This is how I feel as well.

The Democratic party has stood by at best and enabled at most. Are they better than Republicans? Yes, in that they don’t actively do some things they allow Republicans to do.

A friend of mine described it as a dad (Republicans) molesting his kids. Mom (Democrats) know it’s happening, but can’t bring herself to do anything about it. Is mom better than dad? Technically yes?

Anyone advocating for working inside the system to change the system is hoping the person enabling your absuser finds a conscience. It won’t happen.

Go no contact. Vote third party. Vote independent.

It goes much further back than Pres. Obama’s first term. Dems have always virtue-signaled for at least the last 30-40 years, and then blamed the repubs when something they promised doesn’t go through, even when they’re a majority. All the while insider-trading themselves to profitability. A handful of them stand up for the party’s purported ideals, which is just enough to make it seem the party might care. It’s all a sham.

That being said, Pres. Biden’s administration did an admirable job cleaning up the mess left behind by Orange Man 1.0 when entire offices were devoid of employees, paper trails, documentation, state. They took too long to appoint an FCC chair, however, and didn’t even attempt to find a way to fix the DeJoy post office problem (which arguably would have been difficult.)

But then, now, dems seemingly have been silent about the results of the election. They’re acting like the police did in 2020 after George Floyd’s death and silent-quit. One would like to hope they are attempting to do anything to ensure as little damage to the country takes place in the next 4+ years as possible, but, in a messaging vacuum, Occam’s Razor should apply, and they’re likely doing nothing.

So many states have questionable voting security, and it’d be comparatively easy for a relatively smart person to inject temporary code patches on tallying machines, provided they could get the necessary signing certs (if the companies even cryptographically sign their code). It would only take a simple binary patch to execute only on a certain day/time to flip arbitrary votes, and otherwise never. Especially if that Starlink at swing locations thing was true, it could reroute DNS requests when the machines are online for updates, send them to some other IP address to download what looks like a valid patch to inject the sleeper code. (Completely speculation here, no actual evidence, and many pieces would be needed to get through a “trusted” system like the web certs as well, but man would I want to play with one of those machines and 100 ballots for a weekend.) It’d ostensibly be a 100% hands-off process and those “secured” locked down machines would do the dirty work themselves.

If VW can figure out how to cheat emissions tests and otherwise act “normal”, flipping a vote bit is babytown frolics.

That’s probably the most disappointing thing about all of this, learning that most of those in governance really don’t want to try.

Well, the majority of the voting public were pretty clear about not giving a shit about using pardon power for family or even former henchmen. If it’s ok to not only pardon your son-in-law’s dad, but to also give him a plum European diplomatic post (!), it’s ok for any other president as well, no?

The pardon power was exactly for this. The entire investigation was a political witch hunt. It’s meant to prevent exactly this kind of mistreatment in the justice system. Just because the person happens to be the president’s son changes nothing except that people will fall into GOP propaganda they’ve been setting up for years, while they push this investigation.

My understanding is that he’s trying to prevent a witch hunt against his son when Trump takes office. I would have done the same thing

100%

I’m not super shocked to see people defending this because a chunk of people will always play defense. I’m shocked to see how many are defending this. Nobody should give a shit about Hunter Biden. The attention brought onto him was certainly politically motivated but the trial itself was not. He did the crimes and he should be ready for the consequences. The guy is clearly a grifter.

I don’t care if Democrats stoop to the level of Republicans when it is actually defending our rights. When it is for blatant nepotism though? Fuck that with a sharp stick.

Funnily enough, the local satire paper here ran a story right before Thanksgiving with the headline “Turkey Pardoned by President Looks an Awful Lot Like Hunter Biden” with a picture of Hunter in a turkey suit. I think I would actually be more supportive if that had actually happened.

It shocks me to see people defending this.

On principle I agree with you but the US public voted in a wannabe dictator convict who is blatantly corrupt on every level at every opportunity. I also tend to think Republicans went to great lengths to attack Hunter since they couldn’t successfully attack Biden himself - and I could totally see Trump going after Hunter as an example and to target some figure in a powerplay. That harpie Congresswoman from Georgia literally showed nudes of Hunter on the floor of Congress for no reason, continuing the trend of the GOP having no “soul” or morals. Republicans have successfully ripped apart the country after Biden’s admin did its best to fix all the bs the GOP did 4 years ago. Fuck it, I just don’t care - Let Biden have this.

Based take, also great comment

Republicans in Congress are never going to want to limit excessive executive power if it’s only ever used in service of things they like.

This is a black stain on Biden’s presidential legacy.

Hahahahaha

It might come as a shock, but the president actually tends to pardon a lot of people at the end of their presidency, including people they don’t know

The Republicans literally spent their entire time wasting money on an ethics committee for Hunter Biden because they couldn’t find anything on biden

Id argue that when the government is spending millions to investigate a guy who isn’t even part of the government, it’s a political prosecution

He never even worked for the government

Unlike the trump family who are all being given positions of power and are openly abusing them

Irrespective, because of the Republican bs, Hunter is going to never be able to just do his time and live his life

Don’t forget that trump is also putting his own people in charge of positions of law too and he isn’t signing any ethics documents or selecting them ethically.

Even with a pardon, trump is a spiteful shit and i guarantee he’ll be attacking all of his political enemies

No, before anyone says it, it is not smart to stoop to their level

While it’s a bit disappointing, I understand that one perspective is that it is a defensive move. I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that Trump is going to abuse his power and weaponize the Justice Dept to extract everything he can, politically, from the resulting show.

I don’t know whether or not Biden would have done the exact same thing if it was a more reasonable Republican administration coming in. That would be far more telling. It might have been that Biden was making a show of it with the assumption that he’d be overseeing and influencing it all as president and if that weren’t the case he’d be abusing his authority to spare his son.

Yes, it’s frustrating because of the message it send but frankly, I don’t think it’ll cause much trouble. Everyone who’d see it as an admission of the guilt of the “Biden crime family” wasn’t going to change their mind, even if Hunter was publicly drawn and quartered by the Biden administration. Those folks would immediately move the goal post - “Yeah, whatever, but what about…” or just insist Hunter’s death was fake and it was all sham.

We fought against the Republicans to prevent misuse of executive powers exactly like this.

And we lost.

Americans want corruption. We voted explicitly for it.

No point in taking the high road or honoring decorum anymore. It doesn’t work to win elections in America.

when basically the only messaging we sent out during the entire 2024 campaign was that we were the morally superior choice. That someone who doesn’t respect the rule of law has no business being president.

And how exactly did that work out? I don’t think moral superiority is at all a helpful thing in politics.

I get where you’re coming from, but the political opposition in America to democrats is now literally Nazis and white supremacists. Bidens action isn’t a win for voters in any sense, that’s the only objectionable part tbh.

This absolute sham of an investigation, that involved publicly sharing his nude photos in Congress, already did that.

Republicans were literally showing his stolen dick pics during congressional hearings as revenge porn

If they weren’t in Congress, they would have been prosecuted in most countries

In practice, in most countries because of factors like this judges would have possibly pardoned him anyway

And to think, the legal system was without fault before this.

I don’t understand, why her being in Hawaii means she doesn’t give a fuck ?

Harris was in Hawaii 2 weeks after losing the election. She was gone for less than a week. Why is it bad to want to decompress for half a heartbeat after a crazy campaign?

And as for Hunter. Trump has packed the federal law enforcement agencies with corrupt MAGA nuts who want political retribution. Hunter will not be treated fairly.

Moreover, pardoning him highlights the conflict of interest that the GOP gladly ignored with Trump’s first term. If the GOP wants to prevent presidents from pardoning people they’re personally associated with, the Dems will happily join that vote.

On the one hand this is pretty hypocritical. On the other hand I probably would do the same in his position given that trump plans to weaponize the Justice department.

Seriously. Here’s the scenario I put myself in:

• I’m 82 years old
• Three close family members, including my first wife and two of my children, have died.
• I’m being succeeded by someone who has promised to leverage government agencies to attack his political enemies
• My son has symbolically become one of those enemies
• I have choices:

• I can wait to see whether my successor does some third world shit to him while he’s in prison and be powerless to stop it if he does

OR

• I can use my current powers to free him, saving him from that fate, and getting more time with my remaining son during my final few years of life.

Fuck I know what choice I’m making.

I understand every single argument about why he shouldn’t have done it. I agree with some of them. Still no problem for me to put myself in a state of mind where I do the exact same thing.

Go ahead and come at me if you want, folks. I understand, but I won’t be changing my mind. If I’m 82 years old, my son stands a good chance of being abused while in a jail cell after I retire, and I can both avoid that plus also get an extra year+ with my son before I die, with nothing more required than expressing my wish for him to be released, I’m doing it.

Meh, it’s like how I give preferential treatment to the people I like at work and make my employees that I dislike do the work I hate. It’s just human nature.

Lmao, you mean Fox New’s take. If I want GOP propaganda I’ll just listen to the politicians.

Thanks for the share. Probably the fastest I’ve ever hit the subscribe button.

He used the law to destroy the law

That ship sailed 4 years ago with Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, George Papadopoulos, etc.

precedent.

Yeah that hasn’t mattered for about a decade now.

The only time precedent ever matters to conservatives is if it works in their favor.

The pardon train is just getting moving. They’ve likely had a team taking applications and looking for cases for at least a few weeks now. December and January are generally when that bears fruit.

They aren’t related so sucks for them

Who are… people the state wants to murder?

Edward Snowden is sort of a Russian state puppet nowadays