contrary to some predictions, it was entirely peaceful.”