WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, on Sunday night, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House.
Biden, who time and again pledged to Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term in office, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that he would do no such thing.
Biden, who time and again pledged to Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term in office, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that he would do no such thing.
…after Americans voted that norms and respect for the rule of law don’t mean shit. Fuck 'em, I would have done the same thing.
I read over Biden’s statement, and it makes sense to me. Hunter was singled out for political purposes. It would seem weird if Biden didn’t issue the pardon.
Not world news. It’s an internal matter of the US.
True. Further, being from the rest of the world, I really couldn’t care less and would likely do similar as Biden. The US people have dropped the ball, fucked the country and sent him packing.
May as well, you’ve got nothing to lose at that point.
Insert shocked Pikachu meme
The US is part of the world.
I mean, i can see why. What are a few drugs, tax fraud and gun felony next to being cumplicit in the genocide of an entire people.
I bet Biden is proud of his son, for being a little better than him. Hopefully, Hunter’s son will only get speeding tickets.
In North American monarchy, dictator uses his powers to pardon his sonDamnit Joe! You could have at least waited for the December 16 sentencing. As a first time offender he might have gotten off with a slap on the wrist (depending on the judge) and you wouldn’t look like such a hypocrite for letting him just be sentenced. By acting preemptively, you’re just sending the signal that it doesn’t matter what crimes were committed, he won’t be held accountable. If you’re going to stand on principle for four years, doing nothing to ensure Trump faces consequences, why throw it away at the very end. What a clusterfuck our political system has become.
American voters threw it all away and said that ethics don’t mean shit. He acted accordingly. Fair enough.
We’ve spent the last decade seeing repeatedly that the law doesn’t mean shit for the red team; is anyone actually surprised that blue is saying ‘fuck it’ now, too?
…but since we’re just openly abusing presidential power now, any chance he’ll use it to get something actually useful done, or we stopping at individual favors?
My take is that he thinks his son wouldnt be safe in prison under Trump. And that is a reasonable assumption imo.
That is the bed that Biden made when he decided to massively incarcerate poor people to get some free labor for corporations.
All the immigrants will not be safe unter trump also, but nobody cares about them do they?
Are they charged or convicted of a federal crime where a pardon is even relevant? It’s not a power to grant citizenships or a genie wish.
Now, the whole ‘president can down whatever they like as an official act’ that the SCOTUS gave recently is another matter…
Is anyone safe in prison?
Is anyone safe under Trump?
Cringe take
Another banger from the party of checks and balances.
I could give a damn, but you know, it’s an overall race to the bottom
Reading this I just realised I can no longer tell if Americans mean could or couldn’t when they type could.
I couldn’t tell you why
Ah at least couldn’t provides the relief of certainty. I won’t ask you then
I can’t believe a PRESIDENT would LIE like that!
-Fox, probably
In all fairness, I doubt he remembers making that promise in the first place.
My wife read this to me last night.
Wife: So apparently Biden pardoned his son
Me: Cool. Can’t blame him.
Wife: Of course people are say…
Me: Fuck ‘em.
Wife: You know because he promised…
Me: Fuck ‘em.
Hell yea brother’ president is above the law!
They were TRUMPed up charges anyway.
Honestly, at this point, what do those pledges even matter? Integrity is not worth much in politics nowadays. People will just vote whomever makes the bigger promises.
Biden is proving he is willing to violate the norms to bail out their criminal family. But not use those powers for the average American.
It is certainly impressive Democrats are willing to waive this away as a minor thing. Wasn’t their entire point that they are not the fascistic party but committed to law and order?
and? Nothing he could have done would have made you support him so why in the everloving fuck should they care that you disapprove?
No, the Republicans are the self proclaimed Law & Order party.
I love how pearls get clutched when a Dem does it. Where were you the last 8 years?
Republicans have been pulling these blatant violations for ages. Trump pardoned Blackwater criminals on his way out.
Supposedly however Biden couldn’t load the courts or achieve anything because “norms and values”.
Democrats achieved nothing and at the end took a steaming dump on those values they used as the excuse for doing nothing
The republicans have been getting stuff done by abusing their presidential powers. Democrats were the supposed “law and order party”. who “didn’t want to abuse their powers”. Throwback to Obama doing nothing because “law and order”
Now say that again for everything trump has done and I might actually believe you have any actual sense of reality.
But Trump. The only response.
And a 100% valid one that you are being willingly obtuse towards. Open your eyes and see that although all politicians have and always will suck and lie, Trump is a traitor. I would elect any non-MAGA Republican for 8 years over Trump for four more. He is not a legitimate politician
Pointing out that republicans do this means you are comparing Biden to republicans. And you saying it is acceptable for democrats as well because republicans do it as well, not because democrats are better. This blatant abuse of power means Biden is a MAGA-democrat. And you are willing to elect MAGA-democrats.
The people defending Biden know this is bullshit. They just want to believe this is a sign that Democrats are finally going to stop complaining about decorum and play hardball. It isn’t, and they won’t, but at least Joe gets to protect his kid I guess. Too bad Joe couldn’t find the will to force Garland to do his job and prosecute Trump instead.
Sycophant.
You’re out here going “Ra Ra Biden, Trump does worse” all over the fucking thread calling others sycophants? Lmao
“All over this thread…”? Two comments and I really got under your skin. You deliberately avoid understanding me or my position, are devoid of nuance, and just make shit up to suit your narrative.
Fuck off back to your troll farm.
Everyone I don’t like is a bot, the sycophants guide to political discussion
Off-topic, …with almost everybody having a cell phone in hands why do we still elect anybody to represent us? It’s because that’s how it always been?
Because it’s hard for a committee of 334,000,000 to make decisions? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question though. Are you suggesting more of a bottom-up, local-first way of running things? I think there would still have to be representatives at various levels, for the same reason.
Legislation is still pretty complicated, having professional legislators makes sense just as a technical profession.
We could certainly stand to have more direct input though!
We don’t build bridges by committee, why would politics be better?
It’s a specific skill set to understand legalese and the processes
Centralized power doesn’t let go without force
TBF I don’t think a system of thousands of referendums would be much better. What I take bigger issue with is the electoral college, but I don’t have a good solution in mind. Popular vote wouldn’t be much better, especially because of how it would affect campaigning.
I think about this sometimes but the challenges for direct democracy are very hard to overcome. To vote right now, you go to a place and someone verifies your identity and then you vote on a machine that should theoretically have not just your vote but some form of backup to ensure your vote is counted.
Obviously this would get really obnoxious if you were voting constantly. So something like change.org maybe where people can propose things and others can vote on them. But now how do we handle identity verification, and ensuring only one vote per person? On something connected to the Internet, how do we verify security? This needs to be even more secure than a bank, as every hacker and government in the world will want to sway the results.
We could maybe distribute something like a USB key to cryptographically ensure everyone’s identity, but then you will need to handle people losing theirs, or theft, and it wouldn’t work great with cell phones. There’s other identity solutions like scanning documents or facial ID but they have their own security issues and also are a nightmare for privacy.
I dunno. There’s probably a solution out there that might work, but it would take a lot of work to make it trustworthy and that work would largely be overseen by people the system is meant to replace so they aren’t exactly incentivized to get it right.
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